| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 03/11/2006 : 23:20:41
This is a little off topic, but maybe not far off since TMS can be a very stressful condition. I'm guessing that TMS-ers would be more prone to anxiety/depression than the general population, maybe because of the personality characteristics that go along with it. So, if you don't mind saying, how many of you have tried antidepressants and with what success? I am particularly interested because I started taking lexapro 4 mo ago and it seems to have had no effect whatsoever--except maybe to make me jittery. This surprises me because at another time I was on Celexa, which is really the same drug, just a different formulation, and it worked. Any comments? |
| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Canuck |
Posted - 03/24/2006 : 11:07:58
I started having the symptoms before i read up on them. I think my desire to read up on it probably didn't help. I haven't taken one since and I haven't seen my doctor yet, he doesn't know. The only thing I've noticed is that the pain has gone that i was having from the prostatitus. Its like how it always goes with me, i get ill, then when that goes away i get something else. I swear its psychosomatic like. I worry way too much about things.
Just the other night i went to the ER because of my chest pain and i had checked my blood pressure at a drug store and it was 153/111. When i got to teh triage at the hospital they checked my blood pressure and it was 137/?. They did and EKG and it came out normal, they hooked me up to the heart monitor, blood pressure machine and it was up to 155 ish. They did a chest xray and it was normal, they took blood and urine samples and again, normal. Only thing that wasn't good was my blood pressure, so again, im getting worried and scared and it goes up most likely. They gave me an ativan (lorazapam) and i laid there for about 45 minutes and they came back and did a blood pressure reading again and it was 139 so they let me go.
I have a prescription for xanax abd i take that whenever needed, i still don't think i wanna take the paxil again as its just not good for you, but i also have high anxiety and its causing hypertension so i am at a loss as if i should in fact take the paxil to calm me down or just stick to the xanax whenever, but i feel the anxiety daily.
I try to relax and breathe a certain way, it helps somewhat, especially in a hot bath but i cant take a bath all day lol. |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 03/20/2006 : 22:17:27
Canuck--Are you sure the symptoms you experienced were due to the Paxil and not by suggestion (reading lists of side effects and expecting to have them)? In any case, if Paxil is really the problem, try another. Lexapro does not appear to have worked for me after four months so I am switching. What does your doctor think you should do? Take care. |
| Canuck |
Posted - 03/20/2006 : 21:53:39
Well i asked my doctor to put me back on paxil, i figured it would help with the problem im having. I felt so sick today and had a headache and my chest was sore, i thought i was going to have a heart attack.I don't think i will take it again, ive read up on it more than i ever have and it doesnt seem like a good pill at all, the withdrawl is bad as well. But it did do good for me at a time but now i dont think it would do any good. I really dunno. |
| Canuck |
Posted - 03/16/2006 : 23:01:31
Well, i struggled with the antidepressent thing for years, i somehow couldn't get out of a severe depression and counselling wasnt helping. I started cutting myself and then one night i went into a rage and the police were called and said i could go to the hospital and get admitted or go to jail. I went to the hsopital and was put on paxil and elavil. To me, they saved my life, yet at the same time i almost died by overdosing on them. My bouts of depression seem to come on by lifes everyday occurences and some other ones that aren't so pleasant. So im on both sides of the fence on this. I stopped taking pills months back and i was doing ok for a time but then i got another problem which i may need to go back on the pills to correct.
I agree, not everyone should be on meds, but some people just cant function "normally" without. Thosed meds helped me with IBS and I am pretty much symptom free today because i bugged my doctor to help me out, he didn't push them on me, he listened to me as I do a lot of research on meds that might help whatever was wrong with me at the time. I messed up by OD'ing but had i not done that, im sure i could have went off the pills long before. It would be nice to be able to control pain without meds, but again, a lot of people cannot |
| Calvin |
Posted - 03/14/2006 : 14:15:51
quote:
One last point, Baseball, you listed bipolar as one of the conditions that didn't require medication in your view. Definitely not true. One can argue that the usual mood disorders--depression and anxiety can be handled w/out drugs, but this is not true of bipolar. Bipolar is a very definite biological disorder rather than environmental, therefore requiring medication. Read some of Kay Redfield Jamison's books, eg "Touched by Fire."
The word "bipolar" is being throw around too much lately - thats what I think Baseball is getting at. It is true that bipolar is a proven biological disorder, but its used too frequently with people who have normal ups and downs. I was diagnosed bipolar as well because my psychiatrist asked me if I have mood swings. Who doesn't? I don't go on crazy, wild spending sprees and I don't have sudden crashes where I can't get out of bed. Yet she prescribed medication which did nothing but numb me.
A great book I found on depression is "Depression Is A Choice" by Arline Curtiss. ( www.depressionisachoice.com ). She even took the time to email me a few times about some questions I had about her book. |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 23:43:56
Interesting perspectives. But as both Baseball and Bonnie mentioned at the tail end of their posts, some people can benefit from these drugs. I agree, they are probably prescribed way too much, but at the same time there are probably an equal number of people who should be on them and are not. Even now, I think only a small fraction of depressed people treat their depression in any way.
The fact is, everybody has their own story. For one, an antidepressant is poison and for another, a lifesaver. As for the side effects, I've had bad ones on one drug, but not on others. When I was on Celexa and it was working I was not aware of any side effects. I didn't feel like a zombie or numbed or not myself...I felt exactly as before, except more alive. And that's a good thing.
As for taking what life brings without resort to medications, well, that sounds good if you've never suffered a severe depressive episode. At those times it's pretty hard to lift yourself up by your bootstraps and help yourself. Actually, I took that approach most of my life and it was only several yrs ago that I first tried an antidepressant. I had always avoided them; my attitude was, that's for really messed up people and I wasn't that. Since then I have gone off and on different meds a couple of times thinking I could manage depression/anxiety in other ways. Well, a few months ago I threw in the towel after a year. Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe, but it seemed illogical to abstain from a med that might ease the pain while I worked on all those other things. Unfortunately, I am not having any luck with the lexapro I am on. Good thing I'm training for a marathon (and that was my thinking when I signed up) because that helps a lot.
I guess I would say I have mixed feelings about medications. Antidepressants are only a hair better than a placebo anyway and when they work they work only partially for most. It is only the few that have really radical improvement. So, yes, they are oversold; oversold on how good they actually are. That's marketing. And no, I don't rest easy trusting my health to a giant pharma, especially in this era of a severely weakened and politicized FDA.
One last point, Baseball, you listed bipolar as one of the conditions that didn't require medication in your view. Definitely not true. One can argue that the usual mood disorders--depression and anxiety can be handled w/out drugs, but this is not true of bipolar. Bipolar is a very definite biological disorder rather than environmental, therefore requiring medication. Read some of Kay Redfield Jamison's books, eg "Touched by Fire." |
| kalo |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 16:41:52
I have always suffered from Anxiety and OCD! At the time that I went to the doc. I just wanted a referal out to talk therapy/counselor/phscylogist.
I was naive to prescription drugs...The doc. gave me paxil like candy and insisted for me to start taking due to a chemcial imbalance he told me I had.
Soon after I started seeing a med. evaluator as well who also insisted that I take these drugs to do a chemical imbalance..
Three years ago I knew nothing about antidepressants and chemical imbalance hoax.
I was tricked into believe that I really had something wrong with me...
I say NO to any antidepressants...Comming off of those meds almost ruined my life plus the fact that they really do mess up your mind afterwards.
I say GREAT post to all who are against them...They are bad news....
Today the doctors still give them out like candy not knowing the poison they give to people...
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| Baseball65 |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 13:19:17
Hi Bonnie
That is a sad tale,yet wonderfully profound.I wonder how much of your 'stress' was actaully caused by the medications themselves?
I only have had brief encounters with them.Once,after not sleeping regularly for months,I went to an MD ...way back at the start of the SSRI 'miracle drug' craze.I had just spent my first year as a parent.I was having insomnia (normal) and finally got bad enough to see a doctor..I work on Ladders and lifts,and being drowsy can be catastrophic.
So..instead of giving me a sleeping pill,the Doctor reviewed my history and said "Oh...you used to abuse drugs?...Well,take this(version of prozac)..all those years of abuse have messed up your brain chemistry and this will normalize it"
I called him the next week,as I was getting shaky and feeling sort of panicky....He said to keep taking the meds,and this was all normal...An aggravated symptom is Normal ???(my insomnia was worse!!)
Finally,about another week later,I almost lost my mind...that feeling of being on the edge of a panic attack for days on end!!
Luckily,a friend came by with some good old fashioned benzo's (valium?) and calmed me down.I went to an 'old school' Doctor who prescribed hardcore oldschool sleeping meds and told me how to NOT abuse them (which I never did)
One pill about once a week was all I needed to normalize my sleep..after a goodnights sleep,one has energy to work hard and subsequently be tired and have another good nights sleep.
Unfortunately this doesn't benefit the pharmaceutical industry..One pill a week?? How are they ever going to turn a profit?? They like everyday meds.
We're having a 'healthcare' crisis here in Tennessee.The people on Tenncare (state aid) are bitching because under the new plan they are only allowed 6 prescriptions filled per month...ONLY 6 !!!!!
If you need 6 prescriptions a day to be normal,you've been HAD.
Some woman wrote in the 'Nashville Scene' a woe-is-me tale of how Tenncare dropping her Prozac was going to ruin her life...she was a pretty,well educated intelligent writer...who somehow had bought hook,line and sinker her urgent 'need' for prozac,and how evil the system is for no longer subsidizing it...
I was so indignant after reading it,I actually got de-sensitized to ANYBODY taking it...My sister has been on it for years and she is still a Bitch,depressed,angry and needs to let the world know on a moment to moment basis...yet if I pointed out the ineffectiveness of her medication,she'd go ballistic!!
The woman in the article predicted her own psychological demise.....and I'm sure by now it's happened.Hopefully she found out what a lot of us 'regular' people already know.
Life has it's ups and downs.
-out |
| Bonnie |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 12:30:29
Baseball, thank you thank you thank you for saying what I've felt for a long time. I was on all sorts of antidepressant for years prescribed by almost every doctor and psychologist I saw. but I KNEW I didn't need those pills or the doctor's diagnosis of bi-polar or severe depression or whatever else they decided I was.
I was in a bad situation and didn't know how to get out of it and none of them cared what was going on in my life, they simply wanted to shut me up.
I hated the way I felt on those pills, I couldn't be me on them and as long as I could work my way through to getting a handle on whatever was messing with my life at the time, I didn't need to be on those bloody pills.
If I had been given the physical and psychological tools to cope with what was going on instead of being patted on the head and handed another type of pill I would never have developed severe fibro in the first place. I had a bad childhood and two abusive marriages, I didn't like myself and didn't know how to ask for help, real help. It took a nervous breakdown to get me out of the mess and I was so medicated at the time that I couldn't walk.
I've gradually, and against doctors advice of course, weaned myself off all medication and had a few years of therapy with a wonderful person who didn't let me run a trip on myself, started using meditation and relaxation and Dr. Sarno's tools, writing and acknowledging how I feel and teaching myself to see through the bull**it, mine and that of others.
I'm a writer and I can tell you now that I couldn't write a thing while I was taking those pills, every word I wrote was devoid of feeling and emotion, I flatlined emotionally and mentally.
And I agree with you about the painkillers, they did more for me than all the prozac etc. ever did. They may have dulled everything too but at least I knew what and who I was and why I was taking them.
I had a mild heart attack a few years ago that the doc's attributed to stress but they couldn't tell me what kind of stress or how to avoid it happening again and they simply handed me one type of antidepressant pill after another and when my Autonomic system reacted to all of them and made me sick as a dog they told me I was faking it, how I could be faking a partial nervous breakdown cause by one of the types of pills, or a swollen throat and itching rash all over my body from the others, I don't know but that was their take on it. And nothing they did could stop the severe palpitations I had all the time.
The palpitations stopped four months after I started Dr. Sarno's program on my own. I finally, with the advice of some people on this site, understood what was at the base of it, fear fear and more fear and under that was a seemingly bottomless rage at everyone who refused to even really see me let alone try to help me.
Once I realized the base of all the things that were going on I had a handle, a plan, something that made sense of all the stuff that was going on and I have never felt so much relief in my life.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm fifty four now and I really regret all those years, all that lost potential, the things that could have been while I was wandering around in a medical fog. I missed a lot of my children's lives that way. I'm in the process of mourning and letting go.
Yes, there are some people who need anti-depressants, that is a fact but I also know that it's not half as many as we're led to believe. They should be used sparingly and very carefully and not handed out like candy regardless of the horrible side effects that nobody wants to tell you about.
Bonnie |
| Baseball65 |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 11:34:23
quote:
I'm guessing that TMS-ers would be more prone to anxiety/depression than the general population,
That is probably an incorrect assertion.I have never met a single 'group' of people with any sort of identifiable malady who did not imagine themselves the direst sufferers of Anxiety and depression.
e.g. Alcoholis,Children of Alcoholics,Abusers,victims of Abuse,Fibromyalgics,Divorcee's,children of Divorce,ADD,ADHD,bi-polar(moody?)....etc,etc ad nauseum.
For GOD's sake....does ANYBODY NOT have an excuse to take an anti-depressant.Is there anybody left in western culture who doesn't have a f-ing 'syndrome'???
As Pharmaceutical companies want to extend their profit making machinery,they start to generalize and use umbrella terminology thus making an army of potential beneficiaries from their latest concoctions....I can assure you that any single person can go to a 'cymbalta'
sponsored Doc and get certified to benefit from 'cymbalta' even though the makers themselves make no specific claims to what specific condition it is necessary for,or what it's specific benefits are.
Cymbalta= Placebo.Period.
I'm sure I will get flamed here..go ahead.Guess what? PEOPLE GET DEPRESSED....Guess what else? They eventually reach a state of "I can't stand it anymore' and go and do something to get Un-depressed!!!
Know what that's called ?
LIFE
But No one is interested in feeling it anymore.
Funny...when I was in college,we studied suicide and depression rates...they used to drop during times of war.They don't now,because we fight anti-septic and controversial 'made for TV' wars....where we're not allowed to Hate anybody (Hate btw is a good old fashioned natural emotion that has now been banned....I'm sure Love is just around the corner)
The reason Rates dropped during times of war were clear.When someone has a REAL problem,all of our Made-up ones disappear.How many times have you had it all 'put in perspective' by finding out a friend has a 'real' problem??
Really....I chuckle when I hear of anybody who is 'bi-polar' or 'depressed' and needs medication for it....FOREVER.
See...Modern Psychopharmaceuticals are EXACTLY like chiropractic,or the AA mentality about 'alcohol'....Everybody is a 'victim' thus everybody needs what they have.In AA EVERYBODY is an alcoholic,or in denial.In chiropractic everybody is subluxated.In psychopharmacology,everybody is chemically out of balance.
If I went to the Dr. today and told them I was in a rage about my wife cheating on me,I would get some sort of 'mood enhancer' that would become part of my daily regimen.....everytime I think about acting out in anger they would say "Oh...you need to up your dose"...
Now..it's three years later,I am re-married in a new state...but I still need my (insert med) to function because I have been diagnosed with PMSD (post marital stress disorder)
If someone could go to the Doctor depressed and NOT get a presciption,it might lend an air of credibility to their cause...unfortunately this is not the case.
Now with Direct to consumer marketing we can all self diagnose ourselves when our little feelers are hurt,go and get the latest Panacaea or Placebo,and sit back and NOT have to deal with the real world.
Oh yeah...this obsession with medication and the couch is in direct corelation with the demise of our nations spiritual life.
It's a shame...there are probably a few people who really might benefit from some of the work these companies have done,but because they are few and far between the whole charade has become laughable.
You really ought to meet me
when my dose is kicking in
we'll comprehend, we'll understand
we'll live in ****ing Zen
we'll struggle not in camelot
we're gonna' get it all together
Now victory is in our grasp
we'll fight no more forever
We'll be happy little campers
with our caps of gelatine
Happy little thinkers
with our conscience squeaky clean
Happy as we worship
to the Gods of our creation
Happy congregation
BTW...Let me clarify One point...I LOVE Narcotics....they too temporarily banish depression.I went about 5 years once without feeling a thing.
As long as your going to get some self prescribed pills,at least get something good that works like Oxycodone,Methadone,Hydrocodone,Morphine,Heroin..
Hell...as soon as I see THAT commercial,I'll be right there with you guys~!
Until then,enjoy those whisper biscuits.
Regards
Piggy
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| lavitsef |
Posted - 03/12/2006 : 07:07:19
I was on prozac when TMS started. I went off prozac thinking it may be contributing to my sciatica and leg cramps. Nothing. After
75 days I switched to Cymbalta. I had an almost magical release of constant leg tension. Placebo/? Maybe but they have stayed looser.
I also took Sarno advice and stopped all stretching. Took the massage pads out of my car bed chair etc and ignored the discomfort.Released only with my mind. I am almost pain free 90% better. I had three
years of TMS and now almost gone. I feel putting it out of mind
was the most effective. The Cymbalta I feel also helped.
GOOD LUCK |
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