New meds side effects & so on...

[briochick]

Right, so, in the ongoing saga that is my attempt to get my headaches cured the neurologist (here in Korea) has now prescribed me a topirmate )at 25mg twice a day), milnacipran, elavil, and two PRNs (I can't tell you the amounts because the pharmacist didn't write the mg on the package this time).

I haven't stopped taking my Welbutrin even though he's suggested it two or three times. I don't think the nuerologist presently realizes that I haven't taken his advice.

He's also prescribed me something for RLS which I've never taken because I DON'T HAVE RLS.

There was this rather lengthy conversation in which he tried to convince me that depression/anxiety/psychosis(?), fibriomialgia (which he thinks I have and some of the prescriptions are for, though I'm quite dubious about since I only have neck pain and occasional hip pain which is generally fixed by a visit to the chiropractor), RLS, and migraines were all really just from the same thing (migraines) and in which I tried to tell him that I was ADHD and I *do* have depression and that though, yes, I also have migraines I don't have these other things and he just nodded and ignored me and wrote out prescriptions.

I'm entirely convinced that he thinks I'm a stupid American and that nearly all side effects only happen if you tell people about them, so of course he's told me that all the meds he's given me are safe and have no side effects and fine and "you are normal" and I HATE THOSE WORDS. I don't think he has any clue that my likelihood of flushing everything he prescribes me increases exponentially with every time he tells me I'm normal. I tried to trust him and took the meds anyways, without looking up their side effects.

In the last two weeks, since he started prescribing the second and third medicine, let me tell you what has been happening to me:
~I have cried at least five times
~Each day I feel like crying more than I did the previous day
~I've been thirsty all day
~When I work out my heart beats furiously (I've been working out nearly ~every day for a year, this is uncommon).
~When I work out my body goose-bumps like I'm freezing and I sweat...oddly ~and it stays like that for a good half an hour after my work out is over
~I've been getting cold easily
~Coldness in my hands and tingling in my feet
~Virtigo
~My back itches, a lot, my arms are itchy too
~Slight bits of nausea
~Vision is sometimes off (can't explain it better)
~My spelling is getting progressively worse, this is disturbing as I was an ~English major at my University, I shouldn't need a second-grader to correct my spelling.
~Nightmares
~Paranoia
~Anxiety aside from the paranoia
~Bowel problems (uncommon since I eat a ton of fiber and drink a lot of water)
~Overheating really quickly
~Genital pain (I'm not sexually active and have good hygiene so this, like, nearly *never* happens to me)
~I woke up this morning shaking, in the MORNING. I'm a morning person. I work out in the mornings. I climb mountains in the mornings. I do not sit in my chair shaking and trying to pull myself together before work, even when I'm depressed.

Now, I was thinking, why? At first I thought I was just stressed because I'll be moving very soon, but I moved here and started this job and that was way more traumatic than moving home and I never had problems like this. Yesterday I started thinking it was one of the meds so I stopped taking all of them. Talked to my mother on Skype, while bawling, during my lunch break. She suggested that I keep taking the topirmate since that's not good to just stop taking but when I looked up the side effects of the others she suggested I *do* stop taking those.

Now, I would like to call the Dr. and tell him what's going on, but he'll want me to come in again, and he'll want to either give me a different dosage of the same meds or try new meds on me, because I am his guinea pig and in this culture he doesn't have to listen to me. But, if I don't than no one will know that these drugs have had these effects on one more person, and yet, I doubt he would report or record their effects anyway because knew I was sensitive with the topirmate but he chose to prescribe these. At this point I'm beginning to feel it would almost be worth it to have the headaches...:hissyfit:

Comments or suggestions are greatly welcomed.

 

[forgetmenot]

Hi BrioChick time to get on the phone and talk with your doctor. Your doctor is the only one who can help you get the right medication you need to help you feel well. I am sorry these medication are making you feel this way i know i have been there. Yet if you want medication to help you through this you will have to go back to the drawing board and start over again. Your doctor is the only one that can do this. I wish you the best mary

 

[Yuray]

Call your doctor despite your fears of what he may do. You sound like you are having severe reactions to something, guinea pig or not.

Yuray

 

[David Baxter PhD]

You have been prescribed an SSRI/SNRI (milnacipran) and an older style antidepressant (Elavil - this one is for migraine) plus topiramate as a mood stabilizer. If you have recently started these, some of the side-effects you've been experiencing are likely just adapting to the new medications.

However, given this, I'm not surprised that he's recommended you discontinue the Wellbutrin. Not only is that quite probably unnecessary but it can induce feelings of anxiety or agitation or shakiness in some people and may when combined with your other medications be causing some of the other side effects.

I think the first thing to do is to follow the advice of the doctor and stop taking the Wellbutrin. You say he's mentioned this two or three times already. There's a reason for that and you may be creating some adberse drug interactions by ignoring that advice.

Then there's the PRN medications, of course, which may also be interacting with Wellbutrin in some ways.

Look at it this way: If the doctor thought the Wellbutrin was helping, he wouldn't be suggesting you stop that and take the others. To do both at the same time is probably a mistake.

Also, among you, me, and the doctor, there is only one person with a degree in medicine and it's not you and it's not me.

 

[briochick]

Thank you all for your replies. *^_^* I see there is a consensus among you.

The reason I kept taking the welbutrin was because 1) he told me to stop because "you are not really a psychiatric patient [english translation, you don't really have depressionandADHDandsomewhatpsychoticsyptoms] only migraine patient" and his denying my rather lengthy psychiatric history in favor of the idea of it all having been migraines and then asking me to go off the only medicine I was actually taking that was officially for the psychological stuff for the reason stated above didn't seem like a very good reason. 2) the treatment is supposed to only last 5 months or so and I'm still going to need some other kind of prescription afterwords. I also don't have anyone to lower me off of welbutrin (as the doctor who gives me the welbutrin doesn't think I should be seeing the neurologist for my migraines but thinks I should be seeing him for them and the depression. Except there's the issue that the non-neurologist doctor doesn't speak English....) and I don't know what effects cold-turkey would have or if there would be none while on all this other stuff but I work as a teacher full time so, as I'm experiencing, negative psychological stuff makes my job exponentially more difficult.

*very tired sigh*

 

[David Baxter PhD]

The reason I kept taking the welbutrin was because 1) he told me to stop because "you are not really a psychiatric patient [english translation, you don't really have depressionandADHDandsomewhatpsychoticsyptoms] only migraine patient" and his denying my rather lengthy psychiatric history in favor of the idea of it all having been migraines and then asking me to go off the only medicine I was actually taking that was officially for the psychological stuff for the reason stated above didn't seem like a very good reason.

And yet he has prescribed an antidepressant (SSRI/SNRI) which in all probablility is more effective at treating depression and perhaps ADHD than Wellbutrin. Could something have been lost in the translation?


Added: On double checking, I see that the milnacipran isn't prescribed for depression but for fibromyalgia:

http://www.rxlist.com/savella-drug.htm

INDICATIONS
Savella is indicated for the management of fibromyalgia.

Savella is a selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI), similar to some drugs used for the treatment of depression and other psychiatric disorders.

So you may be right.

Perhaps this is something you can discuss with the other doctor, then?

Added later:

Except there's the issue that the non-neurologist doctor doesn't speak English

A conundrum indeed. A translator, maybe?