[My Paper Heart]

I typically succumb to un-endurable side effects from psych meds but, much to my psychiatrist's surprise, I'm doing really well with Anafranil. It's been 5 weeks since I started it and it's helped my OCD, anxiety, perfectionism, anger, germaphobia, and more.

HOWEVER. I'm having to deal with one side effect and it's truly becoming a pain in my ***. The Anafranil is seriously screwing with my body's ability to regulate my temperature. I am constantly hot and unless I'm sitting in front of a fan, I'm always sweating. I've had to lower the AC in my apartment by 3 degrees.

I can deal -- unhappily -- with that but when I nearly pass out from heat stroke just doing laundry (which I have to climb up + down stairs to get to the laundry facility) then that's a different story.

I love the effect the med is having on my psych issues but I have to figure out how to deal with this before it becomes intolerable. Anyone ever deal with this before? Any suggestions on how to deal with it?

[*Laurie*]

This seems to be a common and miserable problem with many psych meds. I have posted about it - just a few days ago, in fact. (The post on this board titled "Drenched".)

I wish I knew what to do about the temperature regulation problem. It is so very uncomfortable and embarrassing when I'm with other people. Sometimes I can be in a place in which the temperature is low and cool; still I might have feelings of extreme heat and sweat as though I'm standing in the hot sun.

As an aside - can you explain what your diagnosis is, and how Anafranil is helping you? Thanks very much.

[My Paper Heart]

The insane sweating is one thing -- my Vocational Rehab counselor even said it reminded her of menopause -- but the heat stroke symptoms... That's utterly ridiculous. I've been dealing with psych meds for 13 years and I've tried almost everything but this is the first time I've had issues with body temperature regulation. (Or maybe I was too distracted to notice it because of the vertigo that most of them caused?)

My official diagnosis is Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (plus an "Unspecified Personality Disorder" which is almost-but-not-really Borderline Personality Disorder) but I have a lot of actual OCD tendencies. Since Anafranil is technically the only FDA approved medicine to help OCD, I convinced the psychiatrist to try it (my psychologist suggested it).

It's helped me in a lot of ways but the biggest effects are:
- I'm less stringent about following the exact order my routines are done in.
- It's chilled out my anger... It's a Borderline thing for emotions to be extreme, all or nothing. With the Anafranil, I get mad instead of enraged and burning with anger. Plus the anger lasts a lot less time than before.
- My base mood is content or mellow instead of sad or down.
- I'm a lot less depressed. I've been depressed for so long that I have literally (i.e., according to the psychologist) forgotten what it feels like to be happy... So I don't know if this is what it's like to be happy but it's definitely the closest I've been in almost 20 years.
- I'm usually less anxious than before, or at least things seem less intimidating than before.
- I tend to procrastinate less since I seem to have a bit more energy or motivation to get stuff done. (So I'm also getting more done in less time.)