scared meds did more harm than good please help me

[Chrysmar09]

Backstory: I have taken ADs before but never had these kinds of reactions to them. I have taken prozac in the past and had sucess with it but quit due to no insurance never had a problem stopping it so I knew what to expect with them..

but recently I have had the WORST experience and I think I may have messed myself up and I am scared. I went back on prozac in april due to a lot of stress that was making me anxious. I ended up having every side effect which scared me because that never happen before. after having a really bad panic attack I stopped it after 4 days. my dr then but me on celexa which made my anxiety worse so we stopped that after 4 days too... I gave myself two weeks to calm down because my anxiety was through the roof and then they gave me paxil and that was the worst experience ever. I had muscle spasms and twitches I couldn't move my mind was racing I thought I was going crazy and started thinking I had schizophrenia. I stopped it after 3 days and my dr just gave me klonopin(which I am afraid to take due to people saying its addicting) and wants to give the ADs a rest but now I feel like I have done some damage to myself. my anxiety is horrible I have intrusive thoughts and thought looping the thought of doing anything that isn't sitting at home makes me so anxious.

I want to believe its just me dealing with all I have gone through with the medications but now I think I suffered some form of brain damage or I have done something to mess myself up. I'm scared to google paxil brain damage because I know it will send me into a panic if it is true. I just want to be myself again. I can't even work or even think about moving out of my parents house because I start to panic thinking Im not mentally stable enough to live on my own anymore. Has anyone been through multiple meds and felt this way. I know I only took them for a short time so my dr said I didn't get anything but side effects but I feel like I am going crazy. any help or words of encouragement will be appreciated. this board has been my only real saving grace.

[snowghost57]

Medication does not cause brain damage! Don't google any symptoms. Do you see a therapist? I have learned to challenge my thinking and stay in the present. You will not go crazy. You need to find a therapist that will give you tools to combat your intrusive thoughts. I tried what I call the medication train, I have tried them all and the just don't work for me, changing dosage, different meds. I decided that I will get better without medication and you can do it. Its a personal decision. I wanted to be me, not some zombie with no feelings.

[lliiaamm0099]

I think it is your anxiety that is causing you to panic so much when you take these medications. Although SSRIs are well known to make people anxious before they make them better. Your experience with the paroxetine though sounds familiar to a person I once knew who took it and started to become deluded on it with racing thoughts, he thought he was suing an organisation and had a lawyer who was helping him, none of these thoughts were true though. We believe now that he had Serotonin syndrome which is easily reversed with Serotonin receptor antagonist drugs. I think you should definitely try the Klonopin it will have a nice calming effect and less side effects than SSRIs even though benzodiazepines are addictive when taken over a long period of time so you should only take it when your anxiety is extreme. I don't think you have brain damage by the way and if you were psychotic, you mentioned schizophrenia, you wouldn't actually know you were psychotic and you wouldn't think that you were either. People when they are going through psychoses don't know they're psychotic.

[Chrysmar09]

I thank you all for your responses.... I asked my dr if I was having serotonin syndrome and she said I hadn't been taking it long enough or at a high dosage for that to happen. Right now I am fighting the schizo fear because I think I am having weird thoughts. I was texting my friend and in my mind I thought he had told me something but then I realized it must have been a dream but it felt so real like it really happened. same thing happened whenm I was talking to my sister I was sure she had told me something but I think I was remembering a dream and it freaked me out because the conversation I recalled felt like we had it really. I googled confabulation, sure enough, I am panicking because it deals with brain damage. I guess I have to stop googling things which is my vice. I get scared and Google. I am seeing a therpaist..in fact I have seen three and they all say I am not schizophrenic and that I am out of the age group for it to even happen. I am 33 and never had any of the core symptoms but I the more I stress the more I feel like I am off... from my eyes to my body. I have HA all my life and anxiety too but it has never felt like this...that is why I am so concerned about going crazy. I have a daughter to raise and I am a single mom I have to be ok for her.... if anyone has any tips on how to stop this I would love you forever lol

[lliiaamm0099]

Because of your racing thoughts which are troubling to you you could maybe ask your doctor for a low dose of a second generation antipsychotic such as Quetiapine or Olanzapine they would certainly reduce anxiety and your racing thoughts but don't take them for too long as they too have bad side effects in regards to weight gain.Here in Britain we can still prescribe Chlorpromazine, Prochlorperazine and Trifluoperazine for short term severe anxiety but they are first generation antipsychotics usually reserved for sever psychomotor agitation

[Chrysmar09]

I am going to talk to my therapist tomorrow. I took my klonopin and it calmed down tremendously. But the dream/reality thing is what has me so scared this is the first stage of scizophrenia or me losing my mind. It seems like once i get this under control i get another symptom and im back at quare one

[panic_down_under]

I went back on prozac in april due to a lot of stress that was making me anxious. I ended up having every side effect which scared me because that never happen before.

There is considerable anecdotal evidence that side-effects can become progressively more severe and/or different each time antidepressants are restarted. This seems to be true irrespective of whether returning to the same antidepressant, or a different one. The likelihood of them working also drops too.

my dr then but me on celexa which made my anxiety worse so we stopped that after 4 days too... I gave myself two weeks to calm down because my anxiety was through the roof and then they gave me paxil and that was the worst experience ever. I had muscle spasms and twitches I couldn't move my mind was racing I thought I was going crazy and started thinking I had schizophrenia.

Antidepressants will often heighten anxiety at the beginning due to the increased serotonin activity, but it usually eases after a week, or two. There is no way of preventing it but it can be lessened by starting on a low dose and ramping it up by the same amount at weekly intervals (2 weeks for fluoxetine) to the target dose. Sedatives such as Klonopin (clonazepam), or low doses of mirtazapine (Remeron) can also make life much easier.

my dr just gave me klonopin(which I am afraid to take due to people saying its addicting)

You will likely become dependent to benzodiazepines (BZDs) if they are taken regularly for more than a month, or two, just as you will to antidepressants, but addiction is very uncommon. Even their harshest critics such a C. Heather Ashton acknowledge that few taking BZDs for anxiety escalate the dose over time, or display other addictive behaviours.

However, BZDs can inhibit the neurogenesis mechanism which creates the antidepressant therapeutic response so use should probably be limited to a couple of weeks when first taking antidepressants just to ease the initial increase in anxiety levels, for a while after AD dose increases for the same reason and thereafter for occasional breakthrough anxiety.

I want to believe its just me dealing with all I have gone through with the medications but now I think I suffered some form of brain damage

There is no evidence that SSRIs damage the brain, just the reverse, they help undo some of the damage caused by chronically high brain stress hormone levels. There is also evidence they may reduce the risk of dementia.

I suggest you talk to your doctor about trying fluoxetine, or citalopram again, but this time starting on no more than 10mg/day, 5mg may be even better, and if necessary also taking clonazepam, or mirtazapine if the initial anxiety spike is still too much to handle. And ask him/her about therapy too.

---------- Post added at 16:38 ---------- Previous post was at 16:01 ----------

Your experience with the paroxetine though sounds familiar to a person I once knew who took it and started to become deluded on it with racing thoughts, he thought he was suing an organisation and had a lawyer who was helping him, none of these thoughts were true though. We believe now that he had Serotonin syndrome

Unlikely if paroxetine was the only serotonergic agent taken. Even in SSRI overdoses only about 15% develop the syndrome with less than 10% needing medical intervention with 5-HT2a antagonists. Plus there should have been other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, nervousness, insomnia, headache, tremor, diarrhoea, dizziness, sweating and in severe cases clonus and hyperthermia.

[lliiaamm0099]

Unlikely if paroxetine was the only serotonergic agent taken. Even in SSRI overdoses only about 15% develop the syndrome with less than 10% needing medical intervention with 5-HT2a antagonists. Plus there should have been other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, nervousness, insomnia, headache, tremor, diarrhoea, dizziness, sweating and in severe cases clonus and hyperthermia.

The person did have all those symptoms although I am not sure about the diarrhoea, I didn't ask that, there was no hyperthermia. The person was delirious but the only drug in the system was Paroxetine he was on 60mg a day. A brain scan showed no damage to any region of the brain and therefore it could only be assumed that the cause was simply down to Paroxetine. That person was given Olanzapine to calm down the agitation but to also get rid of the thoughts of him suing an organisation which was totally untrue. I know that Paroxetine is a Muscarinic Acetylcholine receptor antagonist, but as is Olanzapine, and shortly after administering the drug the symptoms decreased dramatically. Can I ask you Panic Down Under, please do not take it the wrong way, do you have any medical qualifications?

[panic_down_under]

The person did have all those symptoms although I am not sure about the diarrhoea, I didn't ask that, there was no hyperthermia. The person was delirious but the only drug in the system was Paroxetine he was on 60mg a day.

Then s/he was the very rare exception according to Ian Whyte and Ken Gillman who are both recognised as being the experts on serotonin syndrome.

Can I ask you Panic Down Under, please do not take it the wrong way, do you have any medical qualifications?

No. What I know is based on what I've learnt from others in support groups like this one, and while editing Anxiety Insights which put me in regular contact with some of the leading anxiety/depression researchers.

Do you? In January you claimed to be a med student, yet 6 months later you're claiming to be a Consultant Neurologist, BSc(Hons) in Neuroscience and Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery (MBChB) MRCGP with 12 years experience. Unless you're Dr Who, one of these must be untrue and from long experience of people claiming to be doctors in support groups, I suspect both claims are.

[MyNameIsTerry]

That's quite impressive having 12 years in and a consultant role and still studying a 6 year degree that you've already passed.