Posted by mila smith on November 14, 2002, at 6:11:37
Can anyone give me insight into the following:
(warning -this is a bit tedious)I am diagnosed as bi-polar -although I am unusual in that I rarely have manic episodes and when I do, they are not very pronounced. For several years I was treated with SSRI's for Depression. Nothing helped until now, after I found a doctor who decided to treat me as bi-polar.
I have been taking:
Wellbutrin 200mg in morning, 100mg later in day
Vivactil 15mg twice a day (AM and PM)
Lamictal 100mg twice a day (AM and PM)
Adderall 20mg a day (AM)
Urecholine 50mg two to three times a day (for antichlorgenic side effects)I did not start all of these at once, nor did I start at these doses of course.
After several weeks of taking this cocktail of drugs, I missed a few doses (one day i missed my regiment entirely, the next I missed my morning dose, the day after that, I missed my evening dose, and I may have missed one more full day's dose soon after). I then resumed my daily regiment consistently for about one week (during which I experienced a tolerable level of withdrawl effects--at least I think it was withdrawal)Before I recovered from this withdrawal effect, I ran out of vivactile and missed my vivactile dose for 4 days. I started feeling worse -an increase in nausea, dry mouth, episodes of trembling, near fainting. Even after having resumed with the vivactile (for about 5 days), I was still feeling sickly. My doctor took me off the Urecholine. days later, I was still sick. He then decided to get me off the vivactil. I did this too quickly (2 days). I got worse. I experienced repeated bouts of extreme weakness in which I would have to lay down, I would be short of breath, dizzy, delerious, trembling. I would be so weak that it was difficult to keep my eyes open and I had very little sense of what was going on around me. These episodes would gradually subside after about 20 minutes --although the nausea and weakness would remain throughout the day. The first time I took note of this was about three days before I went off the vivactile. After I got off the vivactile it seemed to occur more often. I called my doctor about a week after I came off the vivactile one night because I could not stand it. He told me to go to the emergency room. He had them run some blood tests -nothing showed up. So my doc then thought it might be the lamictal. As I left the emergency room, they told me my he had ordered me to decrease the lamictal. The next morning, I took 50 instead of 100mg of the lamictal (I was to stick to my night dose of 100mg). That evening however, I called him during another one of those epsiodes and appealed for help in dealing with it. He was perplexed as to why my reaction was so bad. Finally he said it has to be vivactile withdrawal (he had been reading up on lamictal and ruled it out as the cause). He told me to go back on the vivactile 15 mg a day. I started that night (I took 5 mg). The next day (Yesterday) I took the vivactile(5mg) four times at fairly equal intervals. I was hoping I would feel at least a little better. But I'm the same, and I can't stand it anymore. The weakness and nausea are the worst. I just lie on the couch and am impelled to take quick short breaths rapidly, or to make repeated monosyllabic sounds like "ah ah ah ah" or "ga ga ga ga" (as a coping mechanism I presume).
My question is: Is this all a result of the missed doses and the ceasing of the vivactile too quickly? Do I just need to wait a bit longer until the vivactile kicks in. Shouldn't I have gotton a little sign relief after having taken the 20 mg yesterday?
This has been going on for too long it seems. I am miserable. Could it be something else entirely?
Not sure what to do. Any advice would help.I presume the most obvious answer is that it is due to the missed doses of one or more of my meds aand the abrupt stopping of the vivactile. But I just want to confirm this. I really expected the restarting of the vivactil, albeit at 20mg instead the original dosage of 30mg, would give me relief immediately, but it has not. Perhaps I really do just have to wait a couple of more days. But I'm not sure. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. Any thoughts on how to cope with this also would be a great help.
Again sorry for the tedious temper of this post.
mila
poster:mila smith
thread:127572
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021108/msgs/127572.html