starbellysneecher: My experiences with meds

[starbellysneecher]

Hi, I hope I'm in the right section...

 

My story is that I was experiencing severe depression about 10 years ago, and a psychiatrist put me on Prozac - which my system freaked out over. Within two days I felt like I was crawling out of my skin and I was having auditory hallucinations.

 

My doctor immediately stopped the prozac and then switched me to trazadone,  then to citolopram - back to back because I was not responding well to meds. He put me on a really small dose of citolopram and it was still giving me bad reactions to the point where he said to just stop taking it cold turkey - this sent me into a psychosis.

 

I found a new psychiatrist that said the reason my system was freaking out over the meds is that I was bipolar II, and needed to be on mood stabilizers. I do have to say that this was the right decision for me at the time.

 

My new psychiatrist put me on Lamictal, lithium and olanzapine. This combination seemed to work for me, but I've been on these meds for just about 10 years, and I'm ready to taper down. I've started the 10% taper just about three weeks ago. I'm tackling Lamictal first. I was on 200mg and am now on 180 mg - so far with no side effects. One question I do have is  - does anyone have experience tapering down from lithium or olanzapine?

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by ChessieCat
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[ChessieCat]

Hi SBS and welcome to SA,

 

We ask all new members to create their drug signature which will appear below every post you make.

 

Please include the following information.  Please be as accurate as possible about the dates and doses.  Please make it nice simple by following these instructions (NO diagnoses or symptoms please - thank you).  Please update it whenever you make a change:

• details for last 2 years - dates, ALL drugs, doses
• summary for older than 2 years - just years and drug/s

Account Settings – Create or Edit a signature

 

Once we have more details about your psychiatric drug history we will be better able to make suggestions.

 

This is your own Introductions topic where you can ask questions about your own situation and journal your progress.

[ChessieCat]

Thank you for creating your drug signature.

 

Please state the date you reduced to 180mg.  Thank you.  Lamotrogine was 200mg. DATE Now tapered to 180 mg in the past 3 1/2 weeks.

 

Do you get regular blood tests regarding your lithium?

[Altostrata]

On 10/26/2018 at 12:19 PM, starbellysneecher said:

My new psychiatrist put me on Lamictal, lithium and olanzapine. This combination seemed to work for me, but I've been on these meds for just about 10 years, and I'm ready to taper down. I've started the 10% taper just about three weeks ago. I'm tackling Lamictal first. I was on 200mg and am now on 180 mg - so far with no side effects. One question I do have is  - does anyone have experience tapering down from lithium or olanzapine?

 

Hello, SBS. How are you feeling now?