Posted by AMD on June 1, 2004, at 15:35:21
In reply to Re: Bipolar drugs with no effect on cognition/memory » AMD, posted by Chairman_MAO on May 28, 2004, at 11:08:12
Thanks for your reply.
Frankly, I have been so afraid of medicines I rarely give them more than a couple weeks to really work.
For example, I started Trileptal at 300 m.g. about two weeks ago, and noticed some immediate relief from my rapid cycling. I upped the dose over two weeks to 1200 m.g. I slowly began to feel these side effects:
+ Overall spaced-out feeling;
+ Acne;
+ Low energy -- well, energy was OK, but I felt fatigued and tired, and when I'd go to the gym, I would feel weak, as if my muscles weren't recovering well. I think I even gain five pounds.
+ MOST SCARY: memory fuzziness. It's hard to pinpoint how this feels, just as if I can't bring memories to the fore as quickly sharply as I normally could.So, what do I do? PANIC. Stop taking the medicine, quickly tapering down to 300 m.g., then nothing. This morning, on two days of nothing but Celexa, I felt my heart kind of racing, and an overall anxiety. Is this mania coming back? (I've never had a full-blown manic episode.) Or withdrawal that would settle in a few days? Anyhow, I gave in and took 300 m.g. to settle me down. But now I'm convinced the Trileptal will cause permanent damage to my memory abilities. (Note I differentiate this from memory loss -- I see memory loss and the capacity to form new memories as two separate things.)
I just want my MIND BACK! I feel like a test rat. Does anyone know whether these medicines permanently alter your brain chemistry after a few weeks or even months? I mean, I am beginning to think I might be better off off everything, but I seem to have become some psychologically dependent on the drugs now that my doctors have told me "you have to take these"? Before I never thought about it, nor considered my being a bit hyper a problem. Now I am constantly second guessing myself.
Oy, I am really rambling here, I'm just frustrated. I want a drug that mellows me out without killing all my brain cells! Even alcohol didn't make me feel DUMB the way these drugs can at high doses.
Do you think it's possible the lower dose of Trileptal could prevent memory problems?
Are these memory, attention, concentration problems permanent?
Is it possible a higher dose of these drugs makes your thoughts more jumbled, not the other way around? My thoughts were /never/ jumbled before I started mood stablizers. Has taken these actually introduced a problem I didn't have before? Has teasing my brain chemistry in this way induced the very symptoms they were suppose to "fix"?
Thanks,
Annoyed
poster:AMD
thread:351178
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040527/msgs/352775.html