Coming off Cymbalta and Lamictal, going on Lithium

So a bit over a week ago I saw a new psych (my old one was a hack) who told me it was dumb that I was on Cymbalta and Lamictal and got me started on Lithium (carbonate). I was on 150 Lamictal and 30mg Cymbalta. I dropped to 100mg Lamictal and ~20mg Cymbalta and started 300mg Lithium for the first week, for the second week (now) I'm on 50mg and ~10mg, then I'm off. It seems like I get really tired and for about 5 hours a day I can't think super clearly and it's really hard to do physical activity. I'm sluggish. Nothing seems very real, but that's not unusual; it's been a bit worse recently, though. I've heard this is really fast, but I think my psych was concerned about me being on my other drugs.

Anyone else have experiences going on/off prescription medication?

IIRC, awepittance has a lot of experience with lithium that you might be interested in discussing.

I've been on Cymbalta (and it was a awful experience).

How long have you been taking it?

Probably an insensitive answer, but just excercise instead. Your body and mind will thank you.

When I was on Celexa and missed a day, I experienced what felt like electric shocks from inside my skull.

Sorry to hear man and good luck, hope it betters your life.

  On 7/21/2012 at 10:38 PM, Npoess said:

I've been on Cymbalta (and it was a awful experience).

 

How long have you been taking it?

About 3/4 of a year.

  On 7/21/2012 at 10:41 PM, Candiru said:

Probably an insensitive answer, but just excercise instead. Your body and mind will thank you.

 

When I was on Celexa and missed a day, I experienced what felt like electric shocks from inside my skull.

Holy fuck, those sucked. I've had small "shocks" from missing a day before. It's like sudden vertigo. None recently, though.

I do feel better when I exercise. Clears up your mind. I've read that counseling and exercise are the best treatments for anxiety, and pretty damn good for bipolar disorder and BPD as well, all of which I have (BPD is mild though, and my symptoms are somewhat atypical; same with the bipolar disorder). Great for depression as well.

  On 7/21/2012 at 10:51 PM, Atop said:

Sorry to hear man and good luck, hope it betters your life.

Thanks, although life has been getting much better in general recently. Counseling has helped a lot. It's summer, so I've got some time for the negative side effects.

Anyone else got stories? I'm interested in other people's experiences.

  On 7/21/2012 at 10:52 PM, gmanyo said:

  On 7/21/2012 at 10:38 PM, Npoess said:

I've been on Cymbalta (and it was a awful experience).

 

How long have you been taking it?

About 3/4 of a year.

 

My expreince was a lot different. Because I felt like shit when I was taking it, and started to feel better as soon as I stopped. I don't know to explain it really, and it might sound a bit strange, but I felt like it changed my personality in a way I didn't like, It was so weird. It made me even more depressed.

But I didn't really have any side effects when I stopped, so I don't really have any good advice on your withdraws (sorry). Just thought I would share my limited experience with it.

i came off a lot of antidepressants when i was a teenager and it was pretty miserable. got the electric shocks and all that stuff. antidepressants just made me go manic, though. and then i went off meds for ten years.

lately im on depakote, lamictal, and abilify. i dont think its doing much. i was rapid cycling a few weeks ago and am now in this weird, panicky, derealised mania where i'm sleeping 2 hours a night and i'm not actually sure what is real or why i'm doing things and it's tripping me out. also mild hallucinations.

i guess it could be worse i mean im doing a lot of creative stuff on top of the weirdness but good lord id like to feel as though i have some control over my life.

I believe anything a pill can do, the human mind & body can do better. I was put on haldol when I was young, and I put a stop to that real quick once i realized how unmotivated and uncreative it made me. Plus it just felt wrong, like I was no longer myself while medicated.

i was on a an anxiety med, i think it was celexa and recently changed to valium. went right off the celexa and started with a high dose of valium. immediately i felt "better", yet tired because of the dosage. i'm slowly weening myself off valium with the help of my doctor. best move i could have done for myself.

  On 7/22/2012 at 4:49 AM, disparaissant said:

i came off a lot of antidepressants when i was a teenager and it was pretty miserable. got the electric shocks and all that stuff. antidepressants just made me go manic, though. and then i went off meds for ten years.

 

lately im on depakote, lamictal, and abilify. i dont think its doing much. i was rapid cycling a few weeks ago and am now in this weird, panicky, derealised mania where i'm sleeping 2 hours a night and i'm not actually sure what is real or why i'm doing things and it's tripping me out. also mild hallucinations.

 

i guess it could be worse i mean im doing a lot of creative stuff on top of the weirdness but good lord id like to feel as though i have some control over my life.

holy fuck lol you have it so much worse than me. I think I just have rapid cycling cyclothymia or something, although my anxiety disorder is pretty bad. Living in three different countries probably hasn't helped much with it, either.

yeah i guess i overshared.

i dunno. i dont have it bad compared to some people i know. i can function!

Used to be on seroquel, then ativan, then ativan and lexapro.

Got a pill cutter and went off extremely slowly, slower than even my doctor initially suggested. I was on a gradual slope off lexapro for probably more than a year. Saw a psychologist, exercised, and meditated (mindfulness, zazen). Wasn't easy but I'm certainly glad I didn't go cold turkey (although I did this with lexapro when I was a bit manic but that was a huge mistake, and I switched to extremely gradual schedule).

I'm not sure if this would apply to the things you are taking, but yeah just don't rush into things or make any rash decisions, and know that it's possible to be un-medicated eventually. But that really shouldn't be the obsessive end-goal. Just kinda do what works at each point, don't make things too hard for yourself. If you need to stay on stuff, don't get down on yourself for it. I think the only way I really got off lexapro was to be ok with being on it (then I could gradually recede, knowing it would be ok if I had to go back up).

Brains and minds are weird. Good luck!

  On 7/22/2012 at 9:43 AM, LARRY said:

Used to be on seroquel, then ativan, then ativan and lexapro.

 

Got a pill cutter and went off extremely slowly, slower than even my doctor initially suggested. I was on a gradual slope off lexapro for probably more than a year. Saw a psychologist, exercised, and meditated (mindfulness, zazen). Wasn't easy but I'm certainly glad I didn't go cold turkey (although I did this with lexapro when I was a bit manic but that was a huge mistake, and I switched to extremely gradual schedule).

My teenage depression worsened until, at the age of 23, I had been mentally exhausted and emotionally dead for 2 years. I experienced severe panic attacks and constant anxiety every single day. I had been prescribed all kinds of medication and self-medicated for a while with various substances but nothing worked, and I refused to turn myself into a zombie with harder medication. I turned to zazen as a last resort. Over an 8 month period I went from 5 minutes before bedtime to 4 hours a day. The last 4 months I've been sitting at least 1 hour a day and practice active mindfulness throughout the day. Sometimes I like to think I'm "cured" but as soon as I stop doing it, it all comes back. Luckily it's pretty much as natural as eating and sleeping these days. I just have to. I wouldn't touch any medication with a ten foot pole and try to keep drinking to a minimum.

I absolutely cannot describe how effective it is. If I had my way, I would prescribe it to every human being but I have to understand it's not for everyone. You have to be absolutely desperate to commit yourself to that kind of thing, and even people who give it a serious go don't come over that plateau of "I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do" or "I get this tingly feeling for a few minutes but then it passes", and think that's all they're going to get. The way it works is that it's tough as shit and the payoff takes several months to gradually increase, but eventually, it's so big and so lasting that you will want to shout it off of rooftops. But I've talked with people who have practiced it for years and never got anything out of it but had really positive effects from yoga... and for some people, medication really does work, so diff'rent strokes I guess. Just wanted to throw my 2c in the case someone has "tried everything but nothing works".

what's the trick to zazen, i'm not really in a spot where i feel as though i can clear my mind right now. but i would love to maybe get a little peace. from something.

i do active mindfulness, it's just about the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.

  On 7/22/2012 at 12:49 PM, chimera slot mom said:

Sometimes I like to think I'm "cured" but as soon as I stop doing it, it all comes back. Luckily it's pretty much as natural as eating and sleeping these days. I just have to. I wouldn't touch any medication with a ten foot pole and try to keep drinking to a minimum.

 

I absolutely cannot describe how effective it is. If I had my way, I would prescribe it to every human being but I have to understand it's not for everyone. You have to be absolutely desperate to commit yourself

Great post, I completely agree. I let my meditation go for a couple weeks and today I am fucking spazzing out. Everything makes me angry and tired. Gotta get on that shit stat.

  On 7/23/2012 at 10:14 PM, disparaissant said:

i'm not really in a spot where i feel as though i can clear my mind right now. but i would love to maybe get a little peace.

I felt this way about meditation too and in my case it was EXACTLY why I needed to try meditation. Let me say first: it might feel like it's not doing anything, but if you want to feel the results, you HAVE to just try, a little bit every day, for as long as it takes. It's the only way to learn how. You'll feel like you are just a bundle of 1,000,000 thoughts and you'll get all kinds of paralyzing existential questions about where they're coming from and there are times when you'll get stuck in them and feel awful, and then there are times when you'll realize you can merely observe the thoughts and realize they have nothing to do with you, and you can just breathe and feel your body and enjoy life. It takes discipline. If you feel like you don't have discipline, learn it by doing this. I did. The mind will always vie for control with your true self. Only when you learn to quiet it can you be at peace.

Sorry to derail thread OP. I know a guy who swears by lithium. He's been on it for many years. Maybe it's just an adjustment period. I'd say, meds or no, meditation & exercise could help a lot.

I know folks who'd prefer electroconvulsive therapy to being on lithium.

So, uh, good luck and do what xxx sez.

  On 7/22/2012 at 12:26 PM, xxx said:

If you stay with lithium, make sure to educate yourself and, more importantly, whoever cares about you and sees you everyday about the risk of toxicity. In my opinion, lithium should be the dead last, end-of-the-road, nothing-else-worked kind of treatment because it is one of the worst drugs a person can take. It's extremely neurotoxic, hell on your kidneys and intoxication is a sword of Damocles hanging over you head every second of the day.

 

Have a standing order for blood levels and a place to have them drawn at all times. If you can't think straight, shit all the time or can't stay awake, get your level drawn. Don't accept what a psychiatrist says as law; try as many different approaches as you want. If you've only investigated Cymbalta and Lamictal, I would try anything else (atypical antipsychotics, other mood stabilizers, etc.) before I settled on lithium.

The important thing to remember about Lithium is that is must be taken regularly and consistently. If doses are missed, or if it's taken off schedule, it can mess things up even worse than if you hadn't taken it at all.

We decided it would be a bad idea for me to take Lithium, since I don't have a regular sleep pattern and it would be difficult to hit the rhythm.

If you ready to take it, I wish you the best of luck.

  On 7/23/2012 at 10:14 PM, disparaissant said:

what's the trick to zazen, i'm not really in a spot where i feel as though i can clear my mind right now. but i would love to maybe get a little peace. from something.

i do active mindfulness, it's just about the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.

It's not something easily described, you just do it. It feels really odd and awkward at first. I would say that the best way to describe it is active non-doing. If you're too passive, you're going to drift into thoughts and dreaming, and before you know it, you'll be worrying and tinkering with past and future. If you're too active, you're going to be really stiff - looking for something to do, waiting for something to happen. You remain calm and follow the breath. Thoughts will pop up anyway. This is the most important thing. You won't be stopping your thoughts. But you don't follow them, you just watch them as part of the whole thing going on. When you get caught up in thoughts, you return to following the breath. Rising and falling is the important bit here. Thoughts arise, and they fall away. Just as the breath rises and falls away.

In Zazen you do not close your eyes, you keep them open but relaxed. Breathe from your belly, deep, but don't force it. Just let it happen! It takes some practice to get the knack of it, but it is vital. It is like learning to breathe fully, like a human being again, instead of some agitated modern westerner.

Posture is important because body and mind are one, but for the love of god, don't try getting yourself in some pretzel-y ancient indian posture. Just a straight back on a chair is fine. But in the end it is about the mind sitting and for that it is not necessary for the body to sit.

  Quote

Shikantaza ("just sitting") is [being] aware solely of that which is aware. There is no object at all. Only subject. No special conditions are neccessary for this - not even sitting.

The [physical] sitting helps to clarify this for some people.

I started with counting my breaths from one to five. Count on the outbreaths. When you reach five, you start over. When you lose track, you start over. Only concern yourself with the fullness of the present number as you breathe it out. I can honestly say that there is only one moment that has mattered in all my practice: when I realized that eventually, I completely forgot myself in that counting, merging with each number, feeling it fully as part of the breath, and then moving on to the next. Everything else just dropping away. Taking a break from being a person. Everything that came after has just been a deepening of that.

Anyway, there have been lots and lots of people engaged in this problem of describing Zazen so I'm going to share a few quotes that have helped me come to grips with it:

  Quote

[You] can't stop the thoughts arising and disappearing in your mind,

True awareness shining boundlessly, you must focus on the one that doesn't move.

  Quote

".. What is it in this teaching that we call 'sitting in meditation' (tso-ch'an)? In this teaching 'sitting' means without any obstruction anywhere, outwardly and under all circumstances, not to activate thoughts. 'Meditation' is internally to see the original nature and not become confused.

 

And what do we call Ch'an meditation (ch'an-ting)? Outwardly to exclude form is 'ch'an'; inwardly to be unconfused is meditation (ting) . Even though there is form on the outside, when internally the nature is not confused, then, from the outset, you are of yourself pure and of yourself in meditation.

  Quote

How can you think of your original mind? How can you see your own eye? When you are looking inward, furthermore, there is no seeing subject. Some people swallow this in one gulp, so their eye of insight opens wide and they immediately arrive at their homeland.

 

When you were infants, you also heard sounds and saw forms, but you didn’t know how to discriminate. Once you came to the age of reason, then you listened to discriminatory thinking, and from that time on have suffered a split between the primal and the temporal.

 

So it is said, what can be seen by the eye or heard by the ear can be studied in the scriptures and treatises; but what about the basis of awareness itself—how do you study that?

 

Only if you keep your attention on it will you be able to make a discovery; but as I see, most of you just remain in eyes ears, seeing and hearing, sensing and feeling—you’ve already missed the point. You must find the nondiscriminatory mind without departing from the discriminating mind; find that which has no seeing or hearing without departing from seeing and hearing.

 

This does not mean that “no seeing” is a matter of sitting on a bench with your eyes closed. You must have nonseeing right in seeing. This is why it is said, “Live in the realm of seeing and hearing, yet unreached by seeing and hearing; live in the land of thought, yet untouched by thought.”

Foyan, Instant Zen

Good luck!

  On 7/23/2012 at 11:30 PM, A/D said:

It takes discipline. If you feel like you don't have discipline, learn it by doing this. I did. The mind will always vie for control with your true self. Only when you learn to quiet it can you be at peace.

I am with you on this one, but I would like to add that discipline and concentration are strange words in this context. It is a perfectly serene concentration maintained through discipline, but it is not a boot-camp type of aggressive discipline. You know, put up a good front, bear through it, because you're disciplined aren't you? Not that kind of thing. It is more like a trained ability to be gentle with yourself, a kind of self-faith, so that you don't delude yourself with every thought that pops up and jump on the squirrely train. With that comes true discipline, the ability to effortlessly move through anything throughout the day.

  Quote

Sorry to derail thread OP. I know a guy who swears by lithium. He's been on it for many years. Maybe it's just an adjustment period. I'd say, meds or no, meditation & exercise could help a lot.

I agree. Lifestyle changes are the most important. Nothing is ever a quick fix but the good stuff is that which will help you accept your situation and deal with the things you have to.

thanks for the help

im gonna try it out

i just can't even think straight so maybe trying to not think at all will help

also i will say, as i have said before, that meds aren't all bad. i'm not doing so hot now but if i was off meds haha whoa.

  On 7/23/2012 at 11:30 PM, A/D said:

I felt this way about meditation too and in my case it was EXACTLY why I needed to try meditation. Let me say first: it might feel like it's not doing anything, but if you want to feel the results, you HAVE to just try, a little bit every day, for as long as it takes. It's the only way to learn how. You'll feel like you are just a bundle of 1,000,000 thoughts and you'll get all kinds of paralyzing existential questions about where they're coming from and there are times when you'll get stuck in them and feel awful, and then there are times when you'll realize you can merely observe the thoughts and realize they have nothing to do with you, and you can just breathe and feel your body and enjoy life. It takes discipline. If you feel like you don't have discipline, learn it by doing this. I did. The mind will always vie for control with your true self. Only when you learn to quiet it can you be at peace.

as someone who's attempted mindfulness (via mindfulness in plain englihs), this makes a lot of sense. i want to be that guy, but i can't. no matter how much i strive for a mind that's free of... well... anything... during any of the exercises i just don't seem to be able to get there.

  On 7/24/2012 at 2:15 AM, chimera slot mom said:

Word to everything you just said sir! Sounds like the meditations I learned are similar to yours. Thanks for the gentle detail of your suggestions, I will take them to heart.

edit to kaini - how long did you try for? It took me months to feel like I was getting a few moments of mental rest at a time.

i must admit - i gave it a month. my downfall is undoubtedly lack of persistence.

that's really not bad. When I say months I mean months of on and off trying. I find consistency is key to my sanity these days. Can't imagine how I got along without doing it.

haha oh man i forgot to say

in line with this threads original idea, i broke out in hives yesterday, probably a combination of stress and lamictal. fuck that stuff, i'm done.

fucking hell.