Posted by bleauberry on April 28, 2010, at 18:22:24
In reply to Withdrawing/Stopping Medications, posted by JMB376 on April 28, 2010, at 10:25:21
I agree with your doc. If he has seen what all of us here have seen a bunch of times, it is that when someone is doing well and then they change something, forget it, you will never get back to where you were. We don't know why, perhaps some complicated mechanism of gene adaptations or something, but once a drug has been lowered or removed, and then re-introduced, it feels like a different drug and does not work like it did before.
Many problems. A can or worms. Not always, but a lot. Enough that you should at least be warned there is a high risk of causing some problems that you cannot undo.
The time to begin playing around with doses or med changes is when the current meds are not keeping you in good shape any longer. Hopefully that day will never come. Until then, don't change a thing. Take the exact same meds, the exact same doses, at the exact same time every day, and change nothing.
Forget the longterm risks of the meds. The longterm risks of what happens if things get destabilized are far worse.
Just because a med has a particular risk does not in any way mean that is going to happen to you. It is a risk, something that sometimes happens, but by no means a guarantee. Even when risks do happen, such as abnormal movements from antipsychotics after longterm use of high doses, even those complications are safer and more acceptable than the mental decline without them. And again, it happens sometimes in some people, and may never happen. Diabetes risk can be controlled and avoided with wise strategic food choices at the grocery store. Ya know, put health in eating at a higher level than the pleasure of eating. Food choices are critical to ward off many risks.
Financially you just gotta figure out a way to make it work. Nothing in life is more important than mental stability. Everything physical and spiritual is dependent upon it. Family, friends, activities, jobs, hobbies, bills, eating, sleeping, planning, shopping, driving...everything you do...no price is too much to pay.
poster:bleauberry
thread:945416
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100425/msgs/945486.html