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HISTORY: *1998-2010: Buspar, Prozac, Wellbutrin, Paxil, etc. *2018: started sertraline/Zoloft *2019: Went to ketamine clinic seeking ketamine, but was dx with bipolar II instead. Started Vraylar, Topomax, and Ropinirole. Continued sertraline. *January 2020: Got pregnant. Was advised by psychiatrist to cold turkey Vraylar, Topomax, and Ropinirole and quickly taper sertraline. Began my sertraline taper but was having such intense w/d symptoms from the Vraylar, etc., I was a mess and I cold-turkeyed the sertraline, too. *March 2020: Psychiatric hospitalization. Miscarried in hospital. Hospital docs determined bipolar II dx was a mistake. Started ECT but quit when pandemic started. Started escitalopram/Lexapro 20mg, and aripiprazole/Abilify 5mg as an adjunct. *2021: Started bupropion/Wellbutrin 300mg to help with daytime sleepiness and fatigue. Continued escitalopram and aripiprazole. Increased bupropion to 450mg, then decreased back to 300mg for seizure safety for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy. *Early 2022: Replaced escitalopram with venlafaxine/Effexor 150mg (cross-tapered over a few weeks). *Summer 2022: Dx with sleep disorder (alpha wave intrusion). Started trazodone 50mg as a sleep aid. *November 2022: Started phasing out aripiprazole by going down to 2mg from 5mg (p-doc's idea). Had symptoms, went back up to 5mg for the holidays. *January 2023: Began tapering aripiprazole again, this time decreasing to 4mg for three weeks. ********************************************** As you can see, I am on a big, hot, tangled mess of psychotropic drugs. Since my diagnosis in summer 2022 with a sleep disorder, and treatment, I am doing better than ever (no depression symptoms for several months). And I'm on way too many drugs. My psychiatrist has agreed with me that it's appropriate to phase out at least one. We're starting with the Abilify/aripiprazole. P-doc wants to go fast; I want to go slow. I checked the drug interaction website that is recommended here. It seems the Wellbutrin/bupropion has major interactions with everything else, so I believe that should go next. I would like one day to get down to nothing except trazodone, since it is treating my sleep problem. Questions: How do you handle disagreements with your psychiatrist? I need to keep her on my side enough that she keeps prescribing my medication. Bonus if she will prescribe the smaller pills that make it easy to taper. What if I want to go slower than she wants to? What if she does not agree that I should get off a particular med? My goal is to keep feeling good through the tapers. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide, Tezz

Hi I’m mark. I spent an hour trying to make my signature , but it wouldn’t allow it because it was to long. Tried cutting it down significantly, still to long , gave up. Basically I’ve been on a million drugs on and off , and didn’t ween off any of the em correctly except lamictal and seroquil. I can make a extremely generalized timeline . Starting with cymbalta 16-17 years ago. cynbalta -2007 1 year 2012 -1 month wellbutrin-2007- a few days xanax-2012- 1mg, recreationally 10-15 doses klonopin-2013 1year .25-1mg lexapro-1-2 months 10mg topamax-2weeks small dose lamictal— 2015 7 years- doses(25-400mg) Seroquil- 2015 5 years -15-100mg ketamine-2019 -10 iv treatments gabapentin-2020- 300mg- 2 months litrhium-2020 1200mg-1 month ambien-2020 5-10 mg 3 months Propalanol-2023 10mg -2 weeks I’ve had several med trials for past 10 years trying to address symptoms that came out of nowwhere in 2013, which I now realize we’re most likely issues from taking cymbalta at an early age , not weening off then going into more rec drug use and Xanax . past ten years of my life were terrible , Constant doctors , trying meds , psych ward visits from bad reactions , not knowing what was wrong , more meds , even was convinced I had lymw and did antibiotic protocols , hyperbaric chamber , etc. also multiple shoulder surgeries from bad shoulders , one of which was a botch job and caused terrible nerve damage furthering my issues . started realizing psych drugs were the problem in late 2021. Got off everything for about a year I got hit with a severe life threatening bout of insomnia in 2022 June , and after being off of drugs for nearly a year , had to resort back to trying things , and things spiraled quickly . While I always have had the hypersensitive nervous system symptom, i I started developing this at a new level . super sensitive to sounds ( even not loud soundslike fridge clicking on, car door in distance , anything etc). Can’t watch most movies emotions trigger symptoms . Constant tinnitus . Can’t exercise , sex release , can’t go to the store without flare .) nighttime adrenal surges / jolting . even then I STILL was seeing psych and trying meds because I was not familiar with kindling . How would I know ? I was member of benzo buddies and knew something was going on drug related but was suffering and didn’t know how else to try and fix it . Then I finally learned of kindling , and found this site . I’ve been off everything for 6-7 weeks . I see people with exact symptom profiles and I see a lot of people that don’t seem to show improvement with the hyper arousal especially from sounds . ive already suffered most of my life , and it’s been ten years and I’m not even close to better , in fact way worse. I guess what I need is a success story, for people with similar countless (to long to list) drug trials , that had the hyper arousal from sounds , lights , emotions , etc and eventually showed improvement . I don’t want to break any rules by saying how I truly feel , but this basically isn’t doable . I saw one lady that said she has the auditory arousal issues seven years later .. what?????? No.. can’t, sorry, I’ve already been in hell for 10 plus years . any success stories or other who had this issue and showed improvement WOULD help. I can’t really find any though . thank you for allowing me in the group and for reading

Hey everyone, I discovered this website yesterday on Reddit after feeling like I hit a brick wall while trying to taper amitryptiline 30mg. This may not be the most organized post since it’ll be detailed but I can answer questions and fill in some holes. I’d like to first rewind two years ago how I got here in the first place. I was 27 at the time in my last semester of grad school, no medical history, anxiety/mental illness history and a dedicated power lifter in the gym 2 hours a day 5 days a week. i decided to cut to single digit body fat percentage and so many things went wrong after a month in suddenly. I had a strange feeling one evening suddenly start in my chest/abdomen that hit me in my head with nausea that could put anyone down to their knees. I told my mom what has happened and we went to the hospital to get checked out. I waited two hours without seeing the doctor since I felt fine and would follow up with my primary care doctor. That morning I woke up with chills, vomiting, chest pain, and slept terrible. Blood work revealed that I was low in vitamin D. This was the beginning of hell. For 5 days I wasn’t able to sleep at all. Headaches, severe tinnitus worse than the tinnitus i was habituated that I’ve had since I was a child, my eyes would hurt I wasn’t able to eat or drink anything, acid reflux that was tearing up my insides and burned like nothing I had ever felt before. My entire head tingles like ants crawling all over it When I would try to sleep I would wake up with a bright flash of light waking up disoriented and panicked every 15 to 20 minutes. This carried on until I went to the hospital to get sedated and slept for 18 hours. I held steady for a week until the sleep issues came back again. I was put on a half dose of 5mg ambien for a week to reset. Once the ambien ran out I didn’t stabilize. I was put on buspar 30mg per day and 5mg of ambien until the buspar built up in my system. March goes on and things become far worse. The tinnitus became louder, sound sensitivity kicked in again, I wasn’t able to go to the gym anymore because the gym made my headaches and tinnitus worse, I wasn’t able to eat or drink anything again, my face and jaw hurt, my jaw felt tight. My head tingled all the time and I had no idea or understood why. It was back to square 1 again and my mental status completely changed again. I stopped the buspar cold turkey since I knew this wasn’t working. I google my symptoms and they sort of seemed like migraines so I tried taking magnesium and I was able to gain back a significant quality of life till I was able to see a neurologist. I saw the neurologist in April and and he puts me on 10mg of amitryptiline. It never really worked so we just went up to 30mg over the span of 3-4 months. My symptoms never really ceased either and I felt lost and hope and just wished for the best that things would stop one day. I tried going up to 35mg one time but it made me feel very jittery with poor sleep so I just went straight back to 30mg (fall 2021) Fast forward to December 2022 I decided to try supplementing iron out of instinct since I craved chalky and flaky foods and had strange appetite cravings that I thought was attributed to amitryptiline. I took 50mg of elemental iron and all of a sudden it’s like my blood vessels were able to chill out. I had shortness of breath go away I didn’t know and I could breathe! It was like I was choking on air. My sleep was deeper and better, the craving went away, my heart rate went down. fast forward to late February/early March 2023. I decided to taper amitriptyline. I started from 30mg and cut 2.5mg every week. I felt great, my lingering symptoms along with the tinnitus diminished, my mood was better, the annoying side effects were starting to go away as time went on, the headaches became more tolerable when I would go to the gym and it was like I was getting my life back and I could finally move on. the only issues I had were on the nights I cut down the 2.5mg it would take me a little bit longer to fall asleep for a few days but I would feel FANTASTIC as the week went on ready to drop another 2.5mg. Then one week I eventually reached 0mg and for 6 days then I was doing fine then suddenly here we are.. one night it was impossible to sleep and I cut in half a 5mg ambien to sleep or else I knew that the lack of sleep would spiral me out of control or else I would end up in the hospital. I felt nauseated, had no appetite, the tinnitus was loud, my head hurt, I felt jittery and anxious, my heart was pounding. I knew this was withdrawals and called in for work. I reintroduced 5mg to stabilize myself a bit to get some quality of life back after evaluating that the 2.5mg drops at lower doses were too big and too fast despite how well I was doing week by week over the past couple months. Here I am today going from 0mg over 6 days back to 5mg today and hoping to hold it down and keep myself steady on this dose going no higher (hoping I can stay steady and become steadier at this dose for the next month). I was able to ignore the tinnitus today and do most of my day to day, grocery shop, play video games (no gym for awhile it seems). I’m looking forward to sharing my journey, my struggles, and my progress with you all in getting off of this stuff once and for all THE RIGHT WAY with the 10% taper that I’ve learned over here.

Hi everyone I'm 22 years old now. I suffered from bulimia, depression and generalized anxiety since the age of 17 and my family got me help when I was 18 after I failed my medical school exams due to my condition. I was put on several medications ( Alprazolam, Valproate, Lamotrigine, Fluoxetine) during the course of treatment. I come from a lower economic class country where psychiatric treatment is still considered a taboo and people hide it from others, the facilities available are not the best but its a work in progress. Most of the drugs I had to take, they helped me immensely and I had not much trouble tapering valproate, lamotrigine and alprazolam within a year since start of treatment. They helped me get through the second-sit of exams and after I passed I quit the first two within 2 weeks using ( 50-25-0%). Since I am in medical school I was well aware of addictive potential of benzodiazepine's, so I decided to taper alprazolam as well even though it helped my anxiety symptoms. I had panic attacks and palpitations again but I started working myself through therapy and regular exercise and sleep to ease my symptoms. For a regular person these things are a luxury of time, but if you suffer from a mental health problem you must consider a good sleep and exercise a necessity for the rest of your life and fit in other parts of your life with it, not the other way around. Around 19, I was only taking fluoxetine (20 mg ) and my symptoms got worse, as I often tried to taper it on my own ( I wanted to be off drugs asap). The doctors upped my dose instead of my concern of getting them off, and told me to take valproate, which I could take if I felt my symptoms weren't manageable as I told him I don't want to be back on meds. For four months I was on 40 mg dosage of fluoxetine and some days were quite bad and 2 years back I would've seen the doctor and he would have most likely upped my dosage again but this time I decided to be patient with myself on bad days, accepting them as part of recovery because on the good days, I didn't need any aid and slowly the ratio of good to bad days was improving. I found this blog and I started the brass monkey taper schedule with 4 weeks hold for fluoxetine, and I was done in 6 months. I had some side effects but with this method they were too mild to be cause a nuisance. I had dizziness, insomnia and weight gain (around 10 kgs) during the process. I am now drug-free for almost a year, and its lifestyle changes (diet, exercise, rest, filling my bucket before I pour from it to others, adequate rest ) that keep me going fresh and happy. I had failed attempts at tapering fluoxetine and every time I tried my symptoms became unbearable till I found this forum. I am incredibly grateful to this community and the stories that gave me strength to continue on my journey. To everyone reading this, be patient with yourself and don't compare your journey to others. Listen to your heart when it tells you NO, trust yourself to get through it and you will only see your strength in the hindsight. Love and Prayers.xx

I have been on Lyrica for six or seven years and it has zapped my motivation. I’ve been on Topamax for around eight years and it has made it difficult to think. I’ve been on both of these for pain. I’ve also found myself on the addiction end of smoking cannabis also for pain. The good news is that I have done a lot of work with a chronic pain coach and pain therapist and my pain levels have come down significantly. As a result I feel like I’m able to get to the point where I can taper off of these things. However I tried to taper off of Topamax follow my doctors instructions and was thrown into an increase in migraines. I currently take 100 mg per day with 50 in the morning and 50 in the evening. He had me decreased by 25 mg in the morning. That reduction was too drastic. I tried tweaking that so that I was taking 37.5 mg in the morning instead of my usual 50 thereby decreasing by 12.5 mg instead of 25 mg but I was still really discombobulated and the migraines persisted so I had to go back up and Abandon my effort to taper for now. I tried going cold turkey off of cannabis last winter and the migraines surged and by the fourth day in a row of a migraine I couldn’t do any more and went back on the cannabis. It seems my brain is very sensitive to any change in the routine. I love any insights into which med you think might be the best one to taper first and how slowly. Also are there any supplements out there that help to give the body what it needs as we are taking these meds out of the system? As I think about the order of doing these medications I think about perhaps going off of them in the order I got on them. Since I got on the Lyrica last maybe I should get off of it first. Then get off of the Topiramate/Topamax. Then get off of cannabis last so that I can use it to help me get through the migraines When and if they pop up during the taper process. Any insights are appreciated from your experience. Thanks!

Hi there. I am female, 41 years old, married with an almost 18 year old. I was diagnosed in 2018 with anxiety, depression and BP2. After my diagnosis I started to see a Therapist and Psychiatrist regularly. I realized I have dealt with these mental health issues my whole life and figured medication would be my saving grace. I was wrong. They made me a zombie and I was constantly sleeping. I had a suicide attempt in late 2017 and that is what started my experience with medication. I was in-patient for 9 days and came home with an abundance of new medication (please see signature for meds). I thought this would be the right step in the right direction for me. I had another close call with suicide in late 2019 and was subsequently hospitalized for that as well. Fluctuating between depression, BP2, hypo mania and anxiety was exhausting. Husband and I decided we wanted to try for another baby so my OBGYN suggested certain drugs be out of my system, hence coming off of them. I had been wanting to stop my meds anyways because I was tired of feeling numb. Psychiatrist took me off of my Depakote cold Turkey on May 19, 2022 and I decided on June 22, 2022 to come off the rest except my Buspar. June 22, 2022 was the day my IUD came out so it was the best time to end my meds as well, against my Psychiatrists wishes. So far the withdrawals have been probably run-of-the-mill (i.e. insomnia, nightmares, headaches, irritability, sweating, dizziness, body aches). I’m taking it one day at a time and trying to rest as much as possible when I’m feeling awful (like right now, while I’m typing this).

So let me introduce myself. I’m a male of 19 years old from Argentina. I discovered this forum through the Reddit’s Talk Therapy forum and I’ve been seeing some Peter Breegman videos that have very good explanations about the psychiatric drugs so I decided to do something about my situation. I was having a lot of severe symptoms of OCD and anxiety and I’m now diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The thing is that before being diagnosed psychologically I went to a neurologist because of my pediatrician because I was having so heavy headaches. The neurologist gave me these 2 meds thinking it was Post-COVID headache and it wasn’t. The doses changes are described in my signature section and as you can see I’m not taking any meds but while I was taking them my symptoms nor my headaches diminished and I was feeling like a zombie. Now that I’m off the meds I’m not like a zombie but I feel like my mind doesn’t function like before. I feel like my mind is less sharp and is like sticky. I’m still depressed having headaches and I think I’m still expieriencing withdrawal symptoms. Can you help me to fully detox my brain of these meds? Because I had no idea that it was bad to taper with that dose changes like you can see in my signature. Now I’m not taking them but I don’t know if I have to start taking them again, how to do it, etc. I wanna start therapy because I really need it but I think I can’t in this situation where my brain doesn’t function normally. Please help me if you can! Thanks for reading!

Hello all, I was first prescribed 25mg of zoloft late November of 2015 after a few days in the psych ward. Afterward when I found a psychiatrist, he raised my zoloft to 100 mg and then a month or two later he added topamax 25mg and Latuda (can't remember the dosage) into the mix. Shortly after I started to get brain zaps even when I was taking the medications on time and foolishly I decided to just stop taking them all together around March or April of 2016. I never returned to that psychiatrist or any psychiatrist for that matter. Now almost four years since taking them I am still plagued with brain zaps. They are not always present but appear every few months for a few days and then vanish into the wind. It went on that until about Feb of 2018 when I started experiencing numbness in my legs. I thought it was a stroke or blood clot so I went to the ER. After I got a MRI of my brain and an xray of my spine, the doctors told me that the findings did not explain my brain zaps or numbness in my legs and sent me home with an article from PsychologyToday that I had already read a million times detailing SSRI withdrawal syndrome. I felt defeated and never thought to contact a neurologist. Since then my symptoms got progressively worse. Every few months there would be relapses and a new symptom would appear; lhermitte sign, paresthesia, tingling, itchiness, fatigue, and pain behind eyes. I started to document my symptoms April of this year after another relapse. I had another relapse September/October. Today I am in the throes of another relapse. This time somewhat longer than normal. I decided once and for all to find out if what I am experiencing is just the repercussions of not tapering off some medication almost four years ago while being a stupid college kid or if what I have is something more serious since SSRI withdrawal seems to mimic quite a few other neurological diseases. Tomorrow I go in to see if I can get a referral to a neurologist. Wish me luck.

Hey there everyone. You can call me Fawn or Deer. I would like to share my journey with you all in this introduction. I'm hoping I can get some helpful feedback and advice on how to approach tapering off the medications I currently take. So, to start, I am 21 y/o and currently taking 40mg of Celexa, and 5mg of Abilify I also take vitamins and supplements which are listed in my signature. I think it's important to address my background briefly. I come from a very difficult background, I have been emotionally/psychologically abused by parental figures nearly since infancy up until the last few years, and had countless traumatic experiences both inside and outside of the abuse going on at home. I struggle with mental illness symptoms and physical pain, and I have since about 7 or 8 years of age. There's a lot to say, and I'm unsure of how much is relevant... I will just go into the medication aspect now. At 16, I asked my mom for help. I was experiencing severe depression and anxiety symptoms. I also suffered from an eating disorder and was severely underweight. On top of that, I was having audio and visual hallucinations. I suspect most of this was a result of complex trauma and malnourishment. I went to a hospital first, because I was suicidal. They put me on a medication for hallucinations (I can't remember the name) but it was making my symptoms worse so I didn't take it. My mom took me to see a psychiatrist, who said I was bipolar and anorexic and put me on Celexa and Topamax. The timeline is fuzzy but I think I was on these meds for a year or so before I saw a new psychiatrist through an intervention program for acute symptoms of psychosis. The new psychiatrist suspected that I had a personality disorder, and could possibly end up psychotic, so he started me on Abilify in addition to the Celexa and Topamax. I was 17. Of course, my symptoms became more manageable, and I started gaining weight (without changing my eating habits all that much, mind you). About 2 years went by. I went through periods where I felt like the medications weren't really helping me, so I would stop taking them cold turkey for a month or two. Not surprisingly, I would feel much worse and start taking them again. I was constantly pressured by my doctors, mother, and grandmother to continue taking these medications, but I couldn't help but feel like something wasn't right. I couldn't put my finger on it, though. When I was 19, the program I was in got a new psychiatrist. Around that time I had been taking my medications inconsistently, and when I told that to the new psychiatrist she said that if I wasn't taking them, they must not be working. She suggested something different. She decided to stop the Abilify, Topamax, and Celexa, saying if I wasn't taking them consistently for the last couple months it should be fine to stop them. Instead, she put me on Latuda and another medication (I can't remember the name). The next 3 months were utter chaos. I was more depressed than I had been in my life. I couldn't get out of bed, and I started eating more. A lot more. Especially sweets. I kept insisting that the new medications were making me this way. I was told repeatedly for weeks that I had to wait it out and it would get better. After 3 months I ended up in a psychiatric hosptial for 5 days. The psychiatrist at the hospital took me off the new meds and put me back on celexa and abilify. I have been on them consistently for the last 2 years. And in that time, my health has declined in many aspects. I have gained so much weight that I've gone from severely underweight to overweight in a few years. I crave sugar and caffeine all the time. I sleep a lot, sometimes 12+ hours, and I am fatigued almost 24/7. My anxiety and depression are not managed all that well, either. In doing research, I started seeing that many people taking these types of meds have experienced the same thing... and I've tried 3 times to taper off the Abilify without success. Every time, I go through severe withdrawal symptoms. I'm sick of this. I don't feel good, I don't feel healthy and I am almost certain my psychiatric meds are making it worse. I have a new therapist who is very supportive of holistic approaches to mental health and I have decided to talk to her about tapering off these meds. I want to get off Abilify first because I think that is the worst medication that I'm on. Then the Celexa. I'm really angry at the irresponsibility of the health professionals who put me on these meds and persuaded me, a vulnerable young person, to stay on them despite feeling like it wasn't in my best interest. I'm really angry at what's happened to my body and mind being on these medications. I'm angry at the system that allows this to happen. So... enough of my rambling... What does everyone think? I am open to questions, advice, anything really... help is very much appreciated. -Fawn

I was dependent on Topimirate (Topamax) for over 4 years, and wish Id found these sights before I started. Had I known it'd be so horrible Id have stayed away. 4 or so years ago I checked myself in the hospital determined to stop binging, purging and starving. It had been on and on since I was 13 (was 27 at the that time). A psychiatrist prescribed Topamax upon my leaving the hospital, stating I had bipolar and body dysmorphia. At first, I was petrified of not having my eating disorder as a crutch. The first few weeks I muscled through, and kept myself as distracted as possible when I found myself worrying. I dug deep into my emotions in a journal as a healthy purge. And suddenly, I didn't care, I stopped thinking about food, and just enjoyed it. I simply just stopped. I stopped binging. I stopped worrying myself into a purge. I stopped obsessing about my intake, or ruminating over weight or image. I no longer sat in front of the mirror picking my face for hours. I was normal, worrying only a bit, and then letting it pass. So at 200 mg for over 4 years, I was okay, for better or for worse. Some side effects were annoying, like thinning hair and memory issues- but they were tolerable to self destruction. Then I saw a new psychiatrist in November 2014, who said I should have never ever been put on Topamax bc I had history of an eating disorder. She gave me 150 mg, and sent me away to see her in a month. Then my insurance changed again, and I couldn't make it into the appointment bc it wasn't covered. So I tapered myself after several months on 150. About one month into my taper at 150, I began to think something was really wrong. I was still working, but my mood and mental status began to change, and physical symptoms presented themselves. Mentally, I became paranoid, somnolent, agitated easily, felt faint and alternated between exhaustion and insomnia. I had eye pain and grittiness , blurred vision and halos, headaches daily (understandable as topamax treats migraines), jaw pain, back pain high and low, arms tingling and joint pain. And around May 2015, I was showering and noticed larger amounts of hair coming out into my hands and clogging the drain. And when I looked in the mirror to put up my hair, I saw several places where I could see my scalp CLEARLY. It wasn't the simple thinning topamax caused for the 4 years, it was clumps. My eyes hurt more, and i used artificial tears about 5-6 times a day. My eyebrows and eyelashes began falling out, and pubic hair They simply weren't staying in the follicles, if I touched them with any force, they fell out. For instance when I tried to use eyeliner, they'd attach to the pencil and just sit on my cheeks, dead. It wasn't the simple thinning topamax caused for the 4 years, it was clumps. I thought I needed to go off, but at this point saw my health was deteriorating with each taper (I took myself down to 125 in June). I thought I needed support physically because something was seriously WRONG. But I could NOT find a doctor who would help me through it. Most just wanted to prescribe more psychiatric medication instead. I surmised it was all from withdrawal, as symptoms were not an issue UNTIL I decreased my dose after 4 years. However, no doctor would admit to Topamax being the issue, or assist in my body withdrawing and getting me off it with physical support. I went to three different psychiatrists, 4 holistic or integrative doctors, a rheumatologist, 4 different internists, 2 obgyns, 4 eye doctors, 2 endocrinologists. Ive spent my entire past half year going to doctors and feeling suicidal. Each wanted to put me on another brain med. I found a psychiatrist with experience in treating with Topamax, and she helped me to decrease off 125mg that I'd been on two months. I tapered from 125 to nothing over two weeks. And Ive gotten worse. Now Im having stomach issues and sebbhorheic dermatosis, and have not had my cycle since June. It is not alopecia aereata, I have been to several dermatologists. I have now been off since September, and am so desperate, I am about to go back on it. My hair got worse, my mood got worse ( I can barely do anything, think about anything else, and feel overwhelmed by life). I know this isn't me. Something is wrong and I need guidance. Does anyone experience using topamax? My most recent doctor (integrative medical doctor) is a specialist in those who have found no answers and been to every doctor you could think. He said I have autoimmunity, and inflammation. I was told me I should not have gone off the medication without some sort of medical support, and told me to go back on topamax, or take lamictal for help. It seems a bit like a hair of the dog kind of treatment, but Im at the point where I can't fight this anymore. What do you all think? PLEASE HELP.

Hi everyone, I joined this site because after 13 years of contributing to the pharmaceutical fund, and investing my retirement into the tuition of the children of my shrinks (eleven of them), only to mess up my brain chemistry and find no relief, I am tired of being on medication and looking for a way out. How it started. Fifteen years ago, I developed an eating disorder, which started as anorexia then after two years turned into bulimia. At the time, I had no other psychiatric issues. I was not depressed, did not suffer from anxiety (except relating to food) or cyclothymia... All of which I have been diagnosed with afterwards. I was started on medication immediately, before any other forms of treatment were tried. The doctor who diagnosed me with cyclothymia also had me on Topamax or Lamictal (can't quite recall), which can cause mood disturbances, mania, depression,etc. i am now convinced that I was suffering from the side effects of the drug. Also, my nutritional state was very deficient and affecting my cognitive abilities. This particular doctor was a nightmare. He had me committed to a mental institution for a month instead of considering that perhaps the drugs he had me on were responsible for my altered state. Before the medicines, I was mentally balanced. Two weeks after I started, I end up in a psych ward. The link is obvious. Its hard to keep track of what medications I have taken and when, so I will just list them, in no particular order: - prozac - zoloft - topamax - lamictal - zyprexa - cymbalta - welbutrin - xanax - effexor After six years of being a medical guinea pig, and finding no relief, I was prescribed wellbutrin, which helped significantly. At this point, I was very depressed. Wellbutrin helped me get out of bed i. The morning and helped me to get at a stable point, mentally and physically. It was the only drug that ever helped. However, after four years, I was still suffering from a chronic eating disorder I was functional but my quality of life sucked. I started working with a treatment team and the doc took me off Wellbutrin and put me on Effexor. I am now up to 225 of Effexor and wish I could go back in time and never have taken it, if I forget just one dose, the withdrawal is awful. If I go even one day without a dose, a migraine sets in. It is followed by dizziness, vertigo, brain zaps. Once the unquenchable thirst sets in, I begin to experience extreme moods that scare me and those around me. The worst part is that it hasn't really helped. I wanted so desperately to get better that I stuck out the initial side effects (anorgasmia, fatigue, nausea, dizziness) for months until I got used to the medication. Now I just sweat like I am going through menopause at 28, soak through my sheets at night, and feel blah all the time... Total apathy for everything. I feel trapped by this medication that doesn't help, but if I don't take it, I feel terrible. Slowly, my eating problems have improved, but that is through therapy, CBT, group therapy, mindfulness, yoga, and a variety of other tools. At first the Effexor seemed to help, since my eating issues were improving, but I now realize that it was a combination of the other tools I was using at the same time, which I had previously not been doing, I am planning on seeing a new doctor in two weeks to discuss going off Effexor. I would love to be drug free, but at this point I would be happy getting back on Wellbutrin or anything that is not Effexor. I am scared about getting of Effexor, since I have been doing so well despite it, but at the same time I am sick of being on it. I am happy I found a place where other people are going through something similar and appreciate your comments and thoughts.