Ab3L - so happy to find this site, hoping for some great advice to heal!

[Ab3L]

 

Hello everybody,

 

I want to start off by saying I have read some of the success stories, and it gives me some true hope on being able to heal from what may be some kind of hypersensitivity now, so I appreciate this forum and you all already just for that... though everyday i still doubt that I'll ever be back to normal again.

 

Sorry for this horribly long post. In short….

• Hard marijuana withdraw

• Day 1 Hospital did ativan or something like that while i was there

• Day 2 Doctor did xanax which i took for one day lightly

• Day 3 Doctor did lorazepam and sertraline, i took lorazepam lightly for the first couple of days, sertraline for 10 days (worst days of my life)

• Last 13 months of my life i get fever like symptoms and extreme skin sensitivity at the degree of depending on how strong the chemical or drug or life event (hot shower, orgasm, supplements) that reaggravates my system just like when i was on sertraline, the symptoms are spot on of what i went through just not as strong of dreadful thoughts now and more of the heat in the skull fever like and skin sensitivity.  Super clear to me that sertraline was main culprit in a very compromised system.

• Now need help on how to move forward with lab tests and doctor questions so they dont mess me up more

 

So another preface I'd like to say is that I believe my nervous system is pretty sensitive (but not ultra sensitive) to chemicals/drugs of any kind; i have done plenty of lower end stuff my entire life (caffeine, marijuana, alcohol) so that's why i say not ultra sensitive. I've had social anxiety my entire life, not debilitating, but constant and it has shaped my life undoubtedly by staying away from many situations that others just go do with no worries. I think getting lymes disease as a kid may be the reason for these slight nervous system issues, but this is just me thinking this, no proof or anything.  I've had and do have many injuries and weaker than normal joints my entire life through sports and up to this point I have had sports related inuries/surgeries and now at an older age need more surgeries because of these weaker joints.  I'm now 37. Non of this really matters i don't think, but it's just for some insight on another layer of how what happened to me may have happened.

 

So I was prescribed to medical marijuana for my joint issues about 2 years ago with an understanding that marijuana was safe to consume all day every day for pain management.  I smoked plenty of marijuana in college and other times in my life, not as frequent as i did once i was prescribed, but because i had done it plenty before, like daily for years i thought this was fine, my doctor said do as much as you’d like as well, i never hit my limit for dispensaries amounts. and i don't believe many people would have gone through the symptoms i did once i didn't smoke or slowed down drastically for one to two days for jury duty, i thought it was fine to be doing it as much as i was, but it was not fine for my system clearly.

 

I probably smoked around 5-7 bowl packs a day for a couple months prior to stopping/slowing down that pace for 1 or 2 days ahead of my jury duty i had. prior to this i had never had an actual full blown panic attack and thats what i thought this was, but it wasn't... it was a 3 day hellish marijuana withdrawal of NON-STOP shaking and panic attack type symptoms with absolutely no sleep, lots of dreadful thinking and panicking throughout these 3 days. I think it was the first night that the shaking was so violent/bad that we called an ambulance and they said it looked like withdraw symptoms, which i brushed off completely because i didn't think marijuana could do that too you, it was real bad, my wife called the ambulance cause she thought i was maybe going to die.  Months later it happened again from marijuana just not as strong because i wasn't smoking as much this time around but close to it, thats how i know it was marijuana as the main culprit to start all of this. i was so messed up from the first marijuana withdraws and the ensuing stuff my doctor put me on that everything besides marijuana gave me way way worse symptoms than marijuana at this time, though marijuana gives me the same symptoms as every other chemical or drug, and that's still going on now about 13 months later from the incident in Septemberish 2022. I do tend to enjoy having some kind of chemical in my life to lean on a bit, so this is very different to me and is why i have gone back to marijuana multiple times during this 13 months, just not as much and while i safely taper if i do start having too much.  At this time of writing this i haven't had any marijuana or anything at all including B-vitamins, Dole pineapple juice (crazy right), caffeine, alcohol, or anything that i know will light me up with symptoms, for almost 2 months now.  I did do some other months with nothing through this 13 month period as well to see if it would magically heal me, but never did.

 

- I was on generic adderall for a couple years consistently (20mgs x 3 a day) but i took it however i wanted. if i was taking a lot of it and staying up at night, i could get some skin sensitivity issues that feel like what may be some kind of serotonin symptom diagnosis of my own, but nothing severe and i sometimes would push it with the adderall and staying up, but never gave me any crazy lasting effects if i stopped taking it. Like i wasn’t ever worried about withdraw symptoms cause they were so light.  I started working a new job and started only taking 5mgs in the morning to wake up and not even every morning for probably half a year prior to being prescribed to marijuana, and i didn't even take it every morning, i pretty much was off of adderall at this time.

- Then prescribed to marijuana, had probably 3 or 4 months of the 5-7 bowl packs a day.  I will say prior to the crazy withdraws moment, i think, i don’t know for sure, but that i mixed adderall and marijuana for about 1 or 2 weeks and for real was not mixing them AT ALL for the whole other 3 to 4 months.  When i say mixed, i mean like 5mgs adderall once that day while also smoking, nothing major (though i know it is major to mix them now, but for real nothing crazy and i wasn’t staying up at night or anything, it was for video editing purposes).  In college i had mixed it before with no issues but this time i was like i said having 5-7 bowl packs a day, so i’d imagine thats way worse on the system. I think it contributed to how violent the withdraw was, but definitely it was marijuana that caused that style of withdraw because it happened again later just not as bad, and this was with absolutely no mixing.

- The night the ambulance came we decided to go to the hospital ourselves because it wouldn’t cost a bunch of money to go with the ambulance and they were going to take us way farther away than our local hospital. There they gave me i believe something called ativan or something, twice to calm me down, it worked at the time, but once going home the marijuana withdraws came back and just kept going as it planned to i guess.

- then day 2 i saw my doctor and he gave me xanax first, which now i wish i took more of it cause maybe i wouldn't have been put on the thing (sertraline) that i truly believed ‘mainly’ contributed to all these issues im having now that won’t go away. So the xanax i didn’t take a bunch of it because i know im sensitive to drugs and i was so scared to take too much at this time and have something crazier start happening to me, i was in a crazy dreadful state mentally that ive never dealt with before. Like earlier when i said i would take 5mgs, thats because i would break my 20mg pills in fourths just to get some of it and not go overboard, cause i know i don’t need all 20mg even if i do have plenty of pills in my bottle, i just like doing less then more, and i did that with the xanax and needless to say it didn’t fully work, it worked for the moment, like for that morning only but this is with me taking the prescribed amount or less, i still have practically that whole bottle of xanax.  but then the marijuana withdraw just kept ramping up and going again.

- went back to my doctor on i’d say day 3 of the crazy marijuana withdrawal and he prescribed me lorazepam and sertraline together, this is where the fun begins! I lightly took the lorazepam, but took the sertraline as 50mgs a day, which would be for around 10 days total because during this crazy time i realized… could it be the sertraline doing this??  During the first two days i felt like i've never felt before, having 0 thoughts in my head, it was very strange but at the time incredibly amazing from the state i was just in the day prior, these two days tricked me for the next 8 days. My 3rd day on these drugs I started burning up like crazy to a 99 fever, which would ensue so consistently for the rest of the 8 day period I was on sertraline. I thought I had a fever cause the first 2 days were so good, i didn't imagine at the time that it could be the sertraline.  But the fever was way longer and different then any other time i had been sick before and it felt different with major skin sensitivity issues and I was having crazy dreadful thoughts, worse than during the shaking, which the shaking was super light at this time, practically gone, but had new symptoms to deal with, like i can’t do this for another day type stuff which i NEVER felt that way while sick in my past. I was having insanely strong skin sensitivity issues which i absolutely hate, and is my self diagnosis of some kind of serotonin syndrome, but who knows i dont really know what that is, but the sensitivity i cant stand at all, it’s one of the symptoms i get now if i engage in ANYTHING that brings on the symptoms.  But yeah so i stop taking the sertraline after 8 days of a super consistent 99 fever, and my fever starts to finally subside, in my mind at this time im like so fed up and upset with the fact i was put on this stuff, haven't seen my doctor since, this is also because of financial reasons, but also im scared what they are going to try and put me on. Whoops i did see a young dumb psychiatrist i believe that told me there's no way sertraline did this to me after taking it for that short of a period, she had no answers for me at all, it was very sad the way she answered everything, she answered with like non answers to everything i would ask.

 

I know sertraline is a main culprit to my current state because I took sertraline again about 2 or 3 months after this incident to try and do a self prescribed quick taper since i read online it may help (though i know the tapers are not meant to be quick, but i didnt take it for long so i thought maybe it would work) . I only did it for like 5 days because within the first 10 mins of the first one i took, it LIT ME UP so hard with my fever like symptoms.  Its like my skull is overheating drastically, and i get the skin sensitivity that starts in the face, and when worse is all over my body to the point i want to shave all my hair off and just like not exist. i don’t shave all my hair off of coarse but i start thinking about it.

 

I’m doing much better then the first couple of months of my system being in a completely messed up state right after the 10 day spout of all the sertraline hell, but i also am not trying adderall or alcohol and stuff anymore knowing how bad it makes me, theres no point for me to try since dole pineapple juice will light me up with symptoms for two days (that was a couple of weeks ago).  Or like b vitamins i try to help stabilize my system, which I felt great for 3 days, then LIT ME UP SO HARD close to the original 10 days fever moment.

 

This is really hard to type and portray properly so im sorry for that, hope this is making sense…

 

Looking for help from you guys of all the blood tests and endocrine system organ tests or whatever to say to the doctor, or whatever you guys suggest i should go about trying to figure this out.  My symptoms come and go every day always but super light unless i have something that lights me up hard and that only happens with strange supplements or certain fruit drinks, or something like orgasms, hot shower for too long, or too much stress like working my gig job for too long; it’s like im super sensitive now to things that were never a problem. Stuff like adderall, caffeine, alcohol, i don’t even try now for months. the first couple of months of me thinking.. Oh i may be healed now, and trying those things in light amounts, would light me up really bad.  The symptoms i get are exactly the ones i had when on sertraline just not as bad of course, but can be close to as bad like the b-vitamins for that 4th day was really bad, and the strong chemicals are really bad still to this day if i tried them, i don't even want to because the tiniest things bring on some skull/body heat and skin sensitivity consistently daily, but not unbearable, but seems to be unhealthy the state my bodys in. Many of my teeth are starting to hurt and go bad when i would never complain about them before.  Two of them actually are falling apart, its nuts.

 

Also i forgot, my lip now has a non-voluntary twitch in it, just starting in the last month, its stronger the more stress out i am i think. Was real bad for 3 days at one point, thought i was maybe about to have a stroke because of how noticeable it was by everyone around me and them telling me that i may be having a stroke, but its calmed down.  I think the skull/brain heat has been very unhealthy for me through these 13 months and really need to go back to the doctors and see what they can do for me, but need your guys’ help on what i should be asking for instead of just getting put on something.

 

Ive read some of these forums and the answer seems to be tapering or just letting the nervous system heal itself by not aggravating it, but the latter doesn't seem to be working, and a taper im willing to do but sounds crazy since right when i took a pill on that 5day thing i did instantly heat me up and kept me hot just not as bad cause i was doing lower dosing and wasn’t on a marijuana withdrawal, but it was immediate after taking the first pill and strong enough to be unhealthy, but its bearable and if it may work i would want to try, but would be super scary that it may mess me up more.  Let me know what you guys think, thank you for reading and helping, god bless!

 

[Ab3L]

I forgot to mention.

 

for a couple months after the sertraline fever 10 day thingy, the symptoms would hit me in a strange wave pattern of like anxiety and dreadful just dumb negative thoughts.  I would be completely fine for a portion of the day, then boom next second closer to hell for a portion of the day, with no triggers.

 

also in all of the last 13 months when i was experimenting with adderall (probably only did this 3 different days and learned that was not one to be trying, and at 5mgs just once during these days, gotta remember i had no clue i was going to be stuck like this so of coarse tried to get back to my normal ways) or alcohol or whatever (like the b vitamins). I can feel good on it, but then would get slammed with those symptoms i have spoke about as it's wearing off, the extreme skin sensitiviy and fever like heat.  So it's like im having meth like withdrawals (never done meth but thats how i describe it to my family, like its extreme withdrawals like an addict would have or something) but from anything that gets my system to do the symptoms.

[Ab3L]

As i read my post again, i want to make sure it doesn't look too dumb lol

 

I was so desperate to try and fix this and was on and off on how i would go about doing that.  So like the 5 day taper thingy wasn't meant to be for 5 days.  I was going to use my 50 mg sertraline pills that i had left over, i believe around 20 of them or so. Start at 50mgs the first day, and then go to 25mgs for about a week, then go down to half as much or whatever and so on (i know its not smart but i figured it maybe would do the trick and i wouldn't have to see my doc again and be put on something else or whatever). 

 

Though the first pill lit me up at 50 mgs instantly in the first 10 minutes of taking it, 25mgs wasn't as bad for the next couple of days, and thought it would be fine for 20 pills worth as i break them down and go lower and lower.  I just was looking for a ray of hope.  But the main reason i didnt go through with this was as i broke up the pills and took them, it was 1, increasingly harder for them to break up properly of coarse, and 2 i learned they burn the crap out of your mouth and/or throat and what not because of the way the pill is made.  they're not made to be broken down, the insides will get you.

 

Also, i mentioned orgasms, and all sorts of stuff that can cause symptoms that seem not so bad.  It's because they cause very light beginning stages of the symptoms is how i would put it. I definitely can orgasm and be fine, but closer to the incident and while testing harder drugs during those first couple of months (adderal, caffeine, alcohol), orgasms definitly brought on some level of nervous system instability or compounded to the symptoms severity at the time being, just in a very light, but noticeable manner. Like another lighter aggravator is too much computer screen time, or being underneath my computer key lights that i use sometimes for video.

 

[Altostrata]

Welcome, @Ab3L

 

I'm sorry, I cannot follow your timeline. To help us out, follow these instructions Please summarize your drug and withdrawal history in your signature You may need to use a computer to do this.

 

On 10/23/2023 at 12:17 AM, Ab3L said:

also in all of the last 13 months when i was experimenting with adderall (probably only did this 3 different days and learned that was not one to be trying, and at 5mgs just once during these days, gotta remember i had no clue i was going to be stuck like this so of coarse tried to get back to my normal ways) or alcohol or whatever (like the b vitamins).

 

You've been taking Adderall for the last 13 months? How often do you drink alcohol?

[Ab3L]

Sorry about that, i will get my signature done after this post, timelines are difficult to do is what im finding out. lol My timeline for stuff prior to what happened to me is more vague because i've never dealt with bad or horrible withdraws of any kind prior to what happened to me, so i wasn't paying attention to anything. no ssris or anything like that prior to the sertraline moment.

 

I was prescribed and taking adderal for about 2 years prior to being prescribed to marijuana; once on marijuana i had already almost been completely off adderal (i was taking like 5mgs in the mornings, sometimes). Once prescribed to marijuana i was not taking adderal at all besides 'maybe' for one week, super light amounts prior to the extreme marijuana withdraw. I know for sure marijuana was the main reason for the extreme withdraw, i could barely get high prior to it happening to me. and like i said it happened a 2nd time from just marijauna in the last 13 months, just not as strong because i was more careful with anything i was taking during the last 13 months.

 

For the last 13 months I CANNOT take adderal at all cause when i 'come off of it' (later that same day or night), It will light me on fire. It's like fever symptoms, my skull and body gets incredibly hot, i get somewhat sinus infection, teeth start hurting, and incredibly strong skin sensitivity issues. My anxiety and dread goes up too during these symptoms if they are at defcon 5 levels.  but like i said I only tried adderal in the last 13 months on 3 different occasions at an extremely low dose of 5mgs for once that day.  Caffeine, b vitamins, alcohol, and almost anything can give me these symptoms im speaking about.  Depending what the chemical/drug or whatever is, or how many times i take that thing (like if i drink caffeine multiple times in a day, for 2 days, compared to once in the past 5 days), will be the severity of the symptoms i will get.  But like i said i don't test anything anymore for i think about 2 months now because i read these forums and one of the only solutions i saw was to be pure pretty much, like to not aggravate the nervous system so it can restabilize. But i must say i don't think thats going to work, i think something like my thyroid got burnt up and is messed up or something, i don't know and is why im here asking questions on what blood tests or whatever i should get to start investigating.

 

Alcohol is not a big part of my life, I don't drink heavy, but i will have a couple drinks out with the family if we're out to dinner.  during these last 13 months i have tested alcohol too plenty of times, and it does the same thing everything does symptoms wise.  When it starts leaving my system or whatever, the symptoms that i mentioned start ramping up, and depending on how much i drank or for how many days in a row (like i went on a cruise and tested it hard at that time, and that sucked lol), will be the severity of the symptoms.  At a certain point the symptoms get so strong that it feels like a full on fever, like when i was on sertraline during the marijuana withdraw (i had an actual measurable steady fever at that time and the symptoms were exactly the same as what i deal with nowadays if i test my system).  I feel the beginning stages of my symptoms everyday just from work stress or too much sugar, or just because im messed up, but the severity is bearable since i don't take or do anything that brings the severity up to the levels that are not bearable anymore.  I've learned that im not healing and theres no point to keep testing my system because it seems really unhealthy for my body to be in that state. Everytime i've had extremely severe levels of the symptoms i do lose some weight as well.

[Altostrata]

19 hours ago, Ab3L said:

For the last 13 months I CANNOT take adderal at all cause when i 'come off of it' (later that same day or night), It will light me on fire. It's like fever symptoms, my skull and body gets incredibly hot, i get somewhat sinus infection, teeth start hurting, and incredibly strong skin sensitivity issues.

 

This is called kindling -- you are sensitized to Adderall and other stimulants, such as caffeine.

 

19 hours ago, Ab3L said:

Alcohol is not a big part of my life, I don't drink heavy, but i will have a couple drinks out with the family if we're out to dinner.  during these last 13 months i have tested alcohol too plenty of times, and it does the same thing everything does symptoms wise.

 

Every time you do this, you set yourself back in recovering from the drug- and withdrawal-induced hypersensitivities. You will need to stop drinking alcohol to let your nervous system settle down. It probably would be best if you stopped your drug sampling altogether.

 

We do not provide support for marijuana withdrawal syndrome here. Like any other psychotropic withdrawal syndrome, if you don't get in your own way by drinking alcohol, taking other drugs, etc., your nervous system will very gradually return to normal, in The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization 

[Ab3L]

So my family believes i need to go see a doctor for all of this, and i agree at least for some preliminary tests and what not.  Are there any suggestions of blood tests or anything else that could show something else may be wrong with me (like thyroid issues or something else that i can't even think of).  Like maybe something that requires medical intervention instead of just waiting around?

 

Also would anybody here suggest growth hormone as a means of helping the brain heal or restabilize?

[Ab3L]

Also, what are the best kind of specialists to see when dealing with this kind of issue?

[Altostrata]

This site exists because of a lack of knowledge among medical professionals.

 

See 

and other topics in the Symptoms and Self-Care forum.

 

On 10/28/2023 at 1:05 PM, Ab3L said:

Also would anybody here suggest growth hormone as a means of helping the brain heal or restabilize?

 

Completely speculative and unproven.

 

Stopping drinking probably would work wonders for you.

[Ab3L]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:54 PM, Altostrata said:

 

 

I appreciate this; i'll be looking through this post you've provided, looks like some good stuff

[Ab3L]

So i've been reading a bunch of stuff but can't find this anywhere...

 

my main main downfall was the sertraline for 10 days on a compromised marijuana withdrawal system.  I never have been on ssris, never been on benzos before this 10-13 days span, which was probably around 8 pills or less total. Was not abusing alcohol in the slightest. And as i stated before, never have dealt with crazy withdrawals from anything in my life prior to this event (marijuana withdrawal was the first real withdrawal of any kind ive dealt with and then on that same withdrawal the introduction of the drugs that have screwed me severely).

 

So my question is since i believe sertraline is the main culprit; is it or will it ever be wise for me to go back on it to do some kind of taper, or is that never the case if you already went cold turkey?  I'm not understanding if it's the case to ever after like a year, go back on the thing that probably messed you up, so you can do a taper of it, or is it always just too late to try and taper if you didn't originally do it in the first place?

[Altostrata]

You were taking Adderall from 2019-2020. Then marijuana, Ativan, Xanax, lorazepam with sertraline, more Adderall etc.

 

I cannot see that sertraline was the key factor in your current condition. There is nothing in your history to suggest that you experienced withdrawal from sertraline; there also is no indication that taking sertraline again will help. It's possible that you had an immediate adverse reaction to sertraline, it's also possibly that you had an adverse reaction to the benzos you were were taking at the same time. 

 

Among our members, we have a small group of people who never did get along very well with the antidepressant. Many have had severe adverse drug reactions (ADR) within a few doses.

 

These people, who are tagged "immediate ADR", have symptoms that are like protracted withdrawal syndrome but they don't have withdrawal syndrome, they have similar symptoms because their nervous systems were upset by taking the drug. Their recovery is slow, with frustrating waves and windows, like people with withdrawal syndrome, but it seems their recovery isn’t as long. Since they had a serious ADR to an antidepressant, they probably should not consider reinstatement.

 

Please read Immediate adverse reactions to an antidepressant or within a few doses? How long for recovery?

 

Your history of going on and off drugs and withdrawal syndromes may have sensitized you to psychotropics in general. If I were you, I'd stop experimenting with psychotropics and let my nervous system settle down. We have seen this occurs very slowly in the The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization 

 

[Ab3L]

The reason i feel it was mainly sertraline as the culprit (in a compromised system from the marijuana withdraw thingy that happened which probably cause sertraline to do what it did to me), is because.  My sertraline 'fever state thingy' that i was in; the symptoms while on it are 'exactly' the same as the symptoms i get nowadays and through the past year plus if i were to engage in absolutely anything that brings on the symptoms, just not as strong of coarse, but can get as strong when i tried certain things. Like i said it's like a severity scale of whatever i do or take, and for how long.  Regardless though... 

 

There really is nothing tests wise that i should be getting from doctors in your mind?  There is no chance that what happened to me may have done something that medical intervention may be able to help with.  Like if i get a blood panel (which i will be doing massive testing in the next couple months when i get my new health insurance), if it shows my thyroid is off or whatever else may be the case, should i take the thyroid medication they give me, or will that be risky?  Or anything else they find may be wrong, should i take what the doctor gives me? of coarse i wont be taking anymore ssris or that style drug of any kind regardless of what the doctor tells me, and of coarse i will post here prior to doing so and getting others perspective, though i know you are not doctors, i will research myself and ask you all prior to taking anything.  I dont know about thyroids or certain styles of medication for it, but are they like adderal, alcohol, or ssris, or do they work completely differently and may be safer?