Posted by bob (happy to be back chattin' up Noa ;^) on March 4, 2000, at 21:39:37
In reply to Re: What do you know about...., posted by dove on March 4, 2000, at 11:46:13
hey Noa, here's what I tried to post last night, with no success:
--------------------------Noa, if ANYONE is more OVER-medicated than Deb Richard's Mum used to be, it has GOT to be you.
Have you ever thought that so much is happening inside you, chemically speaking, that your body just doesn't know what to do with the stuff? Yeah, I know, that was very scientific and all, but really?
Maybe it *is* time to head back to (a DIFFERENT) Square One.
In terms of meds:
For a primary AD, which TCA did you try? How many other meds were you on at the time? For me, I started nortriptyline to augment zoloft and tho my pdoc and girlfriend (the clinician/analyst-in-training with the encyclopaedic knowledge of psychopharms ... she used to work on one up near Boston) insisted I was wrong on this, I knew that the nortrip was giving me my "main effect" instead of the zoloft when the combo started improving things for me. When I finally convinced them that I needed to drop the big Z and go solo with nortrip as my AD, things improved even more.Yet another case of "Less is More!"
Anyway, given all the stuff you're on, I can see why switching to an MAOI for your primary AD would be a concern ... what of all that stuff would be contraindicated if you made the switch?
What do you think you could wean yourself from wrt the rest of your cocktail? Maybe you should start picking them off, one at a time. Maybe someone out there can compute from a five-way interaction, given known effects of each individual med with the others one at a time, which might be the likeliest candidate to pull. It might look like a house of cards, ready to topple with the slightest breeze, but maybe just the opposite is happening ... maybe you have some neurochemical congestion worse than any sinus congestion you've ever had.
Just tossing that out for consideration.
If the thought of reducing that cocktail is intimidating, let me toss out another weird idea -- alternative medicine. Does your health plan cover it at all? More HMOs are picking up things like acupuncture, acupressure, massage therapy and the like. Maybe something at a 90-degree angle from everything else you've tried can get you through a transition period between meds.
From my recent foray into the literature, if I had to pick one thing to pull, or one place to start, it'd be the synthroid. From what I remember, the evidence of it having any benefit above and beyond what cytomel does for you is nil, and on its own the evidence is mixed.
Oops! Almost forgot this one, from the "With friends like me, who needs enemas?" file ...
Speaking of alternative medicine, how about checking into a good homeopathy book and looking into some procedures for a liver, kidney, and/or colon cleansing? Some purification fasts, perhaps? Clean out the pipes a little, knowhutimean?
Simplify!
bob[as a ps, in case you still haven't gotten my emails to your malfunctioning ISP ... day 3 of Ritalin, and things are looking optimistic.]
poster:bob (happy to be back chattin' up Noa ;^)
thread:25503
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000302/msgs/25998.html