medication/ good or not good that is the question

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kmhowe72
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kmhowe72 »

I was on paxil and ridilyn and all that. But I choose when I got pregnant with my son. I dumped all that meds. That I was on for years. And I was a much nicer person. First they diagnosed me with bipolor, and then borderline personality disorder. I was neither. after I was taken off the medication. My theripist relized they made a horrible mistake. and I was never given a pill since. they made those diagnoses because I was on the meds , that made me that way. Especially the paxil.

My mother had the same problem , and so did my dad, my sister, and my husband. and now were all pill free. I they relized I had post traumatic distress disorder. From something that happened eight years ago. I also took what was called dbt classes. Delect behavior treatment, and did wonders.:-6



My advice get off the pills if you can.
kmhowe
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abbey
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by abbey »

I hope you had a word with your doc before coming off the pills!
kmhowe72
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kmhowe72 »

of corse I did. But they were the ones who made the mistake. Medicine like that cause birth defects early on in the first stages of pregnancy. Thats what I was told. Therapy was alot more perductive.
kmhowe
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abbey
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by abbey »

kmhowe72 wrote: of corse I did. But they were the ones who made the mistake. Medicine like that cause birth defects early on in the first stages of pregnancy. Thats what I was told. Therapy was alot more perductive.Thats good then.
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nvalleyvee
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by nvalleyvee »

I think some doctors are far too quick to prescribe medication. I also think that medication and its effects on an individual are between the doctor and patient. I do not know much about anti-depressants. I know ridalin is prescribed for ADD but maybe it is prescribed for other things. I really think this is between you and your doc. Good luck.
The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement..........Karl R. Popper
Tan
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by Tan »

You must have been frustrated, especially after being misdiagnosed like that. I agree with nvalleyvee that doctors easily turn to quick solutions like that. One of my friends works as a pharmacy technician and has noticed a connection with the prescriptions from specific doctors and their 'favorite' types of medication. And why do they carry all those free samples? I wish I had a better undertanding of this part of the health industry myself.
Tan
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anastrophe
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by anastrophe »

as nvalleyvee said - between doctor and patient. sometimes doctors make mistakes. sometimes patients make mistakes. more often than not, neither happens.

if it weren't for antidepressants, i believe i'd have killed myself years ago. i'm glad i live in a time in history when they're available.

not all people respond the same to different meds. i know for a fact that prozac was not the ideal antidepressant for me - it made me much more hostile and aggressive. but the meds i'm on now don't affect me that way. they simply yank the plug on the overwhelming feelings of self-loathing that are there otherwise.

for other people, therapy alone may be the best way. each of us is unique. what works for one won't necessarily work for others.

the question is not whether medication is good or not good. the question is, what is the best path for you.
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nvalleyvee
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by nvalleyvee »

anastrophe wrote: as nvalleyvee said - between doctor and patient. sometimes doctors make mistakes. sometimes patients make mistakes. more often than not, neither happens.

if it weren't for antidepressants, i believe i'd have killed myself years ago. i'm glad i live in a time in history when they're available.

not all people respond the same to different meds. i know for a fact that prozac was not the ideal antidepressant for me - it made me much more hostile and aggressive. but the meds i'm on now don't affect me that way. they simply yank the plug on the overwhelming feelings of self-loathing that are there otherwise.

for other people, therapy alone may be the best way. each of us is unique. what works for one won't necessarily work for others.

the question is not whether medication is good or not good. the question is, what is the best path for you.


Good for you Paul - you stuck with the problem with your doctor. I've known several people who say the same thing you do....it saved their sanity. I've also known several people who were sooooo over medicated they could not function. I've also known some people who were much better off with therapy. I really believe in a close doctor/patient relationship which involves a lot of honesty to solve any problem.
The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement..........Karl R. Popper
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mominiowa
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by mominiowa »

My doctor told us when my dad had passed away and mom needed something to help with her depression -that a little Zoloft in the water system would be a God Send......Hee hee - I love the fact that I am a better person becuase of the little blue pill........and nope its not VIAGRA! LOL :wah: Just Zoloft!


~~The Family~~

Happiness is knowing where you come from...

Who you are...

And why you are here.....
kmhowe72
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kmhowe72 »

Yes ridlyn in my case was taking for what they thought I had was ADHD. Attention defiet hyperactive disorder. But when I took it . It made me very angry and sometimes not a good person to be around. I am so relieved that I am not on it anymore. I was whole host of meds. They put me Welbruten, and I couldn't move. I was parelized or something. Then I was on Klinapine, boy that was mistake. i got in a car accident on that stuff. i don't know what those people were thinking. I wasn't seeing anything that was not their. then I was Lithium. wwhich was supose help with the manic I felt by taking the paxil. i totally went off the loop on that. Then they had me on Depakoat, which was to help the lithium. Then I got pregnant I never touched the stuff again. I am down to once a month with my theripist . I don't even need to see here. But I do. Delect behavior treatment is group meeting were they teach how to deal with acceptence, and mindfulness. And how to deal with stressful moments. Like one time they gave us a small box. And we would put things in the box that made us happy. and whenever we were stressed we would open it.

Also to write in Journals. Those are very good things Color. You want to know why I am so good in crafts. Because I am a very stressed individual. So I craft. Besides I have to have my children learn the right way of dealing with stress. Throwing phones and stuff is not what I want my children to learn.

Well I am going to bed it is 12:01 on the east coast of the U.S. I'll see you lovely brits five or six pm your time today. Talk to later.:wah:
kmhowe
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nvalleyvee
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by nvalleyvee »

I was prescribed anti-depressants about 17 years ago by a doc. It was very bad for me as I was not clinically depressed. I went to another doc and things went very well from there - I needed therapy. I know there is a grave difference between the two and it is bad when people get put on drugs without a full evaluation. It is also bad when people don't get drugs without a full evaluation. I cried A LOT during chemo and the psych nurse kept trying to put me on anti-depressants - I was physically sick and it was hard but because I had been through the drug thing before I did not go on them. That is just me - having been to docs before and knowing my psyche.
The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement..........Karl R. Popper
kumininexile
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kumininexile »

Just Zoloft!



Mominiowa:

Please be aware of a very embarassing side effect of Zoloft that the doctors don't like to tell patients about if the Zoloft is otherwise helping a patient: frequent and urgent defecation.

If you're having this problem and haven't known what to attribute it to, this may be the answer. Your doctor can always switch you to some other kind of antidepressant. On the other hand, if this is a manageable problem for you, (unlike how it was for me,) keep taking the Zoloft, I guess.

At some point in the future, I may post a copy of a personal horror story I have

to tell, regarding the above.
kumininexile
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kumininexile »

[/QUOTE]At some point in the future, I may post a copy of a personal horror story I have to tell, regarding the above.




O.K., here it is, my personal horror story, due in part to Zoloft. This is a true story, unfortunately. The reason I gave it a title was because I've been distributing copies of it in order to make an important point:



INFLIGHT DISRUPTIONS? THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO THAT STORY!



by



Philip A. Kumin





December 31, 1998 fell on a Thursday that year. During the ensuing week, the Midwest and Northeast were blanketed by consecutive snowfalls but, nonetheless, I decided on the spur of the moment to go and visit a couple of friends in Iowa. I didn't attach any importance to the fact that I was asked by the reservations agent with whom I spoke, to give the airline my social security number.

I left Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. on January 8 at the crack of dawn, during a moderate snowfall. For the first leg of my trip, I was on a Continental Airlines 737 to Cleveland. I do not recall anything particularly odd about this early morning flight, on a plane in which most of the seats were unoccupied. I had no inkling of the colossal humiliation which was to befall me as the day, and the weekend commenced.

Let me explain.

For the previous six or seven years, I had been taking an anti-depressant medication called Zoloft. I do not recall the psychiatrist who was prescribing it for me, ever advising me of this medication's most dire side effect: that of increased and urgent defecation. Plainly put, Zoloft makes a lot of people who take it **** like a goose. Sadly, I was one of those people.

Another factor in my life at that time, was the backlash of resentment aimed at me due to the self-publication of my autobiography, EX-INMATE IN EXILE, and my subsequent sale of several hundred copies throughout the Baltimore area. I didn't exactly endear myself to the cops in Baltimore with my reference to them as pigs, therein. This is the only explanation I can think of as to why I was being followed by undercover agents, as I evidently was. One day in 1995 these

pigs were right behind me, video cameras in hand, as I crapped in my pants in public while wearing shorts.

Let's cut, for a moment, to another dimension of my life at the time.

For many years the downtown Baltimore neighborhood of Mount Vernon, in which I live, was served by a 24/7 greasy spoon restaurant known as the White Tower Buttery. I had been a 3:00 a.m. regular there for years and, of late, so was an obnoxious lawyer who was known in the downtown area for his flamboyant lifestyle and swaggering gait. We'll call him Lazzaro Buttkus,

fictitiously. Buttkus could be found in just about any of the gin joints in downtown Baltimore, saucing up the ladies. In the Buttery one night, he overheard me refer to him as a pig. It wasn't long thereafter that the Buttery, graciously, went out of business. But Buttkus let it be known to me that he had some unpleasantries in store for me as a payback for my insult. Evidently in the context of his law practice, he had access to one of Maryland's U.S. Senators, Barbara A.

Mikulski, (Her real name.)

Now we can get back to me in the midst of my trip to Iowa.

After landing in Cleveland my next flight was to be on one of those twin-engined turboprops, also owned by Continental Airlines. Because of the smaller size of this plane, it was not connected to any of the jetways which normally come out to meet the larger planes as they dock at the gate. Instead we were driven to the location on the tarmac where this plane was parked, in order to get on.

There wasn't more than a half dozen people on this flight, along with a junior-level pilot, copilot, and one young, goodlooking stewardess. I sat by the window in the first row of seats across from the door. Across the aisle from me sat what appeared to be a heavyset middle-aged man who kept eyeing me disdainfully throughout the entire flight. Though we took off without incident, there seemed to be some consistent, minor commotion occurring in the cockpit of this

small plane from the moment we all got on. When I first got on the stewardess had been chatty, but only in a nervous, embarrassed sort of way. Throughout the short flight to Detroit, she kept running up to the cockpit to look at something apprehensively, before sitting down in her seat again. We landed in Detroit, taxied to a designated spot again, and I stood up to get off. Partly out of curiosity and partly out of an effort to be social, I asked the stewardess if a body of water we had just flown over had been Lake Erie. She was still peering mysteriously into the cockpit and at precisely the same moment that I asked my innocent question, she appeared to have seen something that shocked her. Instead of answering my question, she brushed by me as quickly as

she could in a complete state of flustered embarrassment, and insisted she didn't know the answer to my question. It was left up to the heavyset, middle-aged man to furtively acknowledge that we had flown over Lake Erie. As I stood waiting to exit the airplane, I glanced over nonchalantly at this middle-aged guy who was still scowling at me. He looked me straight in the eye and made a

point of holding himself erect in his seat, in all of his supposed squeaky-clean, fascist, All-American glory. I had heard stories in my earlier years, of gay or black people being subjected to public humiliation by F.B.I. or C.I.A. pigs. Suddenly, the significance of those accounts began to sink in on me. This was actually being done to me.

There is a certain rite-of-passage that recent airline hirees must follow in their ascendancy into the cockpits of the bigger airplanes. New-pilot recruits are initially assigned to fly an airline's smaller commuter planes, such as the one I was on, before being put in charge of the larger jets. My flight from Cleveland to Detroit was piloted by two such rookies. The pilot appeared to be some young, Thirty-something, wet-behind-the-ears, squirt of a guy. As a child, I had been

taught to be courteous and friendly to others. As a result I instinctively turned to wave goodbye to the pilot and copilot who were still ensconced in the cockpit of the plane, after descending the stairway onto the apron. The pilot's response was to rear upwards in his seat at me, in a gesture meant to be as disrespectful and ridiculing as he could make it. I ignored him, and trudged through the snow towards the terminal.

In January of 1999, Continental and Northwest Airlines were codeshare partners. As a result, the last leg of my trip to Des Moines was aboard another small plane owned by Northwest, but operated by Mesaba Airlines. This flight was uneventful and perhaps even somewhat pleasant. The only thing unusual that did occur was that one of the stewardesses on this flight seemed to

take an exceptional interest in me, tacitly slipping me an extra serving of snackfood that I hadn't asked for. I could see then that I was still being given preferential treatment for some inexplicable reason.

I left Des Moines on Sunday, January 10 for my return to Washington and then Baltimore. The flight from Des Moines to Detroit was uneventful. Upon arrival in Detroit I was informed by the airline, Northwest, that I was going to be put on a flight directly to Washington, D.C. It would not be necessary for me to travel through Cleveland again. I was then told which gate my flight would be leaving from, and I made my way there.

One of the kinds of disorders I suffer from is one known as obsessive-compulsive disorder. When I am having trouble with this, it manifests itself within me by causing me to do a lot of bizarre facial grimacing. I rub my face and ears with the back of my wrist. The anti-depressant I take is designed to control this problem but does not eliminate it altogether, particularly if I am under stress. The last thing I want when I'm having trouble with this in public, is to feel that I'm

being watched. When I do feel that way, it makes the episode even worse.

I reached the gate from which my flight was being readied to depart. The nearby waiting area was full, but I managed to find a seat. I sat, struggling to control my O.C.D. as I waited. Recovering from a momentary bout, I opened my eyes to discover an undercover pig staring at me from across the waiting area. He was squinting at me in a studied way I had been subjected to before, at the hands of disapproving, invasive runts. This curricular look is calculated to be as

invasive of one's privacy as can be.

We boarded the airplane and sat, waiting to be pushed back from the gate. This flight was full. Our time of departure came and went, but still we sat. We ended up being 45 minutes late in being backed away from the gate. What I noticed during this time, though, was that different members of the flight crew would saunter up to the cockpit of this plane, gaze into it for a moment or two, and then make the appearance of needing to attend to something in the back of

the plane. Every single one of them would scowl at me, as he or she walked by where I was sitting. The flight seemed uncommonly filled with airline security personnel. One of these people stood at the back of the plane, blocking the entrances to the bathrooms. I got up to use the bathroom and the look of terror on this jackass's face intensified as I got closer to him, until he could see that I merely intended to use the bathroom. When I tried to exit the bathroom, I

couldn't because his fat foot was blocking the door. Another uniformed security idiot sat in a seat, scribbling notes on a clipboard in his lap.



We flew to Washington and landed at Reagan National Airport. Once again thanks to the good upbringing which has been ingrained within me, I said goodbye to the flight crew as I got off the plane, and thanked them for the ride. I was not in any way, shape, or form rude or sarcastic as I did this. My salutation was responded to with nothing more than additional scowls. Thus ended

my weekend visit to the Midwest.

I was baffled by the repetitive trips to the cockpits of each of the planes I flew on, that flight crew members kept making. They appeared to be reading something, or looking at something, having to do with me in some way. Since then a friend of mine who's an airline pilot himself, has confirmed that it's technologically possible for videotape footage or other data from outside, to be

transmitted into the cockpit of a plane using the plane's navigation equipment.

For several years after this shocking experience, I was under the impression that crew members had been viewing excerpts from my autobiography, probably the graphic ones. I figured that since the government was behind this humiliating of me, they would be able to get away with violating the copyright on the book which would have occurred when they reproduced it electronically without my permission. But it slowly sank in on me that they had been looking at

something a lot more embarassing to me than that. Only then did I realize that I had been videotaped several years earlier, while crapping in my pants.

Before the White Tower Buttery closed, Lazarro Buttkus, several friends of mine, and I were midnight carousers therein. There was a Baltimore City cop on whose beat the Buttery resided, who was perpetually checking in to make sure everything was orderly. She held a grudge against me because of the remarks in my autobiography, and she and Buttkus were friendly. I suspect she was the one who supplied him with a copy of the embarassing videotape that had been filmed of me. He then took this to Senator Mikulski, to whom I had earlier shown a copy of my autobiography upon meeting her, and used this to convince her she should order up a federal batch of dirty tricks to be played on me. Evidently she saw fit to give the order that I should be publicly humiliated by a government goon squad, with the help of an unruly gang of airline pigs. The purpose of the undercover cops on each flight I boarded, was to make sure I did not

misbehave when I realized what was being done to me. These bastards were undoubtedly armed, which meant they were deliberately dangerous, (to me.) Airline personnel aside, my thinking was that the undercover pigs had to have been federal ones rather than state or local ones, since we were crossing state lines as we traveled. Here, then, was a connection to Barbara Mikulski.

My final comment on this sad sequence of events, concerns the complaints of many mental health advocates regarding patients who are unwilling to take medication. This challenge is aimed particularly at members of an organization known as the Alliance for the Mentally Ill. The entire reason why it was possible to film me having the embarassing incident that I did in 1995, was because I WAS taking the goddamned medication.

Was this the thanks I got? If so, you're going to have to do a lot better job than you are now, to convince patients it's safe for them to swallow their meds.
kmhowe72
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by kmhowe72 »

I know that happened to me and alot of people I know.
kmhowe
simonsiegel
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by simonsiegel »

kmhowe72 wrote: I know that happened to me and alot of people I know.


Yah, from my experience for depression/anxiety problems resorting to a drug in the same category as cocaine isn't the correct solution. Too me if you actually solve the problems causing the depression or anxiety that's the right solution. I have heard too many stories of the drugs actually causing people to change a lot, and some have committed suicide.

My advice: go to a chruch, not a shrink.
Snickz
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by Snickz »

I don't trust a doctor (General Practitioner) as far as I could pick them up and throw them...



A few years ago I was going through a 'rough spot' with stress, and was prescribed pretty little blue pills that were as I was told "Would make me feel a whole lot better".



Well they did, extremely well....so well infact that I became addicted to them. So now not only did I have a slight anxiety and stress coping problem, I was also a prescription drug addict - beautiful.



Needless to say, I'm off those pills and have been for some years now. With the help of a good doctor, some behaviour therapy classes I've never looked back...



DON'T always expect that what they prescribe is going to be the correct thing for you, get a second, or third, fourth or fifth opionion.
Carl44
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medication/ good or not good that is the question

Post by Carl44 »

after the deaths of my brother in a house fire and then my best friend and also he was my cousin was murdered , they guy that bought me up like a father my uncle Fred died all within 2 years i went on a major downer . you know chest pains grief lack of energy cant get out of bed sort of thing . i went to see the doctor and all they wanted to do was drug me . i said i don't want medication what would really help would be to talk to some one my daughter had died a few years before I'd bought up my other daughter alone as a single dad then the mother took her to the usa with not even a letter or me knowing if she was ok for years I'd not had any counseling and all of this was hurting again too . i got an appointment with the mental health people and the guy could not even speak English not being racist here but if you were a doctor in England you'd kinda think that would come in handy yeah . any way i went back to the doc's all i got was an offer of more tablets which i declined its only by my pure bloody mindedness that i managed to pull through and feel ok today surely there has to be a better way I'd broken up with my girlfriend had all this grief i spent the best part of a year alone in a room till i felt better it was hell no wonder some people take the easy way out eh?
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