See Pdoc, Here's a Pic!

So for years I've been telling various doctors and therapists that my normal weight was 110 lbs. (I'm 5'6"), and that I've gained 125 lbs. since starting Seroquel. They always have the same reaction...slight nod, vague expression. A bored an disbelieving, "hummm...".

It took me a few years, but today I got an idea.

I had an appointment with my pdoc. I took a photograph of myself taken 10 years ago to the appointment and I placed it on her desk. She picked it up and looked shocked. She even looked nervous. She said, "Oh! OH! This...I wouldn't have known you...I...OH..."

Yeah. Do you get it now, pdoc? These meds are poisoning me. Causing me to pack on weight, causing my blood pressure to spike, causing my cholesterol and glucose to go up. This stuff is killing me. Yes, some of it is necessary and okay, but some of it is unnecessary and a waste.


*I guess it's true that a picture is worth 1,000 words.*


Pdoc is titrating me down and off the damned Seroquel (I keep telling them it isn't doing anything for me except causing weight gain and making me sleepy all day).
She gave her okay for me to stop the useless Gabapentin. An absolute waste of a med for me.
I told her I don't want to go any higher on Lamictal because it causes a tremor and I cannot do art work with a tremor- and I think my dose is high enough, anyway. So I'm staying at 150mg.
She finally listened when I told her for the 75th time that Cymbalta is not helping me at all. She's switched me over to Paxil.
(Klonopin - another story. I've been taking it for over 20 years, so stopping it is going to be a huge undertaking. But at least the K-pin isn't causing weight gain or other health problems.)

I left feeling victorious. I no longer want to be unheard and overmedicated. I don't want to continue being in chronic pain from too much weight gain. I want to be able to do physical activities like I used to. I do not want to keep fighting not falling asleep every minute of every day.

From now on, I'm taking that photo with me to every doctor's and therapist's appointment until each one of them sees it and believes my truth.
I signed up for a free week at a gym in my town. If I like it, I'll join. I have hope and determination again.

I only wish I would have thought to take that picture to doctor's appointments years ago.

GREAT idea!

I'm glad you stood up for yourself.

Since pdocs aren't the ones taking these psych meds, what do they care? I'm sure *some* of them are naturally conscientious, but most of them just try to rush you in and out.

I swear these conversations with pdocs are like a merry-go-round. You go on it, go in a bunch of circles for like 3 minutes at most, then hop off to end up right back where you started. Then if you want to get back on the ride, you have to walk to the end of the line after everybody else and wait until there's space for you. And the same thing happens every time you go on and off that merry-go-round.

Some pdocs.........

good for you for talking honestly with your pdoc, I hope your med change goes smoothly and i hope you enjoy the gym.

Paxil have been good to me. The weight gain is momentary. It went away with the energy it gave me.
The worst drugs are sold in a pharmacy.

Thank you all! I wanted to pass this along just in case anyone else can use my "method" . I'm certainly not looking to go back to weighing 110 lbs. (I was underweight, anyway)- but losing 50 would be a fine start and would, I hope, drop some of the unhealthy levels and help with chronic pain.

blue, your analogy is hilarious! Exactly - back to the end of the line .

Damn fantastic idea !!!!!!!!!

I’m glad your Pdoc is sitting up and paying attention now.

I think others here will do this now.

Hope you enjoy the gym

Good work Laurie.

I often wonder if the drug companies developed psych drugs to cause these side effects to sell more drugs to treat the side effects they cause.

Drug companies should be REQUIRED by the FDA to get rid of the unhealthy side effects before approving a drug.

Only time I was on Seroquel was after a trauma to help me sleep & stop the nightmares. I was anirexic at the time so it didn't have the weight gain effect though I am sure my pdoc wished it had.

I did that to my pdoc too, though it was a bit of the opposite way around. I gave her pictures (since in the 1990s, I didn't have anything like a digital camera and was still using prints & polaroids) just to hit home how bad to her my anorexia had been. Because I was never hospitalized I don't think she knew. She saw the pictures, and was so shocked, she was like "Oh, my God." Perhaps I need to do it with the new pdoc too, not those pictures exactly (or maybe those too, just so he understands because you can say you have had anorexia, but if it was lost in charts decades ago, if you were never hospitalized for it, people seem to find it hard to believe), but give him a before & after picture of me with my ulcer surgery. I lost over 20 lb., and I didn't really have anything to lose (weighed 120-125 lb. at 5'5" before the surgery). I still get the "But you look so healthy now!" Well, I guess I do, compared to weighing to 80 lb. It's ironic people think I look healthy at such a low BMI; this country is just messed up when it comes to weight, especially women and weight. I saw some ad on TV just yesterday touting a woman's weight loss with before and after pictures. The before picture was like 130 lb., nowhere near obese, and the after picture was 98 lb., and she was raving about her new body and new-found confidence. Yeah, touting her new-found eating disorder, more like to me.

My gababpentin is prescribed to me by my rheumatologist along with the Tizandine (now that one does help) for fibromyalgia. I have to wait until I see her again to bring that up. They can no longer prescribe me a lot of the fibro meds like piroxicam, meloxicam, etc. because they contain NSAIDs.

I hope the med changes will help you not only feel better about yourself but also help with the stuff like high cholesterol and blood pressure.

Careful on the Paxil though...you know SSRIs and BP are often not a good mix for many. They tend to turn me hypomanic and then full-blown manic, but my old pdoc would use them in the short term (mostly Effexor & Wellbutrin), 3-4 months if I was in a deep depression.

cin,

Had major depression & my first time with anorexia that landed me in treatment & numerous medical hospital stays seemed initially triggered by prozac. Side effects were either weight loss or weight gain. My body & mind went for the weight loss guess because my bodies normal reaction to anxiety always has been weight loss. Pdoc didn't get it. Then changed to Wellbutrin that had the same effect.....while none of the meds had ant
Y effect on my depression... come to realize it was totally situational & there wasn't a med in the world that could have fixed the cause.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sort of the same for me; some meds helped more with the depression. One of them though, the first one I was ever given, Remeron, is horrendous for weight gain. Just google it, read about it, nearly every single person who takes it gains weight. Yeah, that wasn't good for an eating disorder either; I just started working harder at making myself throw up.

Mostly cognitive behavior therapy helped me with the eating disorder. I did the cognitive behavior stuff on my own and then several years later learned about it, and I was like, OMG, that's exactly what I did on my own to help my eating disorder. And it is something you have to want to get over anyway; with that, no amount of hospitalization helps unless you want to recover. My moods though still fluctuate, and my anxiety has been awful since I was an accidental shooting victim in grad school. I had to love it when the police told me, "We caught the guy who did it. Oh, but don't worry. He was aiming to shoot out the glass patio door of the girl living beneath you, not your glass balcony door. He just had a bad aim and missed." Like that was some reassurance and nobody cared a wit about helping me get over that. I ended up in one of the worst psych hospitals in Houston (because I had no insurance). I even refused to pay them after they billed me thousands for a horrific experience. I got collection calls awhile, changed my number, ended up with a cell phone (still didn't have smartphones then), finally moved in with my now-husband when we got engaged, got married, changed my name...they shut up when I threatened to go after them with a lawyer. They have got to be one of the most horrid psych hospitals in the entire U.S. I still get bad depression and mania. Mostly the Lamictal/Seroquel combo has calmed that down. The depression was awful after I had ulcer surgery Feb. 2018 though. The aftermath was so painful; I had to take care of my family, and it hurt SO BAD physically. Nothing relieved it. That was a very low point.

I might be helped by a therapist...but I've seen, I don't know, 12, 13 in my life and haven't clicked with a single one. I think I've given up on it for now.

ladies you have struggled a lot.
hugs to you both(((((HUGS))))
bizi

I feel that this is about first impressions, and when a Pdoc or whatever sees you for the first time....that’s their idea of you, so anything said after that is like ‘yeah okay’ for they are treating the you they know and see, not the you they don’t know or haven’t seen. So if you come in for the first time all big looking and they not knowing of the slim and trim you....they’ll probably think “so what’s a little more weight?”.

The picture method is such a great idea, they need to pin this, imho.

Good luck!

I have also found that many psychiatrists let some bad side effects "slide". Though I have found for myself that some side effects were totally unacceptable, others I've endured and have sometimes been glad I did.

I agree that a 125 lb gain is way beyond acceptable in many ways. I'm happy you finally said enough and will hopefully be put on a medication mix that not only helps you, but allows you to lose the weight fairly quickly. Perhaps you may still need to diet, but dieting on a more weight friendly medication can be far easier than on one that is unfriendly.

It is interesting how some meds are very weight unfriendly for some people and not others. For example, Lithium was weight neutral for me while others say it made them gain weight. Depakote and Invega along with depression made me gain 30 lbs. Though regular Seroquel made me somewhat prone to weight gain, Seroquel XR is fairly weight neutral for me.