Posted by Camille Dumont on July 25, 2004, at 13:23:04
In reply to Re: Feeling more intense?, posted by HappyGirl on July 25, 2004, at 8:41:56
True ... for me in de depressive state basically some days I slept all day and some days I didn't sleep at all. As for food, I would only realise that I was hungry when I started to shake from the low sugar and feel nauseous.
Unfortunately, when it comes to doctors I'm sort of in a bad situation. This is Canada so healthcare is free but there is also a gross shortate of doctors and pdocs. I once was sent to the phosp ... by the ER doc who suspected MAJOR depression and the pdoc at the hosp basically sent me home with no meds, no reference and no advice xcept : if you feel suicidal again, go to the ER ... gee ... isn't that nice.
So anyway I finally got a family doctor (you can wait years before you get one) and my psychologist also recommended a psychiatrist who is in the private sector. She's a very nice lady but she also can't see me as a "regular" patient so I basically onlyl see her when my normal doctor gives me a reference to see her. She then sends her recommendations back to my doctor ... who puts them into practice ... or so I thought.
At one point she suspected psychotic features because I tend to see things that aren't there or interpret things the wrong way like a dark bag on the ground will seem like a cat to me or the reflection of light on a car will appear to me as a person leaning over the car and so on ... and sometimes its just plain insane like reading things wrong or seeing impossible stuff like a tiger walking down the street and what not.
So anyway, she recommended Seroquel for sleep ... you know the tiny 25mg dose at night ... and then eventually 50mg up to potentially 100mg. Turns out that didn't work, it made me into a zombie. Well lo and behold, my moron doctor thought it would be a good idea to give me zyprexa instead ... 5mg to begin with. To take the same methaphor as a friend of mine who's also a doctor (only not in the city I live in) ... seroquel is like a flimsy watergun where zyprexa is a huge bazooka gun when it comes to antypsichotics ...
So basically I was freaking out, having seizures, thinking that my doctor had tried to trick me into taking that stuff because he really thought I was crazy ... and what not ... really bad trip ... and to make things worse he never warned me of the potential side effects like the jerks, the difficulty speaking, etc ... I was utterly terrified when it happened to me in a staff meeting ... I was seizing (absence type seizures) and I could barely talk ... really awfull.
After that little episode I was pissed and demanded to see the recommendation from the psychiatrist and sure enough she NEVER recommended that ... it was just, I dunno, some sort of little fantasy of my doctor.
So since that little "incident" I find it very hard to trust anyting that doctor says. I only stay with him because I basically have no choice ... I really need a family doc and there aren't any other ones available in the region ... but my confidence in him is like zero. I haven't told him I ditched the Effexor ... cuz he says I'll need it for the rest of my life (which I don't agree with ... its more related to my bad habit of using schizoid defense mechanism which always end up not working) ... and I doubt he would support me in an attempt to reduce the meds. According to him, since I've been depressed before, there is a 85% chance that it will come back ... but what if I'm part of that 15% who won't get it again ... I dunno, I guess its partly to prove him wrong, partly to feel in crontro and partly because I'm plain subborn that I'm doing this.
But for sure I'm going to hang on to the Celexa for a while ... I'm jsut still so surprised that the withdrawal from the effexor was so tolerable ... I mean after hearing all those scary stories and my personaly experience of going off cold turkey by mistake over a weekend.
In all likelyhood, I think I'll wait till xmas is here to try and stop the Celexa .. I'll have a week or so off so I won't have to worry about work and it will give me the perfect excuse to escape all those nasty "family reunions" and "parties" which I totally hate.
poster:Camille Dumont
thread:370133
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040724/msgs/370322.html