obsessive thoughts (horrid) but im strong and know what they are

[bobbbyone]

Hi
i dont drink but recently went on stag doo as my best mate was getting hitched and ended up in brighton for a messy weekend. I was really careful and only drank halves of larger.But by night time was totally out of it and cant remember much.Felt terrible the nxt day and by wednesday was totally analising everything.Thursday night woke up from a bad bad nightmare.I have been on clomipramine for 4 years now at a low dose 10mg and seroquel 25mg when needed as i have a really stressfull job but good job.My problem is i get really intrusive thoughts and when i get them they knock me for six.I have had them for 3 weeks now and have decided to take a few days sick leave from work.I asked to see my docter but he is on holiday.I was going to ask him to up my dose of clomipramine to 20mg.So ,as i cant get to see him i have done it off my own back.As anyone else been in the same perdiciment.And do you think the increase will help .Did it last night and got a good nights sleep , the first for over 3weeks.
I can remember being on 20mg when i first started and i think my docter dropped my dose after 6 months.
Anyone help or have the same thing happen to them.
Kind regards bobbbyone

[purplepie]

Hi Bobbyone, I am not sure if it will interact with your seroquel, but 20mg of clomipramine is a still a very low dose and I think you will be fine to at least try it. I started taking clomipramine at 30mg per day after a horrible 4 weeks on prozac, After 2 weeks I went up to 40mg and for the last 2 weeks I have started to feel much better. I am going to stay on this and if necessary would up the dose if I felt symptoms of anxiety/thoughts coming back. The normal daily dose of this is 75mg and it can be taken up to 250mg, so going up from 10mg should help you.
What type of thughts are/were you having?
purplepie

[bobbbyone]

hi purplepie
thoughts of flipping out ( horrible ) ive had them for years and they come on when i get stressed.last time i had them was when my dad passed away 5years ago and i went on a serch for the right med and they gave me prozac it totally flipped me out.So was very reluctant to take anything.I then realised my problem was purely obbsesional.And asked for clomipramine to which he thought was a good idea but warned about side affects being worse than ssri's.I went on them and got a weird taste in my mouth and sweaty reaction but that was about it and manged to get up to 35mgs in around 7 weeks.And that is all i can remember as i was back to work and put the episode totally behind me.then as time as gone on the doctor has dropped this to a maintaince dose of 10mg a night which i have been on for 5years.

About 3 weeks ago i started waking up about 2 at night having had a bad nightmare and my sleep started to decline.And then my ocd started to kick in like getting things out of the house that may hurt someone.
i know there only thoughts but god they overwhelm me and started getting them at work.
So i decided to up my dose my self and get an appointment at the docs which i did and he increased my dose to 25mg.And thinks this will work as it did last time.The thing is i am a very confident person and find i can mingle with anyone which is a good strength but when this happens its so hard to get back to that way .Sometimes i feel like it is a glitch and my brain has split into two one being me and the other a total nutter.
Im just worried that this might not work and ill be stuck like this forever.
what troubles you purplepie and how long do you think this raise in dosage will take to balance me out.As do you just wake up one morning and go hey they are working?
Kind regards bobbbyone

[purplepie]

Hey bobbyone, I think when you raise the dosage on any med it takes time, but as they are already in your system, it may be quicker than starting from scratch. How are you feeling a few days on at your higher dose of 25mg.
My main symptoms kicked off last year when I split from my long term partner, my anxiety shot through the roof and my thoughts went with it. Fear of doing something stupid to myself or others, not wanting to be alone, not wanting a bath in case I drowned myself, wondering whats the point if it all. I never had thought of suicide, but in fact a fear of it - sounds ridiculous but it is very frightening as you will know. I tried to say to myself, 'you are not your thoughts' and 'pay them no mind'. Once I started to feel a little better on the meds, if a thought came in I delved further into the thought making it less scary, and looking at it for what it was.
I am exactly like you in the fact that I am confident enough and love chatting on to people but my panic disorder and then these mad thoughts really knocked my confidence and esteem and then you fear putting yourself into situations becasue you are fearing these symptoms happening in company - as my Dad says ( who also suffers from anxiety/bad nerves) we are not wired up right lol, but who is? ha ha
purplepie x

[bobbbyone]

Hi Purplepie
I can relate to your ocd.Mine is the same to some degree but different at the same time.As i push everyone away and try to make everywhere safe so basically putting myself in a padded cell so as i cant hurt anyone and lastly myself.Horrendous.I am defo on the mend and have made a few life changes for the better which where aggravating my pure o.Clomipramine works great for me sometimes think its not going to work this time around.My OCD is always there but when i am relaxed i can take no notice of it until it evaporates but something inside starts checking to see if its around in my head, I dont know if that makes sense to you.Years ago i had no one to tell and as the years have gone on i have had several episodes of ocd. The one before this being the worst lasting 7 months of pure hell but clomipramine sorted it within 4 weeks.
This time i had a really bad nightmare with a clown in (lol) but it was so vivid and he told me he was waitng for me in hell.Wierd eh but cuz i was so stressed it knocked me for 6.Once the meds kick in i will probably be laughing to myself thinking you big baby lol.
"i know its not me its just my ocd" helps me get through the day but when your repeating it in your head and tryin to have a conversation to someone at the same time gets very tiring.Also look out for your ocd saying "what if " .Any question in my brain that says what if is my ocd trying to trick me.Also prayin to god for it to stop doesnt work either but i always go with the attitude that god loves a tryer and " god helps those who help themselves"
i will try and get to 35mg of clomipramine as this helps bring my symptoms under control but the next bits up to me and this is probably the 4th time ive had to do it .
Mine was a relationship split up and my dad dieing at the same time and me being a single father who keeps a job down found it to much and my anxiety went through the roof .I was seeing things that wernt there but i knew they where in the eye of my mind.
Sos for being a bit heavy but hopefully we will crack this and both not need to come on here to write this and join the norms in the real world very soon.
the bit about suicide and not having a bath that sounds like guilt , you probably feel guillty about something and thats just a feeling and its as bad as wanting to die.This passes and you will learn to live with some guilt until it doesnt bother you no more and you will move on to your next chapter.
Anyhow thanks for being there and speak soon

[bobbbyone]

I have increased my dose to 35mg as I know this was the dose I got up to last time and got a full recovery. I think 2-4 weeks at this and see if I can pull myself out of this black hole.Purplepie are you feeling better matey ?

[Nikibee]

I have just logged onto here after months away as my general anxiety has now morphed into OCD and intrusive thoughts about harming my child or myself. I felt like crying when I read both your posts as you have both had all of my silly horrible thoughts (I say silly, when in fact to me they seem very real).

I have been having CBT but, after a recent stressful event, now feel that I am struggling to control it. Tonight I told my husband that I felt that I needed some medication and he exploded saying he's fed up of having the odd depressive evening, so I obviously no longer have him to turn to.

Think I will have to ask my doctor about this Clomipramine, as I had a nasty reaction to Cytolopram, so have been facing up to all of this with CBT and nutritional advice alone.

It's good to know that somebody out there somewhere might know how I'm feeling, but at the same time wouldn't wish this on anyone. Still not sure if I shouldnt be checking into the local asylum...!

[bobbbyone]

Hi Nikibee
yes sounds like you have the same (pure o) you wouldnt wish it on your enemy.Clomipramine is very good for it but the catch is you have to find the right dose and stick with it .And as you go up in dose you have more side affects.It is basically how your depression manifests.As you feel in a trap of repetitive horrible thoughts that trigger anxiety night and day.The clomipramine helps your chemical balance until you feel stable again ,which takes sometime.Ask your docter about it if you think it may be for you.I couldnt take the side effects off the ssri's as they made me worse.clomipramine was a life saver for me 5 years ago didnt think i was going to get through it but did.And went onto have 5 years ocd free. Just that i try not to drink when stressed out as it stops the meds from working.This time ended up in brighton on a alldayer and by the following weekend had a full ocd episode which i couldnt seem to shake off.No one understands except yourself and other sufferers.
You have to keep pushing yourself through each day finding distractions and doing good along the way till you pick up your confidence once more and see that the horrid thoughts have evaporated and are the result of too much television viewing
and being stressed out at the same time.Im on day 3 of 35mg and hopefully should see some improvement by day 14 once you start to see the improvements well its basically leaps and bounds towards freedom.But being an ocd sufferer theres always that " WHAT IF" (that is ocd) it doesnt work.And the one thing you will notice on the replies is that once someone gets a result on there meds they very rarely come back to say its working as they have joined the norms in the real world.
The thing is you wouldnt harm anyone but the thought bothers you that much that it is the onlything you can think of and you try to find answers to it when there isnt any answers its the fact your chemicals in your brain are not quite right yet and meds help but the
you have to help yourself too by carrying on.
Best regards bobbbyone

[Nikibee]

Thanks bobbbyone!

I've just been to see my doctor and he's prescribed a very low dose Escytolopram, which he has only given me seven tablets of, as I didn't carry on with the cytolopram last time, and I think he'll up the dose in a week if I have taken them. Very worried, as he said that the thoughts and anxiety 'may sharpen' for a few weeks. Is Clomipramine not a SSRI? Might ask him about them next week if I am not happy with what he's prescribed. Was a blubbering wreck in his room this morning so had to leave everything to him.

I'm getting CBT, which is usually helpful, but does not work if I am too stressed, so trying to work on that as well.

Hopefully something will work soon, as I'm not getting very much out of life at the moment. Could be doing a lot more with it!

[purplepie]

Hey Bobbyone and Nikkibee, Sorry it's taken so long to respond, I have been bit busy with this and that. I have been on 40mg for three weeks now and 5 weeks on clomipramine altogether and I am starting to feel much better, it's a long road to recovery but I feel as stable as I can right now. How are you feling on your 35mg bobbyone?
I agree with all you have said to Nikkibee, the thoughts are really frightening but it is because they seem so vile that you wouldn't do them, if you were going to do any of those things you would do them without fearing them - it is the fear of the thought that keeps it going. I remember going to a drop in self help group and telling them I was scared of doing something stupid to myself and the girl who had suffered with anxiety for a long long time said, if you were seriously thinking of killing yourself, you would just go and do it, you wouldn't be going around telling people you were scared of doing it. This put my mind at reast slightly and I could see the thought for what it was, but it is still very frightening even if you understand it.

Nikkibee, I agree with you that CBT is only good so far and if you are in the throws of an attack, then all rationality goes out of the window.
I am like bobbyone, I cannot tolerate ssri's, they make me feel terrible, after coming off 4 weeks of prozac with horrendous retching, runs, nausea, anxiety at an extreme, clomipramine was a God send and even after a week I was feeling a little bit better. Ecitalopram is just a slightly different version of citalopram, the doctor told me that if citalopram didn't really work then ecitalopram isn't really likely to either, hence the reason for trying prozac. As Bobbyone says, the higher you go on the meds, the worse the side effects, so you need to find something where the side effects are bearable to the dose you are on and you are feeling better all at the same time - as you can imagine this can take a while.

Just so you both know, my side effects of 40mg of clomipramine are:-
Constipation - quite severe ( taking lactolose for it)
No Orgasm - very frustrating as my desire is still there!! Too much info? lol
Some slight flushing on face and arms especially when period due (but not as bad as when I was on lofepramine)
Slightly raised heartbeat ( nowhere near the 100-125 bpm on lofepramine) which doesn't really bother me
My sleep is disturbed, I go to sleep and 3 hours later I wake for a wee and then after another few hours another wee ( 2 - 4 times per night) so I never feel tht I get a lovely full night sleep. This is much better than the not sleeping at all when my mind has racing thoughts with anxiety.

I would like to get to a point like bobbyone where I can take a lower dose and be stable and maybe have a nice orgasm lol

I had my first psychiatric assesment with the nurse at hospital yesterday and she has put me forward for counselling and a med review with a consultant psychiatrist. I will keep you posted.

Sorry for long post but it's good to talk with people who know how it feels - hugs to you both.