Posted by bleauberry on January 28, 2014, at 16:31:08
In reply to Am I over-medicated?, posted by chinaboy on January 27, 2014, at 20:43:26
I feel that one is over medicated when there are excessive side effects, or the desired effect is not achieved, or if there are lab signs the liver enzymes are showing warning signs. Other than that, I don't think the actual count of how many meds is taken is all that important. The point is to experience considerable improvement of quality of life. Whatever that takes. imo
I've been on amisulpride several times at various doses and I must say I feel it is one of the best meds available in all of psychiatry. It alone without the other meds could actually cover all your symptoms. I'm not predicting it would, just expressing confidence that it does have that kind of potential.
The cocktail you were prescribed I feel makes sense. High dose zoloft is probably primarily for the OCD and social anxiety. I'm not sure why on the remeron except maybe as a possible potentiator and sleep aid. Wellbutrin for anhedonia. Makes sense. The problem is that in the real world any of these could backfire and do the opposite of what was intended or not achieve the desired results. Mileage varies. Hopefully give it some time and see how it progresses.
Your cocktail was 3 meds and now 4. That's not bad. Many of us have been on 5 to 10 at any given time. That's when I start to see warning flags of overmedicated...tons of meds but still feel like crap.
OCD with anhedonia theoretically seems like a tough one to me. That's because the usual approach to taming down the OCD is to beef up the serotonin which dampens down dopamine which worsens anhedonia. To add more dopamine or norepinephrine to make up for that could trigger OCD again. And no matter what, the anhedonia might go untouched the whole time. I had that symptom for so many years and it's torture. Most of it is gone now.
Amisulpride can be unfriendly to your sex life so keep an eye on that.
Going forward after things have stabilized you may be able to lower doses of the other meds.
If you go to higher doses of amisulpride, it will begin to behave more like a regular antipsychotic and emotional numbing would not be a surprise. imo So that would not be good for the anhedonia. But, like I said, mileage varies and we really can't predict anything, so anything is possible.
And over time, the whole goal should be to have enough recovery in life that we can begin to whittle down on the meds gently over time and maybe someday not even need as much help any more.
I send you best wishes. I really hope your struggles improve very soon. I just wanted to share with you my thoughts on amisulpride.
> I talked with the psychiatrist today about his previous prescription(Paxil +Abilify) being ineffective, and he changed the prescription into Zoloft 200mg+Mirtrapine30mg+Wellbutrin 300mg. So expensive, so many meds.I kinda feel I'm over-medicated.
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> Do you guys think I should take so much med? What are the benefits /risks of taking them?
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> PS:My conditions are anhedonia(lack of motivation+inability to feel pleasure), social anxiety,and OCD.
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poster:bleauberry
thread:1059689
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140123/msgs/1059812.html