Posted by blueberry on September 23, 2005, at 6:50:10
I'm in a very bad way need help from you pros out there. My GP is calling it anxiety, but I am totally convinced it is tardive akathisia.
Symptoms...upon waking, extreme jitteriness...on the outside it is jittery fingers, jittery knees, shakey elbows, whole body shakiness. Feel extremely caffeinated. On the inside it is worse...hard to put in words...very restless inside...butterflies in the stomach. I can't sit. Pace constantly. I actually am best a work where I am active. My symptoms are purely physical, not psychological.
History...prozac 20mg and zyprexa 5mg for five years, worked good, no side effects. Problems with butterflies in the stomach and dread upon waking started in March this year and have slowly progressively worsened with inner restlessness and jitters. Now 5mg lexapro, 7.5mg remeron, 2.5mg zyprexa, 1.5mg xanax.
Clues...for a 3 month period I dropped prozac down to 10mg and added in 600mg to 900mg st johns wort. My symptoms completely disappeared. Sjw seemed like a miracle. But then it pooped into severe depression. When I weaned off of it, the akathisia returned much worse than before.
Clues...Even though I wake feeling extremely caffeinated upon waking, the first cup of coffee actually calms me down a bit. Strange. The first cigarettes help too. Magnesium glycinate helps.
A one day trial of a higher dose of zyprexa made it much worse. Have cut back to 2.5mg. Lexapro 5mg a day has replaced prozac. I've read that stopping the med that caused akathisia in the first place can actually make it worse.
Zyprexa makes it all go away...but alas, only for about 8 hours. I clock watch all day waiting for my zyprexa dose. Have considered bid or tid dosing of zyprexa, but I know in the long run it will only make things much worse.
Sjw, coffee, cigarettes...these all seem clues to me that it is a dopamine thing.
What do you think are top choices for me to try? Dopamine agonists? I've read they try everything from clonidine to inderal to anticholinergics to benzos to buspar to dopamine agonists to gabapentin to remeron and on and on.
poster:blueberry
thread:558435
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050921/msgs/558435.html