Barry2954: Sertraline induced thunderclap headaches

[Barry2954]

Late in 2013 and early in 2014 I was experiencing severe depression relating to toxic exposures and extreme workload in the glassworks I worked in. My brother made note of an orange discoloration of my skin which neither of us recognised the significance of yet most likely was caused by liver failure. During the first week of February 2014 the heatwave raised temperatures outside of the factory to 45C, with temperatures inside likely reaching 50C. Equipment breakdowns, resulting from the heat, intensified the workload and I finally collapsed from heat stroke. Due to understaffing I was left lying on the factory floor without assessment of help. I was forgotten and took five hours to recover sufficiently to try to return home. As I, and other workers, were convinced that the corporate management was willing to kill us I quit the job but never recovered. In late March, when my GP referred me to mental health services after I became suicidal, they assumed full responsibility claiming that my condition was completely unrelated to my employment and that they could quickly and easily cure me. I was detained in a mental health ward. The initial antidepressant (type unknown) left me almost comatose just an hour after the first dose so I was switched to sertraline. Anyone given this knows the intense bouts of akathisia it induces during the first couple of weeks, and I was no exception, treatment seemed to go fairly normally. After just two weeks they declared me cured, released me from the ward, and switched psychiatrists on me. Two weeks later my health collapsed and depression returned. I later worked out that impaired liver function had increased the half life of the benzodiazepine medication (lorazepam), used in the ward, and that they had been suppressing the symptoms of my illness during my detainment. The sertraline itself had absolutely no benefit with all improvement just an illusion created by the benzodiazepine. My sertraline dosage was doubled and the treating psychiatrist refused to believe me about its ineffectiveness and the subsequent rapid increase in negative side effects to it. During the first week of July I experienced a migraine which lasted for around thirty hours. When the clinic opened on the Monday morning I was still experiencing the migraine and called the clinic begging them to let me stop taking the sertraline. I was threatened with detainment and forced treatment if I failed to take it. An hour after taking it I experienced the first of three thunderclap headaches, smashed my home, almost committed suicide, and spent hours trying to walk off the resulting intense akathisia despite the sunlight burning my eye's. Over the next six or so weeks I experienced the other two thunderclap headaches with around fifteen subsequent hyperintense bouts of akathisia driving me to walk miles over the next two years. For five years after the first thunderclap headache I experienced the constant intense electric feeling of adrenergic storming as well as a constant urge to kill, which was likely a consequence of my liver issues in combination with the adrenergic storming. The treating psychiatrist, who had been subject to repeated complaints by patients and who was responsible for a patients death in the ward during my time of treatment, decided to cover up my adverse response and claimed that I was faking my condition. That claim left me with almost no medical care over subsequent years. Throughout the  following years I suffered from intense illness which has since been diagnosed as a combination of autoimmune myopathy (myositis), gall stone induced jaundice (prior to cholecystectomy a few years ago; evidence of the long period of illness was present in the form of adhesions surrounding the gall bladder found when it was removed). Barrett's oesophagus, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, and a range of other lesser issues. 

Edited September 6, 2023 by FireflyFyte

[FireflyFyte]

Hi Barry,

 

Welcome to SA. Please summarize your drug history in your signature by following the instructions at How to Summarize Your Drug History in Your Signature. You may need a computer in order to complete this.

 

Once we have this information, we can assist further.

 

Thanks,

 

Firefly

[Barry2954]

Hi FireflyFyte,

 

Thanks for the advisory. I've been slow on the uptake since the start of 2014 and frequently miss these kind of things.

 

Regards, Barry

[Barry2954]

I only recently learned about benzodiazepine induced neurological dysfunction (BIND). Although I have previously worked out that impaired liver function led to benzodiazepines suppressing physical evidence of my disease state for two weeks after medication was ceased, long beyond the normal time it takes for benzodiazepine withdrawal to occur, I now find myself wondering whether the extreme decline and ongoing symptoms which I have experienced at the time involved BIND. It's complicated because of toxic work exposures and onset of muscle damage when I collapsed at work from exertional heat stroke. However my blood lactate/lactate dehydrogenase levels didn't jump until I started to experience symptoms of benzodiazepine withdrawal. Lactate stimulates GABA release but I'm unsure what effect GABAergic dysfunction has on lactate production. My symptoms and rapid decline at the time fit with those of BIND so I'm interested to know. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10309976/

[FireflyFyte]

Hi Barry,

 

Checking in to see how we can support you.

 

Thanks,

 

Firefly

[Ariel]

Hi @Barry2954

I noticed you recommended cinnamon in another member's thread. 

Do you recommend ceylon or cassia cinnamon? 

Cheers,
Ariel

[Barry2954]

3 hours ago, Ariel said:

Hi @Barry2954

I noticed you recommended cinnamon in another member's thread. 

Do you recommend ceylon or cassia cinnamon? 

Cheers,
Ariel

It's actually the cinnamic acid in cinnamon which has been found to increase levels of oxytocin receptors, in research into hair growth, so increasing oxytocin signaling. Although those investigations seemed to have used cassia there is cinnamic acid in all cinnamon though I am uncertain of which have higher levels. A lot of the disagreements in research about this seem to focus upon claims that cinnamon coming from different countries are more effective than other forms of it. The one which I have been using to improve my withdrawal, solely because it's sold near to me, is cassia but I would have tried using other forms if it hadn't been available to me.

[Barry2954]

On 2/21/2024 at 6:19 AM, FireflyFyte said:

Hi Barry,

 

Checking in to see how we can support you.

 

Thanks,

 

Firefly

Hi Firefly,

 

Thanks for the thought but I don't think there's much which can be done by anyone on the site to help me now. Because of everything which happened to me I only have limited finances to try to fix the issues which the psychiatrists caused. I have a very good understanding, after years of researching, of how the withdrawal compounded prior workplace injuries and toxic exposures in order to create the pattern of psychological and autoimmune illness which I developed. I have presented as much evidence as I have been able to get my hands on to relevant authorities in my area in order to try to get some attention brought to the damage which psychiatrists, with one local psychiatrist in particular, cause to their patients. The Australian government has been embracing psychiatry as a way to fix all mental health problems so it's going to be confronting to them that it only makes things worse. If I can just help to shift that mentality then all of my efforts working out what happened to me will have been worthwhile.

 

I experienced major weight gain as a consequence of the withdrawal and I have been improving my microbiome over the last year by increasing prebiotic intake and intake of foods with antibacterial properties, losing 30kg to date. My goal now is to lose another 30kg in order to bring me back to a normal bodyweight. It likely won't repair the physiological damage caused me by the benzodiazepines and sertraline but I think that it's the best that I can try until research into these issues progresses.

 

Barry