I just wanted to let you all know that I am doing Ok. I went to the doctor today and talked to her about the depression and everything that has been going on and they added a new med and upped the other 2 that I have been taking. I go back in a week for an evaluation. Hopefully this will help. I hate the way I have been feeling. It is scary for me to feel this way but it also scares my family. thanks for the prayers and good thoughts. Please keep them coming.

By Insaneusmcwife on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 10:10 pm:

{{{hugs}}} I hope the new doses works for you.

By Imamommyx4 on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - 10:36 pm:

I've got a few questions for you. I am a pharmacist and the dw of a wonderful man who I let get messed up with the wrong psych meds. I learned some big things the hard way thru a horrible time in our lives.

How long have you been on these meds?
How long has it been since your last medication adjustment?
Is you family practitioner/general doctor making these adjustments or are you seeing a psychiatrist?

If you'd prefer to answer privately, let me know and I'll get you my e-mail.

But I will give you a snippet of info.
It takes a very minimum of 2 weeks to see any effect. Many in the psych field believe it may take a month or more to see a minimum of effect.
Changes should not be made after 2 weeks unless your condition has gotten worse.

And I trusted our family practitioner until what happened with dh. Our fp misprescribed for my dh's issues and his personal system and almost killed him. After what happened with us and info I have learned since then, I would never let a fp/gp make more than 1 adjustment on a psych med.

They can be great crutches to get you thru your issues but horrible if you're given the wrong one for you. After our gp totally screwed dh up, and I had to put him in the hospital the psychiatrist did a real, true psych eval and got him on the correct meds and he has been great since then. He also worked with a really good Christian counselor for a little while. And now he's back to his great old self. The psychiatrist sees him every couple of months and decreases his meds eery few visits.

By Mrsheidi on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 09:12 am:

{{Hugs Latonya}} Keep us posted...we love you!

By Bobbie~moderatr on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 11:34 am:

Debbie, I have had similar issues with DH. His first hospital stay was because a fp decided DH was a little depressed and a started him on a medication that in turn made him a whole lotta depressed. One morning I just got a feeling something just wasn't right and I couldn't shake it.. DH came home from work early and I could see in his eyes that he was really sick. After five hours of back and forth, DH went to the ER angry as heck, but I got him there.. At which time he told the intake he had planned to kill himself that night, in great detail he told the in take his plan while I sat there in shock and the bottom fell out of my life... It took ten years, three hospital stays and whole bunch of trial and error with medications to figure out what truly was wrong with DH. His last hospital stay he finally admitted the depths of his illness. He had been so afraid to admit what was truly going on, fear I would leave him, fear people would know how broken/weak/disturbed he was. He knew what he was feeling, dealing with, wasn't "normal" so he wouldn't tell anyone the true hell he was in. Dh's diagnosis is in the extreme spectrum of mental illness, he hid it from everyone so well to the point that he is labeled high functioning, but all that faking his way through things did was make him sicker..

I can not express enough, that you have to get with a psyc you feel you can trust, you need a support team (FP, Counselor, pharmacist) you know are listening to what you say and you have to tell all of your truths to these people. They can not properly treat you, medicate you, if you go in only telling them a little bit of the symptoms. If DH had told them his symptoms, they would have known ten years earlier what his primary issues were, but he didn't so they treated all the symptoms that he couldn't deny but not the root issue. By treating what they assumed was the issue they nearly sent him over the edge... They did their job, they treated what the knew..

Dh is Schizoaffective, the long and the short of that is he hears voices when under distress. The years of therapy, Psyc care, and reading everything I can on it point to the fact that he was born with it and the trauma of his childhood opened the door to it. Because he heard voices he developed social phobia, what appeared to be ODD, symptoms of ADD, and in turn major depressive disorder, he picked up OCD and ticks as time progressed.

Also, you have to read... No matter how scary the medical DX may sound, you have to know what the symptoms of the DX is, you have to make sure that it is relevant to your symptoms.. So many people take the DR's DX and label themselves with out even knowing what that DX means.

DH has a chemical imbalance in his body that predispositions him for emotional disturbance, factor in his childhood experiences and his denying the hell he was in into early adulthood and what he is DXed as is irrelevant after that. One issue became another, became another, became another. What in early childhood could have been treated and him taught to manage became his life. His body/mind learned techniques to compensate for the things he was hiding. He developed other disorders to hide the primary issues.

(((HUGS))) Latonya, I hope you are able to get all the help you need... We are here for you and please keep us posted. I can attest that there is light at the end of the tunnel..

By Bobbie~moderatr on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 11:39 am:

DH's original psyc eval. diagnosis was BiPolar, the medications for BiPolar/Manic Depression is different the the treatment for Major Depressive Disorder. This alone caused further issues in his mental state but they could only treat what the knew.

By Latonya on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 03:14 pm:

I have been on Lamictal and Symbyax for about 1 and1/2 years. I was on a pretty low dose and was doing good for a while. Sometimes I have major mood changes. At times I am so depressed it is hard to get out of bed and other times I feel on top of the world. That is the reason they say I have bipolar. I guess that it the symptoms. Anyway they upped both of those meds and started me on Zyprexa. They are hoping that it will help me sleep. I took the first dose last night and I slept like a rock. It was so good to get a good nights rest. I go back next Wednesday for an eval. My only worry is this..I have been on medicaid so it pays for all my meds and they are expensive but with DH working now it will be cut off the end of this month and I can't afford the meds. I am so worried that I will finally find the right meds and not be able to get them. I have heard there are programs to help with this so I am going to check into that. Thank you girls for caring and the advice. I will find out all I can about this new med.

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 06:16 pm:

Latonya, talk to your doctor's office about the cost of the meds. I know that some pharmceutical companies have programs that help people get their meds at very low cost.

Yes, bi-polar is a terrible cross to bear. As is serious depression. I take heart, though, that you keep fighting your illness and keep trying to not give in to the darkest sides of it.

My favorite prayer, from the book Cold Sassy Tree, is "Lord, give me strength." I will pray for the Lord to give you strength.

By Imamommyx4 on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 08:53 pm:

I'm glad to hear your info. I read upped doses and added meds and go back in a week and a ton of alarms went off. So this has been a slow process..

Good. I feel better now.

Does dh not have medical insurance with his new job?

And ask the dr about samples? My dh's psych dr gave him samples for about 3 months to start.

By Bobbie~moderatr on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 10:09 am:

Yes the medication companies offer their medications at a discount to people that do not have insurance and are low/lower income. The doctor should be able to give you the contact information. I know one of the companies my medication is from has a sliding scale of cost based of of household income. Also... The local mental health facility has their own pharmacy, and here locally you pay based off of income. At one point, while uninsured DH paid 5 dollars a month for five prescriptions and five dollars a Dr's visit. They get grants to off set the cost of mental health care. There is hope, don't just stop taking your meds, make a game plan so it is set up before the coverage stops..

((((hugs))))