It seems that the discussion of my illness is interesting. I feel that writing about it has helped me think about what to do.
I've decided that I'm going to try to live drug-free as much as possible. The primary obstacle is that my parents, relatives, and doctors are concerned I will relapse without the drugs. However, in the few weeks before I relapsed, I felt the most energetic and self-confident of my entire life. I'd like to be able to capture that feeling without lapsing into illness again.
I've had 5 different panic attacks in my life.
The first time, I was forced to take lithium, Risperdal, and Cogentin. Cogentin was to counter side-effects of Risperdal, which are muscle stiffness. The Cogentin made me feel extremely weak.
Risperdal made me unable to think, concentrate, or read. I was unable to do anything for two full months.
My psychiatrist, after much persuading, agreed to let me switch from Risperdal to Geodon. Risperdal made me want to do nothing but sleep all day. Geodon made me want to do nothing but walk around in circles all day.
I never took lithium alone, so I don't know what its effects were. I read that lithium damages your kidneys. I believe that lithium also suppresses your memories.
Also, the anti-psychotic drugs all messed up my bowel movements. Fortunately, that returns to normal a day or two after you stop taking them. Also, they interfered with my ability to masturbate, which is something I'm not willing to give up.
For my 2nd panic attack, I refused all drugs while hospitalized. Ironically, this is the incident I recovered from the best. My longest period between attacks was after the time I refused drugs completely.
For my 3rd panic attack, I was given 30 mg/day Abilify. Again, this gave me a compulsion to sleep all day.
For my 4th panic attack, I was given 20 mg/day Abilify. This was better than 30 mg, but still harmful.
Most recently, I was given 10 mg/day Abilify. This is far better than 20 mg. Maybe I will ask my psychiatrist to prescribe me 2 mg pills of Abilify, taking 2 per week. On the other hand, that is essentially the same as being completely drug-free. I doubt he will go along with such a low dosage.
Whenever I complain about the side effects of the drugs, which I *KNOW* to be side-effects, everyone around me says "Those are symptoms of your illness!"
Since my best recovery was after the time I refused drugs, I conclude that continuing to refuse drugs is a good idea. I hope I can avoid relapsing into a manic phase. That is the key.
The withdrawal period for these drugs is very long, something like 2-3 months. Therefore, I'm most at risk when I start feeling better and the withdrawal period is over.
Summarizing, I'm not interested in giving up my ability to have normal bowel movements, my ability to think, or my ability to experience normal emotions. I think that a drug-free life is risky, given my history. On the other hand, if my options are 0% chance of a normal life on drugs, or epsilon% chance without drugs, I have to choose the path that offers a nonzero success possibility.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
A List of Harmful Drugs I've Been Given
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3 comments:
This is strictly anectdotal, not proof. We had lots of niggling sicknesses for years. Finally we gave up everything we could that used High Fructose Corn Syrup for sweetening. Within a few weeks, we noticed that the niggling sicknesses stopped. I have always hated having to read the fine print on food labels, but it is now a habit, if a food product uses HFCS, it doesn't receive our money.
Our niggling sicknesses were not panic attacks, so maybe this was a worthless anectdote, just something we found made us healthier.
At one time I tried to quit cigarettes using a combination of the patch and welburtrin. I had the same results from ( Zyban ) welburtin that you had from the various lethargy inducing drugs you mentioned. Horrid feeling indeed. Luckily I have since discovered that people who smoke have significantly lowered risks of Parkinsons and ALzheimers. So I traded guaranteed smoker's hack for potential uncontrollable shakes and memory loss.
In my previous comment about the link to a vid about the "policeman inside your head", I apologize that I forgot to say beforehand "on another topic...". I should have put it as a comment to your earlier post about the "policemen insider your head" where it belonged.
On mental illness. I remember reading something about an animal nutritionist finding that feeding large amounts of certain nutrients (minerals IIRC) solved a problem of pigs "going nuts". He then fed it to his kids or nephews with some kind of mental illness and there was a dramatic improvement. A psychiatrist got interested and did a small study and found similar results. The animal nutritionist kept the recipe a secret and started selling it.
The theory behind this is (a)the pigs sometimes don't get the right necessary nutrients from the feedstock (b) some forms of mental illness may be due to a metabolic defect wherein the body cannot process normal amounts of certain critical nutrients necessary for brain function, and this is greatly helped by megadoses of said nutrients.
Here is one link I was able to dig up. You'll have to dig more:
http://www.ect.org/selfhelp/bipolcomm.html
If I were you I'd find out if the animal guy still sells this product and first try that, instead of trying out different supplements.
Here's a link: http://www.naturalnews.com/023334.html
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