Junot
29-10-14, 12:22
I'm seeing a new psychiatrist tomorrow. I haven't seen one for several months now and I stopped the old one's medication in April this year (75 mg of fluoxetine [Prozac] twice a day) on my own initiative. Why? I wanted to get rid of all those awful antidepressant side effects that had taken over me. My purpose was to put off all the weight I gained during 8 years of antidepressant therapy and to bring my cholesterol back to its normal range. In the meantime, I've put off about 30 kg (66 lbs) and, yes, my cholesterol is again where it should be.
I have great expectations regarding this new psychiatrist. I was told that he's more than a drug-prescribing machine, allow me to put it on those terms, and that he works a lot with his patients on a mental, psychotherapeutic level. I hope he does. As to the apprehensions, I'm afraid that he might consider my case as severe and puts me on antidepressants again - just as all the others did before him. Or worse, that he puts me as well on antipsychotic drugs (as my previous psychiatrist attempted to do - I didn't take one pill of it, of course). Either of those two classes of drugs cause weight gain, act on the metabolism (especially on the lipids), on the heart, amongst many other things, hormonal regulation included.
That said, I hope that both the psychiatrist and I can get to terms on a therapeutic strategy that involves only minor tranquilizers (such as benzodiazepines) and a lot of psychotherapeutic work. I wouldn't be able to bear the physical and psychological consequences of weight gain again or to see my cholesterol to skyrocket one more time. Not after all the physical and psychological effort that I've been putting into my every day life during these past months in order to come back to what I was before anxiety/panic disorder (at least physically and physiologically, because psychologically I guess that I'm worse than I have ever been).
I have great expectations regarding this new psychiatrist. I was told that he's more than a drug-prescribing machine, allow me to put it on those terms, and that he works a lot with his patients on a mental, psychotherapeutic level. I hope he does. As to the apprehensions, I'm afraid that he might consider my case as severe and puts me on antidepressants again - just as all the others did before him. Or worse, that he puts me as well on antipsychotic drugs (as my previous psychiatrist attempted to do - I didn't take one pill of it, of course). Either of those two classes of drugs cause weight gain, act on the metabolism (especially on the lipids), on the heart, amongst many other things, hormonal regulation included.
That said, I hope that both the psychiatrist and I can get to terms on a therapeutic strategy that involves only minor tranquilizers (such as benzodiazepines) and a lot of psychotherapeutic work. I wouldn't be able to bear the physical and psychological consequences of weight gain again or to see my cholesterol to skyrocket one more time. Not after all the physical and psychological effort that I've been putting into my every day life during these past months in order to come back to what I was before anxiety/panic disorder (at least physically and physiologically, because psychologically I guess that I'm worse than I have ever been).