Meds not helping

I was put onto a med called Risperdal.... I was told that it would help with both my bi-polar mania and my psychotic episodes. It has helped with the bi-polar mania part but if anything the things I see and hear are worse than ever!! I am on the verge of a mental breakdown and don't know what to do to control the audio-visual stuff that is going on. Does anyone have any suggestions?

GWD

If your symptoms have gotten worse and are on the verge of breaking down you need to call the doctor who rx'd them and look at changing to a different medication.

he is only in one week out of each month... I have an appointment with him on the 15th

He might only be in that particular office one week per month, but there must be some way to contact him or someone in his absence for something like this. You need support when beginning a new med and you can't wait until the 15th. Maybe someone at the office where you see him can contact him to let him know you need help now.

Can you call your therapist for some guidance about what to do about the increase in your symtoms?

My therapist is an idiot that doesn't listen to me when I say that something is wrong he says to quit self diagnosing.... the nurse for the Psychiatrist that prescribed me the meds can only lower the dosage on meds... and I have asked her to contact the doctor many times... she told me that I am going to have to wait till he gets here because he doesn't have my file with him ... all the doctors that i see in the office I go to all use the one file on me... I now only have a week to wait for the 15th so I guess I get to wait another week.... I'm just so tired of seeing and hearing things and the therapist not listening to me when I say that they are still there

At least you know they're not real and are just obnoxiously annoying.

I think Katie Kaboom is bipolar and has had similar problems with her meds and I think she's very enjoyable to talk with: http://forums.psychcentral.com/showf...5&o=93&fpart=1 maybe read her recent posts in several forums and talk with her.

I think if I were in your shoes I'd make as much fun of the audio visual mess as I could, treat it like a horror movie or convert it into whatever genre you enjoy. Maybe you can influence the images/sounds so they're more friendly while you wait for your pdoc to get to you. When you do see him on the 15th, I'd give him a piece of your mind about not providing support with you on a new med like Echoes says.

the med is helping with the bipolar stuff... it is the psychotic stuff that is getting to me... after almost a year of them getting worse and worse.... and in the last month even worse than ever... I am about to breakdown and loose it.... I am just glad that it is only a little less than a week away before I get to see the doctor and get more help from him.... the therapist is useless that is for sure

Aw thank you Perna

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I was put onto a med called Risperdal.... I was told that it would help with both my bi-polar mania and my psychotic episodes. It has helped with the bi-polar mania part but if anything the things I see and hear are worse than ever!! I am on the verge of a mental breakdown and don't know what to do to control the audio-visual stuff that is going on. Does anyone have any suggestions?

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How long have you been on Risperdal? Antipsychotics should decrease the psychotic symptoms pretty quickly, much faster than antidepressants work on depression (2-3 weeks, even longer than that)

So if it ain't helping you with the psychosis at all, then it might be that it's not the right med for you. :/ By the way, I think doctors usually let you call them if you need help in cases like this?

That's for all the medical stuff.. I think psychosis can be somewhat tolerable when you acknowledge that what you see is not real, but at the same time it is very real to you. Like if wires were put in your head and the wires were connected to a monitor, and you saw or heard something, it would show in the monitor that you are hearing or seeing, or whatever.

So nobody can tell you that you're just "imagining" things.

After all, it's just a disorder in the brain.. And for some time, you can't do anything about it, but it makes it less scary when you think that your brain is not working very well right now, and that's why you hear or see things.

What I do is that whenever I hallucinate or whatever, I keep telling myself that they are merely the product of the temporary disorder in my brain. Emphasis again on the temporary.

When you go see your doctor, and your psychotic symptoms have not decreased, ask if you can change the antipsychotic med. Also, if the symptoms are so severe that you can't take them, you can ask for a tranquilizer or something like that. Maybe 25 mg of Seroquel. It relieves stress a lot, and it's not addictive like tranquilizers can be if you take them regularly.

Anyway, this was my input, hope any of it was helpful. Try to hang in there. It's tough, but you can pull through.

花鳥風月

c'est tout ce que j'aime

I called the clinic and spoke to the nurse.... she said that there wasn't anything the doctor could do until he got back to this office next week... so I wait for that.

as for asking for something different... believe me... I plan to... the doctor and nurse both told me though that if I wasn't better that they would put me in the hospital for safety reasons... I am a hazard to myself.

it isn't easy for me but I work on coping as much as I can... taking each day one step at a time.... not always fun but it is the only way to do things sometimes. Telling myself that the thing that is attacking me isn't real hasn't helped much but I think it makes things more difficult when the therapist tells you to quit self-diagnosing when you tell them that they're still there.... plan to be requesting a new therapist as well it seems.

Saying that your hallucinations are still there isn't self-diagnosing. It seems weird that you reporting your therapist that you're seeing things is, to your therapist, something you shouldn't do. A new T might just be in order.

Therapists tend to tell all their patients to stop worrying about the diagnosis and self-diagnosing, as if they thought we "wanted" the diagnoses. We just want to know why things are happening.

As for thinking what you see is attacking you.. It indeed is a tricky situation. I'm still struggling with some "delusions" as my doctor say, and on some level I acknowledge that they are a bit far out but they are still controlling my life.

Hospital is a good option especially in your case.. No point in trying to cope on your own if you're not sure you can take care of yourself so that you won't harm yourself. Also, if you get your meds changed, it gets done much faster there.

Hope everything turns out okay. Let us know how you're doing

花鳥風月

c'est tout ce que j'aime

it was actually the fact that I was looking up the stuff that I was diagnosed with.... if a doctor told me that I had Bipolar I went and looked it up so I knew what it was all about and what types of therapies and drugs were used to help with it.... he wasn't understanding that I was looking up the background of what the disorders were not what I thought I had.... I will be with a new therapist as of the 30th of January... I talked to the head of the place that I go to and she changed the person I will be seeing to a different person that she thinks will work better with me... we found out that my meds that I was on weren't a high enough dosage for me instead of it helping completely it was actually a hindrance... now that my meds are regulated and they have me on a combination of meds instead of just the one I am doing much better and feeling great... it took 3 days in the hospital and maintenance of my meds to the right levels but I am finally getting to a normalcy that I have never had before... it is sure great being able to look forward to my future instead of looking at it as a never ending cycle of pain and suffering for me.

thanks to you all for the support ... I knew there was a reason that I was drawn to this site and I now know that I am far from being alone in this world... they plan to give me a couple of months to get used to the new dosage and new meds then will be getting me on a couple others to help with the other issues like Anxiety.... I look forward to the day that I can make plans to leave the house without totally panicking.