Chemical Soup

We take medication to get well and in most cases they work with little or no side effects. There is a direct link between the medication and the ailment. If you have a headache, you take aspirin and it is relieve and so on. However, this is not the case with psychotropic medication. It is like taking a shot in the dark sometimes. It is true that there are specific types of medication to take for depression, moods and etc. But the right combination does not come so easily.

In my case, which I guess I was so so special, whatever the docs prescribed for me would have the opposite effect. At one time, I had gone through 25 different medications to get relief. The only thing left was to get medication from Canada which was experimental at best. What a pain in arse it was. The doctors would say that this medication is going to work and it wouldn't. If it was suppose to get me out of depression it would instead put me in a deeper depression and so forth.

Finally, one day we tried seroquel and it worked. The side effects of the medication were terrible for me. I gained weight at the rate of 2 pounds a week. I kept dieting but nothing seemed to work. The doctor would tell me walk, exercise etc... NOTHING on this green earth worked at all. I ballooned to 350 lbs and had complications with other medical conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes. Those in turn lead to other meds which meant I was a walking chemical soup.

Let's not talk about the side effects from the drugs: no libido, dry mouth, constipation, constant drowsiness, restless leg syndrome and parkinsonian syndrome to mention just a few. All these lead to more medications to combat the side effects. Remember I didn't want to take the meds in the first place so you can imagine how much I would justify not taking after experiencing the side effects. In many of my hospital stays, I would ask fellow patients, "Why didn't you take your meds?" The answer was always the same....Would you like to have all the side effects and then it doesn't work.

Family members please be symphatic to your loved ones. This is a balancing act to find the right medication that doesn't have as many, noticed I didn't mention none, side effects. Seroquel worked only for a short time and then we went onto a new type of med: abilify. It has been working and the side effect are minimal. If there are an pharmaceutical companies reading this blog I hope that you can find medication that continues or reduces the side effects. I for number one, would love to be your guinea pig to test the drugs for side effects.

In closing today's post, psychotropic drugs are NOT regular meds they are sometimes a shot in the dark until you can find the silver bullet that works. Even it works you still don't know for how long. BE PATIENT and learn as much as you can about the side effects. TALK to your doctor and be frank.