FAQ/Help |
Calendar |
Search |
New Member
Member Since Jun 2017
Location: massachusetts
Posts: 3
6 |
#1
can taking medication to relieve mental health symptoms eventually exacerbate the same symptoms over time?
Been on seroquel and remeron for nearly 2 decades and the past 2 years I've raised the former to 300mg another later to 30mg. Theres been zero change. Last week I ran out of both and had to wait 5 days to renew. Went through the insomnia and emotional roller coaster and checked in the hospital for medication reconciliation. Was given 1mg ativan 20ct. Sleep has returned and deep depression and all that entails has subsided more than while taking the seroquel and remeron. Giving serious thought to remaining off them (under strict self awareness monitoring) as every psych will exclaim No! DON'T DO THAT! Want to know if taking an as needed psych med (ativan) no more than 2x daily will do me much better. Tired of being sedentary!!! |
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
mary2020
|
Legendary Wise Elder
Community Liaison
Member Since Jul 2011
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 22,450
(SuperPoster!)
12 12.7k hugs
given |
#2
Well Ativan is a benzo and they are in fact a depressant.
So it’s really a balancing act. Your Pdoc would be the best to help you decide on a game plan. Good luck __________________ Helping others gets me out of my own head ~ |
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
Guest
Posts: n/a
|
#3
From my own personal experience in the past when I tried psych meds, the side effects were far worse than what the Pdoc who prescribed them, claimed their function in my healing would be like. I view all psych meds as a cruel joke on people who need mental health support. I don't trust psych meds, period. I know this opinion may put me in a negative light with many PC members who rely on their meds to help them. But Lithium destroyed my thyroid and I wasn't even diagnosed properly by the Pdoc who I trusted foolishly as a 21 year old, when I tried it for a few months. There are other pysch meds I was prescribed, for my anxiety disorder, by Pdocs who should not be licensed, b/c those drugs nearly killed me, nearly changed my personality, and nearly destroyed my health. Those drugs contributed to the loss of jobs, loss of friendships, loss of sleep, loss of clear thinking, loss of driving, loss of a lot of things.
I joined PC to get support for my anxiety. I knew that a lot of people here take psych meds. My cousin, a recovering AA/NA is a psych nurse. She is on multiple psych meds and even she has changed 100% b/c of those meds. It breaks my heart. I view psych meds as evil b/c what do they really do? They screw up the human brain, the physiology of a person, give them horrible, debilitating side effects, create mania or suicidal ideation, create behavioral problems like sex addiction, alcohol addiction, create sexuality changes (some people become sexually aggressive, or even change their sexual orientation while on psych meds). There's a TON of research in medical journals, blogs written by former and current psychiatrists and other doctors about this dilemma. It's so taboo b/c the accepted social norm is that if you have a mental illness, a psych drug will fix your mental illness. No, it won't. Yet millions of people are brainwashed by the marketing, and by the lies told to them by Pdocs and pharmacists who buy into the lie about the role of psych drugs on a person's life. There is a 2010 documentary film, NUMB about a suburban dad hooked on psych drugs and he narrates his journey on how he attempts to wean himself off of his meds. This documentary asks the question, "What happens when you stop taking your antidepressants?" Quote:
|
|
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist, OliverB
|
mary2020, OliverB
|
Member
Member Since May 2016
Location: USA
Posts: 487
7 |
#4
Quote:
As many will tell you the gold standard in medicine is evidence , test results ,lab work etc that can confirm a doctors belief of X or Y is the correct diagnosis , they have actual proof .Psychiatry has not had and still does not have any evidence ,any of its treatments are correct and psychiatry is littered with the corpses of treatment once considered humane ,ethical and restorative ( drilling holes in the head to let demons out ,chaining people to immovable objects ,the "Utica crib" ,hypothermia, insulin shock,straight jackets, electro shock therapy ,lobotomies ( hell the guy who ivented putting an ice pick into the brain to disconect the frontal lobe won a Nobel prize for it ) today we have the highly profitable pharmaceutical industry driving Mental Health and diagnosis ,if you watch TV you can see it happen with direct to consumer advertising , you start seeing commercials describing Vague "symptoms" and urging people that it maybe treatable , they should see there doctor ,that means big pharma has a new drug , they dont waste money on Public service announcements ,they have a new drug that allegedly treats those symptoms,and you notice in 6 months or so ,those PSA's are gone ,and they are straight up advertising there expensive new drug . And not coincidently everything in the DSM that has a diagnostic name and code ,is pitched to Psychiatrist by drug companies ,to make it into the book ,the disorder must be discussed at a convention by upper level elitest pschiatrist at a vacation junket at some swanky place like Fiji , so drugs and disorders are sold both to patients and doctors ,of. Course that is until a trend developes that causes everyone to rethink how did this happen ,in the first place . Now the treatment of mental illness has evolved many times ,we are currently in the Biochemical imbalance period of thinking ( despite it being proven wrong every few years ,Psychiatry clings to it like a security blanket and refuses( most but not all psychiatrist)to face the fact the only biochemical imbalance the patient truly has that can be proven is the one your XXXXX drug is causing . Also notice we have diseases & we have disorders,diseases are things that evidence based medicine can prove , disorders are thinks that can't be proven at anytime past or present ,mental illness falls completely in the unproven disorders category . Some people you might be intrested in if your not already is Peter Bregin M.D a psychiatrist who doesn't believe pumping patients full of chemicals from big pharma is correct or ethical and doesn't use them . Also I know the sounds strange ,but a former journalist named Bob(Robert) Whitaker is fascinating, he originaly got involved when researching a story for his newspaper , it then became passion ,because so much of big pharma and mental health treatment is built on flimsy ,shady, hypothetical information . Drug testing studies are famously sleazy , they know what outcome they want and expect then they pick a very small group of patients that will be studied, most Drugs that reach the market have been approved as safe & effective have only been used in many cases on significantly less than 5000 people for less than a year . I personaly will not take any patented drug until it's patent expires and it doesn't have a boatload of lawsuits for injury and death , this "waiting period" as I call it allows for a truer idea of side effects and adverse events that either were known by big pharma and the deliberately lied to FDA or legitimately didn't know about because so few people were exposed to it in clinical trials that it was news to them ,i formed this opinion from near death experiences and life changing adverse effects with new drugs . Right now I still take Remeron (mirtazipine ) it might in some way be helping my sleep disorder so insurance will not say a peep about me taking it ,more importantly my doctor doesnt want to destroy the last year's of my life ,because the nasty drug withdrawal lasts as long as 3 years. Now notice I said withdrawal, big pharma doesn't want to admit some of there garbage is habituating or causes dependence ,so they lie and call it discontinuation syndrome ,every psychiatric drug has a withdrawal some worse than others . Sorry I am long winded , if your here ,I am not condemning or endorsing any individuals choice of treatment , I am just stating facts as I know them ,your choices should be a mutual decision between you and your doctor . That said I see alot of people being told what to take and given a brief rundown of side effects ,to me that's criminal , you should be thoroughly informed of all treatments and side effects and given a chance to research same before committing to a course of action !this has to my knowledge never been litigated in a court but to me ,a doctor giving a patient limited choices and information violates what is required in the legal practice of medicine INFORMED CONSENT. |
|
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
mary2020
|
Guest
Posts: n/a
|
#5
@Misterpain THANK YOU for your long-winded response. I am very familiar with Dr Peter Bregin. And, I feared I was the only anti-psych med PC'er (having been on a few myself in the past 30 years). I thought people would just label me as uninformed and judgmental b/c I find psych meds to be the biggest scam.
When I was prescribed Accutane for cystic acne as a 17 year old, not only did that drug make me feel suicidal within 3 weeks of first taking it, but it made me more aggressive and dried out my skin so harshly that my face turned red and so I stopped taking it cold turkey. Lithium destroyed my thyroid for life. Seroquel made me hallucinate and took away my ability to drive, let alone function. Celexa gave me tachycardia, dried out my eyes, nasal passage ways and mouth to the point I was coughing all the time and red eyed; not to mention the interminable insomnia I experienced on it and worst of all: the suicidal ideation. And by nature I'm very much a Sally Albright kinda gal (reference to When Harry Met Sally, a la Nora Ephron). All prescribed to me for my anxiety disorder. Which, by the way, can totally be treated drug-free (it turns out!!) with music therapy, art therapy, meditation, nutrition, DBT, and CBT. Also, a cousin of mine is a lobbyist for Big Pharma (she pushes their agenda and has no conscience left where patient lawsuits are concerned). We were close growing up, but are estranged now because she refuses to acknowledge the flimsy stilts that the psychiatry industry is founded on. It's all direct to consumer marketing on tv, on the radio, online. I could write a thread on what I think of the DSM. Don't even get me started on that holy bible of baloney. God knows the long term health effects those drugs will have on me overall. Maybe one of them injured my liver and is the cause of my NALFD. I'll never know unless I get a biopsy done of my liver and well, I don't foresee that happening b/c I don't want the surgeon to accidentally puncture my lung or heart. I'm curious to know how i got it. I think it was a medication injury cause. But only a biopsy would clarify the NALFD's cause. Like, you, I am NOT condemning or endorsing any person's choice of medication for treatment. I hope that people will still like and respect me here, despite my belief that psych drugs are not the correct solution for mental disorders. |
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
Member
Member Since May 2016
Location: USA
Posts: 487
7 |
#6
Quote:
The entire drug industry runs on money,dirty money . |
|
Reply With Quote |
Anonymous48672, bpcyclist
|
Legendary
Member Since Sep 2019
Location: Portland
Posts: 12,681
(SuperPoster!)
4 40.2k hugs
given |
#7
Psychiatry is the only specialty in all of medicine and surgery that does not at least partly rely on traditional lab testing methods (blood, urine, lymph, marrow, etc.) or imaging studies (fMRI, for example) in arriving at either diagnoses or treatment plans. The only one. Even dermatology, one of my old specialties, does all kinds of lab work now. Tons of it.
In my opinion, at the critical period of, say, maybe 50 years ago, when medical diagnostic technology was just starting to erupt, psychiatry needed to make up its mind what it wanted to be. Did it want to continue to be some kind of Freudian/Jungian thing with a little bit of meds thrown in? Or did it want to recognize that the brain is a living, breathing organ, and maybe head more in the general direction of neurology and neurosurgery/interventional radiology? Maybe take a picture every now and then, see what's going on in there--just for kicks? It is quite obvious what direction psychiatry took. And we are all now paying the price. __________________ When I was a kid, my parents moved a lot, but I always found them--Rodney Dangerfield |
Reply With Quote |
LilyMop
|
Threadtastic Postaholic
Member Since Dec 2018
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 6,006
(SuperPoster!)
5 192 hugs
given |
#8
I think lobbying and big pharma is an issue. I do not think it applies in a blanket way across the board. I am hesitant to take anything new because it always starts out as a money grab. I take adderall for adhd and its been around for years and I remember when vyvnase came out. Coupons and info in every doctor's office and (surprise) no generic. Even though there is a generic out of the USA the corrupt patent industry in the US allows companies to renew their patents to stifle competition. I have tried vyvanse and it does not last its purported 12 hours and magically once SHIRE had to make adderall a generic vyvanse popped up.
__________________ "I carried a watermelon?" President of the no F's given society. |
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
Member
Member Since May 2016
Location: USA
Posts: 487
7 |
#9
Quote:
|
|
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
Member
Member Since Aug 2015
Location: Florida
Posts: 346
8 |
#10
There is a balance in life and in everything. The people who say everyone has to be on meds are just as wrong as the people who say no one should be on meds.
Some people can manage off meds some people can't. I began this very long journey unmedicated for at least 6 years. Then on the merry go round. I was very grateful when prozac came out. At least it gave me some help that nothing could before. I have also gone the naturopath suppliments according to symptoms and bloodwork, natural diet natural remedies. For me I would NEVER take that route again. I have basically been on every psych med there is. I am old now. And yet now I am finally learning something about stability. Finally I seem to be on a med coctail that works. Without meds I would be dead or forever in a hospital. Without meds I have NO life at all. For me its not just the meds. I have had tons of therapy and needed it. But therapy alone could not help me either. For ME I also need the meds. If all natural works for someone that is great. But don't lump everyone into the same category. Personally I think Peter Bregin goes too far in his thinking about not needing meds. Again everyone is different. Even in conventional medicine, take blood pressure for instance. Even then what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. Some can control it by diet alone. Some have to take conventional blood pressure meds. Some can't take conventional blood pressure meds due to side effects and different meds have to be found. Some can manage through naturopathy. It's the people who say everyone has to take meds or no one should be taking meds that I feel are absolutely wrong. |
Reply With Quote |
bpcyclist
|
Legendary
Member Since Sep 2019
Location: Portland
Posts: 12,681
(SuperPoster!)
4 40.2k hugs
given |
#11
Everyone is on their own journey and must find their own path. I stopped all my meds in 2012 because I decided I was all cured, then, I had a massive recurrence and spent forever in the hospital. So, no meds for me is just not a safe or rational option, regardless of what any psychiatrist who spends a lot of time referencing how much time he spent at Harvard and has an alternative view of this topic may preach. I personally find Breggin to ring too many self-promotion bells to be able to listen to him. But, everyone is on his or her own discovery here and if he is helpful to you--I am all for it.
Be well, everyone!! __________________ When I was a kid, my parents moved a lot, but I always found them--Rodney Dangerfield |
Reply With Quote |
Reply |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|