The Meds You Fear the Most?.

pirilin - Whatever you do, don't do it in two months. My asshole (assholette. lol!) pdoc had me wean off of four milligrams of clonazepam in two months. Too fast! Do it nice and slow. You'll save yourself a lot of hurt.

So far it's working for me too.

Will do. Thanks!. I don't pay any attention to the shrinks. I'm my own shrink.
Only I don't have a pad. It's us who suffer the consecuences.
They (the ones I have/had) don't care.

P.S. You like those words don't you. Lol.

Ritalin gave me rage, anxiety, uncontrollable twitching, and a ton of other uncomfortable systems, as if everything was off.

I've been on the med I was afraid of so many times now that I don't fear many of them. Clozaril was the last one I feared and mostly I feared going on it b/c had to rapid taper Seroquel. The greatest fear would be clozaril not working which would leave me with very few options. I think ECT is next and that doesn't scare me much for whatever reason.

I agree that lithium was a great drug for me, despite repeat toxicities. It kept me more stable, less psychotic and with less cycling for years.

I was afraid of lithium when I was first given it, Seroquel for many years b/c the psych facility I worked in had a dr who used it to snow people and I thought that was how it worked. I thought zyprexa sounded awful; it was like drinking water. Etc, etc, etc.

One thing I had to give up which probably helps is that non-life-threatening side effects are just things I have to accept and do what I can to work with. I don't get to say that I want to quit b/c I don't like the weight gain because there isn't anything to replace that med. That probably made meds less scary because I accept them as they are and do what I can to help make them tolerable. Not fun but necessary.

Same here.

That is a bit simplistic. It hasn't been shown to do that in my brain or all brains. Too much might definitely do that, but it is per se bad because too much always is. Too little causes similar problems. The right amount varies greatly per individual. Most brains (obviously) don't need any.

If you don't need them, sure don't, but too quickly mistrusting something that helps against mistrusting is something you should try to avoid, since for some it is really needed to function at all, in any way.

Edit:
It's also a bit too early to tell whether atypical antipsychotics are really better, but it seems likely.

Another edit:
Basically, the brain is full of paradoxes. And so is life.

Word of the day. Lol!

Lamictal. I developed an allergy (after taking it 8 years with no problems), complete with the dreaded (possibly deadly) Lamictal RASH!! It was all over my body, especially on my thighs. It was like welts or hives. SO incredibly itchy. I was miserable. I was being treated by a GP at the time for my bipolar, not a pdoc, and she stupidly put my on a HIGH dose of steroids and NO mood stabilizer or antipsychotic to counteract them. So this Bipolar 2 chick ended up completely MANIC (not hypo) out of her mind! I had to be hospitalized for 3 days to get stable again. Grrr.... That sucked. But I now know that my local hospital is actually quite pleasant and a safe place to be in case of emergency. And I got to be treated by my favorite pdoc who I am still seeing. So it all worked out in the end.

I also would not want to be on Zyprexa or Depakote again, as they made me gain weight quickly. I had a weird side-effect with Zyprexa: when I closed my eyes to fall asleep, I felt this strange sensation of energy rushing toward my face. Really trippy and not helpful for having peaceful sleep. :-P

Seroquel and Depakote ... they made me fat last year! Lost all the weight when I went off them.

Prozac made me suicidal. It was the most horrible drug I've ever taken. My baseline is horrible suicidal depression and it hangs over me all the time like a big black cloud that you can damn near see. After about 8 days on Prozac EVERYONE around me was telling me how much better I was. BUT what it did was turn that black cloud inward. AND it shorted something out in my brain. I couldn't cry all I could do was smile and nod. Inside I was screaming and dying and outside I was the best I'd been since I was a child. My every waking moment was spent contemplating how I was going to kill myself. Then I'd go to sleep and dream about it.... if it were actually true that if you die in your sleep you die IRL then I wouldn't be here. At day 23 I knew it was me or it and I flushed them down the toilet.

I will never ever take that crap again.

Lithium, any anti-psychotic.