Posted by bleauberry on January 6, 2008, at 18:12:10
In reply to Re: When meds don't work » tecknohed, posted by johnj on January 6, 2008, at 11:39:43
Have you had a full thyroid workup? TSH, free T3, free T4, and thyroid antibodies? If not, you need one to rule it out or confirm.
How about a 24 hour 4 sample saliva cortisol test? That would be very informative in which way to go with treatment.
Right now you need FAST relief. I mean, family, work, wife. Wife. Very important. The more you suffer, the more she doesn't understand (and she never will so don't push that) the more you guys drift apart. Not cool. You need relief now, and a longer term solution after that.
One thing that can bring both immediate and longterm control of what you are feeling is...Zyprexa. You want to bring all that fast furious worry and OCD down to a soft cushion in a mere 2 hours? Zyprexa. I know your symptoms. Been there. I know Zyprexa. Been there.
Maybe it is a week or a month until you can see the doc. What until then? The healtfood store. Get a tincture bottle of Passionflower and Skullcap, and maybe Valerian. Try passionflower first, add the others if you want. They can really take the edge off in just an hour or so. They can be your ticket to buy some time and not lose ground. They have saved me several times when I did not have pharmaceuticals handy.
After so many years of mood stabilization control, it may take just as many years to fully recover, if at all. I wonder, why not lithium again? You should do a google search on Magnesium and Taurine for anxiety and bipolar. Those are often effective longterm cures, and not surprisingly the actual root cause all along. Your symptoms are hard to pinpoint in terms of cause, but they sure fit the low serotonin profile. 5htp in 10mg to 25mg doses for a few days would be a telling test.
Depakote or lithium takes weeks to be therapeutic, and months to actually cause the brain changes needed. A short trial of a mood stabilizer tells you nothing, other than whether maybe you can handle a starting dose or not. Same with the SSRIs. If anxiety was worse, odds are it would have resolved in 6 to 10 weeks, but your doc should have given you a bandaid drug to get that far while waiting.
Based on your symptoms, I do believe in the gut that a longterm solution is found in one of these things...Zyprexa, lithium, depakote, magnesium, taurine, or any combination of 2 or 3 of them. For short term immediate relief, passionflower, skullcap, valerian, and of course the star of the show zyprexa.
poster:bleauberry
thread:804589
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080105/msgs/804681.html