[GreenBlueRed]

There are many experienced people here, so I wondered if I could get some thoughts on how medication for depression can potentially cause very bad side effects.

I cannot remember every medication I was on because I was 14 and that era of life is fuzzy in general. I know I took Paxil and Effexor, at least, and I think another med.

While I was on medication I started to get severe shaking/twitching, severe insomnia (I did not sleep for four days straight at one point, and then slept for 22 hours straight), and then I began to experience schizophrenia-like symptoms such as hearing whispering voices, visual hallucinations, and paranoia. I thought clouds were trying to eat me, for example. I also thought Jesus was talking to me through the snow in the television set, and that I could communicate psychically with animals and trees. It got worse, but I think this illustrates enough.

I haven't heard of anyone having these severe reactions before, or have they? Was my cocktail just really messed up? I was taken off the medication due to the side effects and recovered fully. There was only one incident, some ten years later, where my brain seemed to short out and I had a paranoid delusion that someone poisoned my drink - I was absolutely convinced of it even though I poured it, was watching it the entire time, and was the only person there - but that only lasted about 30 minutes. Nothing like it has ever happened again.

Has this happened to anyone else? Are kids still prescribed a generous cocktail of antidepressants?

[kkrrhh]

I've actually had a somewhat similar situation where I became psychotic from meds, although it involved MAOIs and seemed to be from switching meds around too quickly. I don't know about the age thing, but my guess is some docs would tell you that could've been part of it. Have you tried any meds since?

Also, there any chance you could be bipolar? You probably would've had mania and more symptoms since then, but just a thought since some of those symptoms could go along with mania induced by meds.

[GreenBlueRed]

Originally Posted by kkrrhh

I've actually had a somewhat similar situation where I became psychotic from meds, although it involved MAOIs and seemed to be from switching meds around too quickly. I don't know about the age thing, but my guess is some docs would tell you that could've been part of it. Have you tried any meds since?

Also, there any chance you could be bipolar? You probably would've had mania and more symptoms since then, but just a thought since some of those symptoms could go along with mania induced by meds.

My prescriptions might have been changed frequently, and I wish I had some record of exactly what I was taking and when, and whom was perscribing. It seems like my medications were mishandled. It should not have gotten so bad. My mother was the one to take me off the medication, not the doctor.

I do not think I am bipolar. I show no symptoms of any disorder anymore. As a child, I was diagnosed with major depression and OCD. I likely also had panic disorder.

This all pretty much stopped after the medication was stopped. Maybe something was "righted", who knows.