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Sensitivities to meds?

LittleLemon

Well-Known Member
Has anyone ever been put on anti-anxiety or anti-depression medications and it just made things worse? After I had my daughter, I went on Zoloft and it gave me severe insomnia and my brain literally felt like it was on fire. It also did nothing for depression. It was awful. I went to a psychiatrist and she told me zoloft doesn't work on patients who have bipolar (which she just wrongly diagnosed me with because it fit the best). I was too shy to correct her with everything she said about me, so I just nodded and said ok (still kicking myself for that). Anyway, the meds she prescribed next (on the lowest dose) made things even worse, if that were even possible. After several months of trying all kinds of combinations, she said in 30 years of psychiatry, she has never seen someone so sensitive to medication. I remember being so disappointed because my anxiety is just so bad sometimes that I wanted relief. I desperately wanted these pills to work. I went to a psychologist and was then able to learn ways to at least take the edge off. This was about 6 years ago. Just a few months ago, I was reading that some people with autism have paradoxical or rare side effects to drugs. I was given Valium for a physical condition, and it did the opposite. I can't take much of anything without eventually getting an uncomfortable side effect (except Tylenol, but it's not like I take it often).

I guess my second question is if you've had bad effects from the common anti-anxiety meds, if you've eventually found something that does. I remember reading that there are some medications that are given specifically to ASD patients. I'm going back to therapy and thinking maybe I'll just work through it med-free with CBT. I just wanted to know if anyone's had luck. Sorry if this was confusing.
 
Sure. I'd think most initial rounds of "medication therapy" prove to be somewhat toxic because your physician is guessing as to which one will work, and which will work optimally. A precarious process at best.

So it's likely that in the course of experimenting with multiple medications, any number of them could generate symptoms even worse than the ones a person already has in the case of depression, social anxiety, etc.. Which is what happened in my case. Eventually settling for Thioridizine as it most definitely stopped my physical symptoms for social anxiety. However it also gave me an occasional irregular heartbeat, which is why the FDA eventually withdrew it from the market many years later. I voluntarily took myself off my meds after so many years. Willing to deal with my anxiety issues instead of feeling quite numb all the time.

My own mother was quite sensitive to most any medication, though her doctors were never sure if it was primarily psychosomatic in origin.
 
I have struggled with medications, too. Like the OP, I am extremely sensitive to lots of meds that have been tried. The last failure was Buspar, which the psychiatric nurse assured me worked extremely well with autistic children. So i requested the lowest dose and for a week or two it worked well. I was in a better mood, didn't feel drugged (except for a weird dizziness whenever I turned my head) and I slept well. But soon I started to get irritable, began to suffer insomnia, and finally it heightened my existing Misophonia which the whole reason I had started taking it was to mitigate it! Now I am trying Marinol, and I hate it because I feel like I am submerged under a heavy fog all day. It does help me not to startle so easily at noise so I will bear with it for now.
 
Sure. I'd think most initial rounds of "medication therapy" prove to be somewhat toxic because your physician is guessing as to which one will work, and which will work optimally. A precarious process at best.

So it's likely that in the course of experimenting with multiple medications, any number of them could generate symptoms even worse than the ones a person already has in the case of depression, social anxiety, etc.. Which is what happened in my case. Eventually settling for Thioridizine as it most definitely stopped my physical symptoms for social anxiety. However it also gave me an occasional irregular heartbeat, which is why the FDA eventually withdrew it from the market many years later. I voluntarily took myself off my meds after so many years. Willing to deal with my anxiety issues instead of feeling quite numb all the time.

My own mother was quite sensitive to most any medication, though her doctors were never sure if it was primarily psychosomatic in origin.

Thanks for sharing. You make a good point. Some of the meds gave me a numb feeling along with insomnia and overactive brain. I hated it. Geodon made my heart skip and it was scary. Maybe it's best to not mess with them again. My mom also had similar sensitivities. My doctors hardly ever believe me when I say I can't take Zofran or when I decided to hell with birth control. When I was on the phone with the autism society here making an appointment, the lady told me my story with doctors was very common for those on the spectrum. I nearly cried hearing that because I was starting to think it was all in my head. I knew it wasn't, but doctors kept telling me 'no other patients have that problem.'
 
The only anti-anxiety substance I can take without weird side effects is a magnesium supplement powder (which is easy because you stir it into a glass of water).
As an aside; 1. staying away from people, & 2. long walks help me a great deal.
 
I can't take much of anything without eventually getting an uncomfortable side effect (except Tylenol, but it's not like I take it often).

Have not taken much of anything for anxiety in my life, although aspirin works the best for calming me, makes me sleepy too. Tylenol does not work at all, some antibiotics give me horrible rashes and nightmares as well, codeine knocks me out completely. So yes, big time sensitivity to most medications for just about anything.

As far as your doctor diagnosing you as bipolar, women in general tend towards being diagnosed as such. It's actually quite common as most psychiatrists don't diagnose women, there is little in the way of official information out there, few studies of aspie adults who 'pass,' hold down jobs, and function in nerotypical society. Most of the work being done on autism and asperger's is diagnosing children before they attempt integration into society.
 
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I've been on 3 anti-anxiety/antidepressant meds and they all gave me bad side effects.

The first gave me such bad gas/bloating/ abdominal pain/nausea that I got no sleep. Then I would attempt to go to work, and was confused, dizzy, and unable to concentrate. I probably should not have been driving. I told the doctor I was seeing at the time and he said to INCREASE the dose. I went off them after a week or so. (and never saw that doctor again.)

The second gave me horrible tinnitus and worsened my misophonia. I went to the (different) doc, hoping to decrease the dose, but she put me on another med instead, which turned me into an angry, fat, zombie and gave me horrible bone and muscle pain. I stayed on that for far too long, because I didn't want to deal with any more bloody side effects I was unprepared for.

I'm not on anything at the moment.
 
It is my understanding that neurotypical dosages of medications can have profound effects on neurodiverse body chemistry. I was prescribed nearly any psychotropic med known to exist in the USA and a full range of anti-depressants during my TBI recovery phase. Nothing they prescribed helped me and as it turned out, the side effects of all of the meds were my biggest hurdles.

I started a program of eliminating meds I knew I could live without.I was on a script program of 14 individual types of pills served up four times a day in differing amounts. Monday mornings were spent filling pill lockers to handle my week's intake.

In an act of desperation,one Monday morning after crying my eyes out like a little baby for an hour because I didn't think I had the strength to cope with my present dilemma,I sat upright and said out loud to myself,"Motherf-bomb,you never quit on me before,you aren't allowed to quit on me now!"

My next act was to dispose of all my medications knowing that doing so could mean my death or further troubles. Much to my surprise,all of my nastiest symptoms disappeared when my body cleaned itself up. I finally went to a physiatrist to address what turned out to be SAD where she began another pill program that involved anti-depressants,starting off with Zoloft and two more of the major labeled popular types in succession after ill effects were reported after the saturation phases were completed.

I used up most of a summer trying out her chemical cocktail affair on the first two scripts. I was able to function just enough to write down my feelings during the "experiment" which are riddled with negative thoughts that I had lost a lot of ground in my recovery from my brain injury and felt like my demise was getting near again.
The twit Russian speaking Dr. Goldman prescribed her third attempt of pilling me up during my next appointment,but I never got the script filled. As I continued to return to her for other unrelated issues,she asked me how I was doing taking her latest pill experiment. I told her it was working well,so her answer to that was to up my dosage. I never went back to her again and wrote her off as just another idiot with a sheepskin and an overblown title who saw a chance to make it big in the USA :D

I no longer take any meds beyond anti-biotics now as a result of unfavorable outcomes with "brain" drugs in my past.
I am not recommending that you follow my lead,but it is something to be investigated with more natural types of treatments instead of chemistry experiments ;)
 
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Yes, medications affect me differently than they do NTs. Not just psych meds but others too. The contraceptive pill caused me heavier periods and 'breakthrough' bleeding that lasted for months, even when I stopped taking it. Antibiotics mess up my gut for months even if I take probiotics at the same time (but at different times of the day), thankfully I have not needed them for years. Anti-depressants I have tried so many, the only one I had no side effects from, I developed a severe allergy to the active ingredient a few weeks in. I am currently on escitalopram as I developed issues with the regular citalopram, and I have tried everything else, it is the best of a bad bunch and it deals with anxiety as well as depression but after a few months on it I am suffering with fatigue and feeling unmotivated.
 
My first experience with psychiatric drugs was taking Gabapentin for nerve pain. At first it seemed to lift my anxiety but then it stopped working and I was able to get off of it with chelated magnesium supplements which I still take, because it is a vital mineral and maybe I use it up more than most :)

It would make sense that these drugs would not work for the Neurodiverse -- they were never tested or studied on such populations! As an aside, while many NTs claim they are miracle drugs, an equally large number find terrible side effects and body dysfunction make them just as miserable as they were before. So our response just might be more than an NT's, but not that unusual.

One of my breakthroughs in dealing with anxiety was realizing I had a good reason to feel anxious. I was "passing" for normal, and just like a member of the French Underground dealing with the Gestapo, i was dealing with a lot of stress here!

Now, magnesium, a weighted blanket, a Mental Bunker when dealing with people, and strictly enforced rest days on the weekends seem to be helping much more than the drug ever did.
 
Thanks for all the replies! I've never found anyone besides my own mom who has these same issues as me. I'm glad I'm not that only one. I kind of wonder if the very rare side effect reports listed on drugs are reported by neurodiverse people. I'm tired of hearing from doctors that they never heard of this certain side effect when I can do a quick google search and find the side effect listed on the official drug information. The last time I complained about an antibiotic making me feel jittery and wired, she looked at me like I was nuts. Mirena made me *crazy* and the doctor said that wasn't possible. I'm starting to learn to keep my mouth shut.
 
Some alternatives to medications that I have tried with success, have been Chinese herbs, GABA which is an amino acid. I had brief success with 5HTP, but after about a week of feeling great, it started to convert to Melatonin almost immediately so I had to stop taking it. My favorite Chinese herb is also known as Chinese Prozac because it is every bit as effective as Prozac but without the side effects.
 
I'm tired of hearing from doctors that they never heard of this certain side effect when I can do a quick google search and find the side effect listed on the official drug information. The last time I complained about an antibiotic making me feel jittery and wired, she looked at me like I was nuts. Mirena made me *crazy* and the doctor said that wasn't possible. I'm starting to learn to keep my mouth shut.
I agree that this is very frustrating. What these doctors need to do is shut up and LEARN!
 
I have wondered for years now if the feedback during a trial phase of a drug is accurately reported. Is it feedback that shows it actually improved the symptoms or was it given a positive rating because a professional will never be wrong attitude by the receiver of said drug. That kind of puts it all in a new light in my honest opinion.
 
I have wondered for years now if the feedback during a trial phase of a drug is accurately reported. Is it feedback that shows it actually improved the symptoms or was it given a positive rating because a professional will never be wrong attitude by the receiver of said drug. That kind of puts it all in a new light in my honest opinion.

Not to mention that when the process moves in a distinctly progressive direction, it encourages shareholders equity. Even if such trends may illicitly constitute "insider information".

After all, bad news to a corporate drug trial can be detrimental to a balance sheet.
 
Not to mention that when the process moves in a distinctly progressive direction, it encourages shareholders equity. Even if such trends may illicitly constitute "insider information".

After all, bad news to a corporate drug trial can be detrimental to a balance sheet.
Yeah,I hadn't considered the fiscal responsibility aspect,so good view Judge ;)
 
Each time I see a new drug on the market for something, I think back to my university chemistry classes. We would be given a series of chemical procedures to follow, to make something in the labs that would give a correct result. If you didn't achieve the required result, you had to do more hours of lab work to get it right.

So, naive and honest me, spent sometimes ten hours or more outside of lab time per week to get the correct formulation in the process. When my lab partner asked me what I was doing, and I told her that I 'had' to emulate the experiment correctly to achieve the desired results, she laughed; 'Just copy the numbers from this.' Which as far as I knew is what most people in a lab of forty students had done.

And people wonder why the 'scientific process' is so problematic, when drug formulations present with many side effects. If students are 'cheating' and not learning the proper procedure at the beginning, how else could it be?
 
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I reacted to sertraline terribly, I was off it in under 3 weeks. Alleviated mood was the main problem. But since then I've been on risperidone and lamotrigine, both with little to no side effects, both useful at a low dose.
 
Each time I see a new drug on the market for something, I think back to my university chemistry classes. We would be given a series of chemical procedures to follow, to make something in the labs that would give a correct result. If you didn't achieve the required result, you had to do more hours of lab work to get it right.

So, naive and honest me, spent sometimes ten hours or more in the lab per week to get the correct formulation in the process. When my lab partner asked me what I was doing, and I told her that I 'had' to emulate the experiment correctly to achieve the desired results, she laughed; "Just copy the numbers from this." Which is what most people in a lab of forty students had done.

And people wonder why the 'scientific process' is so problematic. If students are doing this at the beginning, how else could it be?
Many in the metal machining industry do in house calibration of measuring devices across the board in a shop. Using calipers and micrometers requires a specific feel to produce an accurate measurement that must be tailored to the person using it who has their own feel for how much drag the tool has to gain the size that is requested on the print.

To me,that is opposite of how it should be done. My workers were instructed to show me their measurement on a standard that they did not know the exact size of and I would make the necessary adjustments so their numbers came out correct.

My Father and I have a feel that is within .0001 inch of each other in a shop that rarely demands accuracy beyond a .0005 inch tolerance,so we can consistently measure parts fairly accurate on the same calibration. Dad was proven wrong by a no contact laser micrometer used in a 68 degree F standard temperature gauge room that his feel is .0001 inch too tight.My younger brother has a .0004-8 tighter feel than I do,so he isn't all that good at it and isn't asked to do inspection bench work. I was spot on,but I already knew that.

When I was in the high tech sector machining quadrupole mass spectrometer parts,I had worked holding tolerances that were to .00005 inch any way a part could be measured.
Perfect job for an autie,finish grinding pole pieces and jig boring the matching collars in a gauge room where entry was very limited to ensure the accuracy the job demanded and no one there to interrupt extreme focus for weeks on end :p

The medication industry need to hire some auties to do their audits and trials so the scientific method gets adhered to and the money gets left out of the equation :D
 
i am either under affected or over affected by medication if that makes sense,it always seems to be one extreme or another.

ive never found an anti depressent that works apart from cymbalta which stopped working but every other anti depressent ive tried including mirtazapine,sertraline and fluoxatine/prozac does not work they actually make me pyschotic or extra manic and more depressed.im still on sertraline and its done nothing for me except make my moods more pronounced.

ive thought for years ive got bipolar but my support staff in previous places just said you read wikipedia to much which actually was wrong,my mum thinks i have it, and it runs in my family and besides having the acute mood differences since 10 years old no ones ever thought this could be something. i know it isnt just severe hard to treat depression,you know your own mind/body.

i have been on respiridone it did nothing for my autistic symptoms,anxiety and challenging behavior and i ended up sectioned in a intellectual disability hospital just before they were going to raise the doseage.
however it did change the way i see eyes,i cant see eyes anymore they are blurred out.
i was changed to haloperidol which has worked im on around 8mg a day of it i used to have it as PRN as well but my horrible pyschiatrist removed the PRN as she said i used it every day- i told her to try live my life and she would understand, of course she didnt listen i hate her.
it makes me feel sedated but not a lot,i took a massive overdose of the liquid haloperidol once [not to kill myself,to get rid of the incredible anxiety] and it didnt do anything.

i am on lorazepam and have also been on diazepam and temazepam,they dont make me feel high but they calm my thought patterns-not to a great degree ive had 10mg pills before and ive still kicked off,i took a massive over dose of diazepam once [again it wasnt to kill myself] and wasnt affected.

gabapentin-im given it for a few things by different specialists,sciatica, severe anxiety and epilepsy on top of my other epilepsy drug, however it has never helped my anxiety and i suffer badly still with sciatica every day,im on a very high dose,i asked if i could try pregabalin which is the same drug as gabapentin just different in a way and its said to work if gabapentin doesnt- and the gp refused saying its more expensive and he will just up the gabapentin dose.
 

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