Scotzmen Me Newbe, Introduction

[Scotzmen]

Hello everyone, I'm Scott. I live in Northern NJ close to NY City. I'm married, have 3 kids and a Brittany Spaniel. I've come to this site with hopes of getting off all my meds and hopefully getting better.

 

Just a quick history, I have treatment resistant depression and been on disability because of for the past 22 years. I've been on a tremendous amount of meds through the years, also I've done several courses of ECT. Actually I currently have the Vagus Nerve Stimulator on for 2 months hoping that might help. 

 

This illness, disease or just overmedication has devastated my life. Luckily I have my family and I'm very grateful. But beyond that I don't have a life. No friends, no hobbies I sit at home everyday alone. I try to do things around the house, fix things, I can go out most of the time but lately (for the last 8 months) I've been horrible. I hate getting up, I hate going to bed. I just sit on the computer and eat. I really don't care about much anymore.  Anyway, depressing I know,

 

8 months ago when everything went from bad to worst I started to reduce Risperdal 2mg. I first dropped .5 mg and I had terrible panic attacks, fear I never had that before.  I ask my shrink and he said there are no withdrawals from Risperdal.  I didn't believe him, I don't understand shrinks, they deny that there are withdrawals from meds.  So eventually then I got better and I continued to reduce .25 every 3 weeks.  I did stop for a month or so, But now I'm at .25 left, It's been 3 weeks, do I just stop the finally dose now? 

 

I really believe my misery over the past months has been from improperly reducing Risperdal.  I'm really desperate.  I haven't told my shrink how bad I've been feeling because he'll just ignore its cause.

 

I'm getting tired so to finish, I'm trying to find a Dr. in the NJ/NY area that knows how to taper, so far no luck.  Does anyone know of any of a doctor? I'm on 5 other meds, which I'd like to get off of.  My hope is that the meds may have been causing my depression. The one thing I ever responded to was ECT, not even one med.  22 years of my life are gone it's effected every aspect of my life including my family. 

 

So I hope I didn't bore you, this is me, well part of me. I'm looking forward to meeting you and If there is anything you want to ask me feel free.  I research every day for a few hour trying to find an end to this hell and I've learned a lot.  Thanks for looking, have a good day.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Altostrata
added line breaks for readability

[LoveandLight]

Hi I'm quite new and cannot give advice but just wanted to say hello and I totally understand. I hope you find relief.

[Meimeiquest]

Welcome! There is a very expensive dr. in NYC, Kelly Brogan MD. She mostly works with women, but sees men for medication withdrawal. Kellybroganmd.com. There is also a thread on recommended physicians, etc. pinned in Tapering or Symptoms, I think there are several in NYC.

 

My thought would be that you regroup and see how things go. If you get stuck, look into other things that cause depression, I think gut problems are becoming a huge cause in our society, I think it is my root cause, but I have a horrible family history, so I am not sure. I have also been helped by mensahmedical.com, but they might be overkill for you.

 

Study your drugs, study your illness, and fight on! But 22 years of meds will take a lot of time and patience...join the party

 

One of our mods strongly recommend D's the books Anatomy of an Epidemic and Breggin's Your Drug May Be Your Problem.

 

Finally, the mods will appreciate it if you list your medication history in your signature.

 

Good luck!

[Petunia]

Welcome to the forum Scott I'm sorry to hear you have been struggling so much. Thank you for sharing your story, but I'm sorry you have to be here.

 

I also have a long drug history, if you look at my signature, you can see it.  Unfortunately, I stopped taking my medications completely the wrong way, long before finding this site and the good information here, so I'm in protracted withdrawal.  I'm glad you found us when you did.  We will be able to offer help and support with safe tapering off your drugs, if that's what you want to do.

 

As Meime mentioned, please put your drug and withdrawal history in your signature.  Putting a short version of your drug and tapering history in your signature helps people understand your context, it appears below each of your posts.  Here are instructions for how to do it:

 

http://survivinganti...your-signature/

 

What is most helpful are all medications ever taken, including approximate years, but details, including dates and dosages of all current drugs, including any recent past or present tapering attempts.

 

When things started to get worse 8 months ago, did this happen before you started reducing the Risperdal, or did your symptoms only start when you began tapering?

 

It sounds like you may have been having withdrawal symptoms.  Doctors are unaware of how bad withdrawal syndromes can be. Doctors who understand psychiatric drug withdrawal syndromes are few and far between, even among psychiatrists.  Please read:

What should I expect from my doctor about withdrawal symptoms?

 

You have been tapering too fast.  We suggest reducing most psychiatric medications by no more than 10% of the current dose every 4 weeks, this reduces the risk of withdrawal symptoms arising.  Please read through this which will explain why:

  

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?  (The general philosophy of gradual tapering)

 

Here are our tips specific for tapering off Risperdal:

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1716-tips-for-tapering-off-risperdal-risperidone/

 

Now that you have held at .25mg for a few weeks, how are you feeling?  If you are still having withdrawal symptoms, please hold where you are, read through the links I have provided so you can learn how to safely taper down off the last amount.

 

My hope is that the meds may have been causing my depression.
 

 

Its quite possible that much of what you are experiencing are side effects, especially if you are on a lot of drugs.  If you are taking more than one medication, there may be interactions between them, which your doctor is unaware of, these may be adding to your symptoms.  Please put ALL the drugs you take in the drugs.com Drug Interactions Checker at:

 

Drug Interactions Checker

 

You may post the results here in your thread.

 

As Meime also mentioned,  Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. would be a good book for you to read.  Other resources you may find helpful are Your Drug may be you Problem by Dr. Peter Breggin and Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry

 

I'm sorry for throwing so much information at you, but please take your time reading through it all. 

 

You can use this thread as your ongoing journal to track progress and communicate with the community, add to it whenever you want.  Once you get back to us with more details about your drug history and situation, we will be in a better position to offer support and suggestions.

 

Petu.

[Rhiannon]

Meimei and Petu have covered it but I would emphasize: stop tapering the Risperdal right now and hold where you are with that, and don't reduce anything else for now until you are stable and you've learned how to taper safely (we have the info you need for that).

 

Your doctor doesn't know anything about tapering after multi-decade use of psychiatric meds, and the reason I can say that confidently is because nobody knows that, because those studies have never been done. That has never been studied. So if he says he knows you can't be getting withdrawal effects from Risperdal, or anything else he claims you can't be experiencing, ask him for the papers, the citations, the research to back it up. It's called "evidence-based medicine" and when it comes to long-term use of psychiatric drugs, it doesn't exist.

 

The other thing I would emphasize is: read Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker.

 

You can definitely seriously reduce your drug burden, if you taper slowly, but it's going to be a long process, and it starts with just learning. This forum has the most extensive collection of information on tapering off psych meds anywhere. 

 

Welcome, and good luck to you!