My 200th post, FTW....

Mar 30, 2013 16:21

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medicine, update

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halfawake March 31 2013, 07:05:26 UTC
Wow, that's a lot of medications. I recognize Abilify as an antidepressant. What are the other ones for? How come Rivotril is taken in three different doses at different times of day?

Ah, I reread and saw Lamictal is also an antidepressant. How come your doc has you on two different antidepressants? Why didn't she just raise the dose of abilify?

I like the new picture. Cool hair.

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masteroth March 31 2013, 07:08:14 UTC
Well, I've cut down a lot on Rivotril, which is highly addictive (benzodiazepines), and I can't get down further. I simply take a quarter of a pill morning, a whole noon and a half night. It's to keep me calm. LOL.

Abilify makes me restless, and the doc thought that they'd 'work good together', because Abilify 'wake you up' while Lamictal drowses you.

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halfawake March 31 2013, 07:16:31 UTC
Your doctor doesn't sound that great, honestly. You shouldn't need a medication to cancel out the side effects of another medication. Have you tried Zoloft for the depression? I used to take it back when I was depressed and it worked well - if you take it in the morning. I had trouble getting to sleep when I took it at night. The only time I had side effects from it were when I accidentally forgot to take it for a couple days. You can't just stop taking it cold turkey - but that's probably true for all SSRIs.

Don't make any changes without seeing a doc though, with the amount of drugs you're on, you'd need to be careful about making drug changes.

Just looked up benzodiazepines - that looks like a hard core drug. Still, even if you have to take that one, I'm not convinced you need all the other ones.

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masteroth March 31 2013, 09:21:08 UTC
I know it's a lot, but due to my diagnosis and very recent breakdown, it's necessary. It's not to CANCEL the sideeffects, I was given Lamictal to calm down. Would just be weird to give me more of something that makes me restless. I've already cut down on Abilify once. The long term plan is to only take Abilify.

My doctor is very reasonable I think - she has been with me since I was first admitted to a mental hospital. I think she's very competent.

And don't worry,. I never do any medicine changes without consulting the pros. :-)

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halfawake March 31 2013, 22:22:31 UTC
As long as you're happy with the care you're getting, that's the important part.

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masteroth April 1 2013, 07:11:47 UTC
Yeah, hehe. Thanks. I know it's often not good to be on such a big cocktail of meds, but I'm certain that it's necessary in my case - at least for a period of time. :-)

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halfawake April 1 2013, 21:00:12 UTC
I'm only on one drug myself and it already seems like too much. It's more the not being able to eat most things than the drug itself that bothers me really.

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masteroth April 2 2013, 09:31:57 UTC
How do you mean??? Is it the gaining weight issue, you mean or...?

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halfawake April 18 2013, 03:58:41 UTC
I meant to respond to this a while ago but kept forgetting. No, it's not the gaining weight issue. I have gluten and dairy intolerances. There are enzymes and probiotics I can take that let me eat them, but if I do, they cancel out the effects of the drug I'm taking, which I really need right now.

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masteroth April 25 2013, 07:10:10 UTC
Wow, that sucks.... sorry to hear that.
My main complaint about the meds is the damn weight gain... and of course the lack of memory.

I meant to respond earlier too, but same scenario.

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halfawake April 25 2013, 07:19:42 UTC
Yeah, weight gain would be a horrendous side effect. Ditto lack of memory. I think my body was trying to tell me to stop eating as much gluten when I was developing the gluten intolerance that I have now, but I ignored it.

*kicks self*

Now, at least, I know one method of gaining a food intolerance. I think what happened is I ate so much of the sandwiches in a couple months that I overloaded the bacteria that was doing the digesting of them and killed them off. At least that's my theory. As soon as I get off this drug, I'll work on ditching the gluten intolerance.

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