Comments: The Rest Is Not Restlessness
As you know and many others do at this point too, I'm coming off all my meds. The multi med approach didn't work for me either and I'll go so far as to say the med approach in general didn't work.
In any case, I'm seeing a "holistic, orthomolecular" psychiatrist next week. When I asked her if she was willing to keep up with my disability paperwork if I chose to have her as my primary psychiatrist. Her response: "Well, you won't be needing disability once you've withdrawn." This assuming I follow her advice about how else to treat myself. That was the first time I was hit with such complete confidence that my recovery was a sure thing. I was a little taken aback. I simply said, "well that would be nice." And it certainly would.
Posted by Gianna at April 27, 2007 05:21 AM
Thank you for posting this. I am trying a similar ween myself down from seven to two and trying to get off Effexor again so I will only be on Lamicital. Clarity is such a gift.
Posted by Christin at April 27, 2007 07:04 AM
"Patients are doing themselves a disservice--and docs aren't doing right by their patients--if they don't approach a lack of clinical improvement over time with skepticism and a willingness to experiment."
Exactly.
--regarding being calmer on Lamictal--I know I am. I never knew how wound up I was, until I became calm. I've taken on less "bandwagon soapboxes" and finally stopped leaving my pdoc 6 minute voicemails. haha! Interesting once the right med is in place the clarity one can receive eh?
Thanks for sharing about what it took for you to get to this point. I also agree with your description of "Lamictal is like water compared to Seroquel." Totally right on.
Posted by Stephany at April 27, 2007 07:54 AM
I want to thank you for sharing this post and your story. I hope scores of people read it and take heart that there might be a better way than adding and changing meds.
Posted by Sara at April 27, 2007 12:26 PM
I like this post a lot for a couple reasons. First, success stories aren't heard often enough in our community. Second, I have often wondered why more people don't start over again. You start layering meds to cover side effects of other meds. Why not find a good base then "tweak". But the pain, and the time, to get back to a base line would be terrible.
I disagree that Lamictal is not "hardcore" - it's "on label" use is to control epilepsy. The fact it effectively treats my disorder without causing significant mental impairment shows it's my personal holy grail of psych meds.
Posted by Jon at April 28, 2007 10:09 PM
"And the patients who are willing to do it often go about it all wrong and get put right back into the bad old cycle when they fall apart. But that's for another day."
I think that is a very important topic. I was thinking about how summer 2005 was when 3 meds were aggressively and too quickly removed from my daughter;[her choice alongside pdoc]and how that is what happened to her: put back on the meds, and even more than ever. That old off meds, must have needed them thing, instead of the doc asking if it was withdrawals.
I'm glad you had a good outcome, and hope others can learn how to titrate slowly off of one med at a time, over months or years, rather than all at once.
Posted by Stephany at May 2, 2007 07:06 AM