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Originally Posted by qwerty68
I just had my appointment. It went much better than I thought it would given my pdoc was against my tapering off everything. He still is but was very supportive and let me know he is there for me if things go good or bad. That was nice to know.
I told him I agree with him that this is going to end badly, but I think it is worth it to not deal with side-effects and saying that I am sensitive to psychotropics is a understatement. My pdoc says he has never seen anyone more sensitive than I am. 
I will probably crash and end up in the psych ward again but if I can even have one day that I am somewhere near normal that would be worth it. I do have lots of energy now that my testosterone levels are coming back to normal but it is not really a very good thing because it seems to make my anxiety and depression worse somehow. I really don't think I will crash so badly I become actively suicidal. I am so used to my depression since I have had it for so long and I am started to be accustomed to anxiety and psychosis. I have suicidal thoughts daily for nearly 2 decades so even that is "normal" to me. We will see.
I am just waiting on my new prescription in the mail to start my Remeron taper. This one scares me the most as I forgot to take it once and woke up with physically painful anxiety so I am going to do it very slowly. I am going to step down 7.5mg at a time and stop and reassess at 15mg. It is worthless to me as an antidepressant but it helps me sleep and the last time I was at 15mg I had no side-effects. Before Remeron, I would be up for 30-50 hours straight and that did me no favors. I am going to try to get past 30mg quickly because that dosage causes me significant weight gain and I have lost about 50 pounds in the last year and gaining anything more than 5 would be disheartening.
After that, Klonopin but I only take 1mg a day so I am hoping it is not too painful. |
I'm very sorry you're going through this.
I applaud you for wanting to get off the meds due to side-effects. I was on meds for 13+ years for bipolar 2 with tons of strange and bizarre side-effects including having my jaw lock 3 times for 14 hours each, shutting down my colon for a good month, hand tremors to the point I couldn't write, memory loss to the point I almost failed a college class I should have aced with my eye closed, horrific anxiety, depression and finally a receding hairline that freaked me out. Maybe others don't experience this sort of thing, but I was so sick on meds I was almost bedridden, and it was shocking when I got off them how much better I felt!
I now use amino acids and the natural mineral supplement lithium orotate to control my bipolar with great success. My mood has been far more stable since I've been doing this for the last 9 years than it ever was on meds.
With your RLS, try soaking in epsom salts or increase you magnesium as meds block the body's ability to utilize magnesium as well as depleting it in detoxing the meds through the liver. You could also get a RLS cream that contains magnesium or use magnesium oil or gel on your legs to settle them down. If you use magnesium oil and it stings, it's a sign that your body is low on magnesium so dilute it with some purified or distilled water.
Here's an article about how to get off your anti-depressant without becoming deathly ill by giving your brain what it needs in the form of amino acids.
How To Get Off Your Antidepressant Without Going Insane
Another great resource for coming off meds is the book Break Your Prescribed Addiction by Billie Sahley. I have the book, and it's a more in-depth discussion of how to get off meds safely.
Break Your Prescribed Addiction by Bille Sahley, PhD-painstress
With testosterone, I listen to various alternative radio/tv shows and one large show sells their own health products a top naturopath developed for them. One of their top sellers is Super Male Vitality that increases testosterone naturally. They have thousands of 5 star reviews from men saying how much better they feel on it so it might be something to look into.
http://www.infowarsstore.com/super-male-vitality.html
Another thing to think about is supplementing with iodine for your thyroid. I have subclinical hypothyroidism where my blood tests are normal but I have symptoms so doctors are leary of treating me. I started taking iodine several years ago, and then recently switched to nascent [ionic] iodine produced by the same naturopath who developed Super Male Vitality. I take a high dose of it, and after about 3 months, my hair that has started going gray when I was 21 and was completely white in front is now getting darker. It's also getting thicker on top where I had some thinning so to say I'm thrilled is an understand. Another truly remarkable thing I've noticed is that I didn't develop my yearly SAD as the days got shorter. It can only be the iodine as even with the amino acids I've always had it, but with the iodine, my mood is fabulous without being hypomanic. A low functioning thyroid is going to make you depressed. Here's a video about iodine by Dr. Edward Group, the developer of this: