Improvements: symptoms that have got better or improved

[WinningThrough]

Hello fellow survivees!

 

Apologies if this is a repeat of anything that's already been done. I thought it might be helpful to start a thread about symptoms that people have had that have either gone away or improved over time. This could help in 2 ways:

 

1. It could show someone who is struggling with a particular symptom that it will heal in time.

2. It shows us how far we've come.

 

With that in mind, I've put together a list of the symptoms that I got on and/or off the drug that have either gone away or have improved. Here goes:

 

- I had double vision when I came off the drugs and it went away gradually.

- My eyes made clicking and popping sounds every time I moved them. That stopped.

- I had great difficulty moving my eyes up and down, from side to side and circling them. That got a lot better.

- I had severe crying spells for about a year. I would wake up crying and would literally cry (chemically) for hours and I couldn't stop it. I would choke and have problems breathing from it. The crying stopped. Occasionally I cry now but not often and not for hours.

- My brain used to feel like it was shaking in my skull and being squeezed. Those things went away.

- I had a hideous nerve sensation behind my eye and in my nose and face that actually felt like akathisia in my face! I always felt like I had this demonic ball thing behind my eye and a creepy feeling on the bridge of my nose. I never thought that symptom would go away, but it did. I occasionally get it back but it only lasts for a day or so when I do.

- The internal shaking in my legs is a lot better.

- I used to have a tightness in my chest all the time that felt like something was going to explode out of it. That went away.

- I had akathisia down below. It was horrific. But it went away!

- I had a numb bladder and numb arm for a few months and they went away too.

- I had several patches of ringworm on various areas of my body for a few months and they completely cleared up. I had dermatitis or something around my eyes..they were always red, itching and peeling and I actually had hard skin on my eyelids. I thought that would never go but it did.

- I had a really bad tremor and that went away.

- I still have brain zaps, unfortunately. But they are nowhere near as bad as they used to be when I got one every time I tried to move my eyes. I had them every few seconds all day and night. They are not like that anymore.

- Cognitively I have a long way to go but I'm improving. I find it easier to apply my brain than I did.

- My racing thoughts are not as bad as they were. This thing is always there but I can think of other things now.

- My constant suicidal thoughts calmed down. Ok, I still rather wouldn't be here than living like this but rather than having an urge all the time to do something immediately, I actually WANT to fight for my life and get better. I want to see this thing through. I only have this life and I deserve to come out the other side. And I WILL.

- I've sort of trained myself to do certain things now. When I first came off the drugs, I was in bed nearly all the time. I used to eat food with my hands and if I dropped any on the floor, I left it there because it was too much for me to pick it up. I used to go for days and days without having a bath because it was too terrifying for me to do it. Now I have a bath every day. Don't get me wrong, it's far from easy but I can do it now. I get dressed nearly every day. I do some housework now. I eat with a knife and fork and pick up food I've dropped. I push myself to go out of the house sometimes. I do more activities than I did.

 

There are probably other things I haven't thought of but those are the things that spring to mind. I do hope this helps at least one person on here. It's helped me too! This is a long list! I had no idea I'd done so much healing! I'm nowhere near where I want to be but I can see now that I AM healing.

 

I will put this list on my own thread too.

[KarenB]

My eye has not tingled in months now.

The strange feeling that there was something on the end of my nose has gone.

I've had no hallucinations in many months.

My fearfulness has subsided greatly.

[Junglechicken]

 Since re-instating Cipralex @ 2.5mg on 25th Nov 2015, I have had the following improvements:

• No longer have horrendous headaches (includes migraines, sinus).
• Ear pressure changes/popping have stopped.
• Severe body aches and pains post-exercise have subsided.
• Have more flexibility in joints.
• Improved mood.
• Nausea and dizziness have stopped.
• Weird electric shock/current sensations in brain down neck have stopped.
• Appetite has returned for the most part (depending on how I am feeling).
• Sleeping well without needing Melatonin.
• Not as anxious as I was.

Please note I am moving back to the UK in a couple of weeks and have a huge TO DO list.  Trying to stay sane through it all.

[Chochka]

I was wondering if people could put time lengths on here. I am suffering from intense fatigue, among other things, and it would be helpful to see how long it took for people's symptoms to fade. (I know that it's different for everyone but some kind of timeline would be encouraging.)

[Faithgrl]

Thanks for the topic. Didn't realised that things got better when I started tapering and reduced the Cipramil ...

 

1. I used to SWEAT excessively when I exercise (yuck) ...now I am just a nice damp.

2. Better vision - when I was on the Cipramil I used to play squash and always complained that I couldn't really see the ball (it was going too fast for my eyes?) and I played today and I could actually see the ball!! 3. I used to sleep 9-10 hours a day and was tired ALL the time. These days I sleep 7-8 hours a day and am still tired   Oh well, its 2016 and I work full time, what does one expect?

4. Motion sickness - had this really badlly and couldn't handle being on a boat or a car for anything longer than 10mins. Went on a 4 hour cruise on 26 December (after popping an entire packet of natural travel calm with only ginger extract) and no motion sickness. Holy ****. I think I might go to Wet & Wild in a bit (but of course I will take the travel calm with me)

 

Saying all that, I am still pretty tired and can nap anywhere, anytime...and I still get anxious. And I still feel funny sometimes when I turn my head (you know the one where your brain gets left behind), and some diarrhea, but nothing I can't handle or hide from other people...you wont' want to use a toilet after me though!

 

Timeframe per my signature. The first week was the worst but I did decide to cut the dose by 50% cause I was just sick of it. Now I am going to attempt to cut by 30% each week and its ok so far. I ran the numbers on a 10% taper and my crazy brain tells me that is unacceptably long. I have a history of not doing what I am told anyway and pushing the s**t ouf of everything and 1/2 the time I crash and burn and 1/2 the time it ended up awesome. So lets see what happens.

[Ariel]

Thought it might be nice to have a community thread for posting about improvements great and small, as we notice them occurring. We mention positive developments in our intro topics and of course there are the success stories; I'd love for this to be a place to pop in for a little snack of something promising, a little pick-me-up for when we want to share a nugget or savor a nibble. 

 

*

 

I've been noticing something I think is an improvement (curious to hear what you think): increased muscle efficacy/strength -- the opposite of muscle weakness. In other words, I feel like my muscles are working better!

 

This is remarkable to me because it's been a couple of years since I've been able to exercise properly, and I'm definitely in worse shape, much heavier with more fat and less muscle mass, than I was at the beginning of WD. I haven't been lifting weights or training, I can't do much at all. However I feel like my muscles work better. I've been noticing this on and off for the past few months. I still sometimes get muscle aches and extreme full-body fatigue, but it's like my muscles have more energy, more available resources to do what they need to do. I'm not sure how to describe it but it's pretty cool. 

 

This new experience is making me realize that I may have suffered from significant drug-induced muscle weakness for decades without even realizing it. I just thought how it was was normal. Now I'm thinking it probably wasn't normal at all! How else to explain that today I am much older, overweight, out of shape, with inadequate muscle mass, and still things seem to be working better? If it is indeed the case that I had muscle weakness side effects for most of my life, consider me retroactively offended. 

 

Does this resonate with anyone?

 

[Ariel]

I've been noticing something I think is an improvement (curious to hear what you think): increased muscle efficacy/strength -- the opposite of muscle weakness. In other words, I feel like my muscles are working better!

 

This is remarkable to me because it's been a couple of years since I've been able to exercise properly, and I'm definitely in worse shape, much heavier with more fat and less muscle mass, than I was at the beginning of WD. I haven't been lifting weights or training, I can't do much at all. However I feel like my muscles work better. I've been noticing this on and off for the past few months. I still sometimes get muscle aches and extreme full-body fatigue, but it's like my muscles have more energy, more available resources to do what they need to do. I'm not sure how to describe it but it's pretty cool. 

 

This new experience is making me realize that I may have suffered from significant drug-induced muscle weakness for decades without even realizing it. I just thought how it was was normal. Now I'm thinking it probably wasn't normal at all! How else to explain that today I am much older, overweight, out of shape, with inadequate muscle mass, and still things seem to be working better? If it is indeed the case that I had muscle weakness side effects for most of my life, consider me retroactively offended. 

 

Does this resonate with anyone?

[Ariel]