Water titration for slow and controlled psychiatric drug withdrawal

I should have posted this a long time ago. It will stay on the “about” page for reference and easy access.

This method of tapering was developed by people withdrawing from benzos but it can be used for any drug. I got these directions which I’ve edited slightly from a benzo board. It’s a very good way to taper any drug once the doses get small because it’s imperative that the tapers become smaller and smaller and dry cutting sometimes becomes impossible.

I don’t endorse these directions in a literal sense. I think that daily cuts, for example, are not wise, even in the tiny doses suggested here, but the technique is well described and you can make it work for you by adjusting some of the suggestions and going slower if need be.

An alternative to water titration is using a milligram scale. You crush the pill and put it on the scale and take away tiny fractions by weight for each new taper.

A special note:
If your particular drug does not dissolve well in water you can try a small amount of alcohol then dilute heavily with water. You can try other clear liquids too like club soda. Whatever does the best job.

Very important note:
It is dangerous to crush time released pills of any kind.

Note: This method is based upon the personal experiences of laypeople and is not intended to be medical advice. Please work with your doctor if you intend to withdraw from a psych med. It is very important to be as stable as possible before you start the taper.

Celebrating Bipolar Overawareness Week

Both Philip at Furious Seasons and CL Psych are asking questions about the overdiagnosis of bipolar disorder. (Philip adds more on this topic since I wrote this–the evidence is piling up) CL psych goes as far as to suggest that yesterday mark the beginning of a week commemorating Bipolar Overawareness:

So I propose that we start a Bipolar Overawareness Week, complete with a website linking to a questionnaire that makes statements like:

• Do you know that your symptoms are probably not indicative of bipolar disorder?
• Ask your doctor if you’ve been misdiagnosed with bipolar.
• Find out if you are unnecessarily taking Zyprexa today.

Let’s see if we can get the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill on board. Surely they want to make sure that patients receive the proper diagnosis. Surely drug companies, with their interest in good science and good medical practice, want to help out as well, since they want to make sure that their drugs are prescribed properly.

I think these are very good questions for probably hundreds of thousands of people to be asking. Okay, so I’m a little more radical than Philip when it comes to coming to conclusions. He points out that the research he is reporting on is based on just one large clinic in Rhode Island. (His later post indicate the problem most assuredly goes beyond that) I basically question the label in almost every instance since I’ve seen even the most classically afflicted bipolar patient recover with alternative methods. Also I worked in mental health for 12 years and saw exactly who was being diagnosed. Granted some of those people had very difficult problems and I am in no way minimizing the real suffering people experience.

Philip says of the Zimmerman’s report on overdiagnosis:

For example, Zimmerman uses familial history of bipolar disorder in his paper to rule out bipolar disorder in people in the study who did not meet formal clinical criteria for bipolar disorder according to the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV (SCID). In other words, if the people didn’t test out as having bipolar disorder and there was no family history of bipolar disorder, then Zimmerman determined that these people had been bad diagnoses if they had previously been given a bipolar disorder diagnosis.

So while we’re looking at Philip’s piece I will take seriously, for myself in any case, the question about family history. I’m not one to buy into the genetics model, instead I say we certainly learn and are nurtured by the people who raise us. We eat what they feed us and learn from their behaviors good and bad. This effects physiology and mental health.

Amino acids and mental health

I use a small cocktail of amino acids now. I haven’t always. It’s a rather new addition to my supplement regime. I’m exclusively using inhibitory amino acids, as when I tried excitatory amino acids I had bad reactions. Besides the story I just linked to I also tried SAMe and had a real nightmare of a time as well. SAMe is a combination excitatory amino acid which is often used as an antidepressant. I was using it as prescribed by a orthomolecular doctor for having high histamine which it is supposed to correct. It backfired big time.

I did much more research on amino acids before adding the inhibitory ones and it seems they are helping greatly. My new doctor, another orthomolecular, holistic and energy healing psychiatrist recommended a couple I wasn’t taking. I am now sleeping 9 hours a night. They seem to be helping.

A good place to begin a study of amino acids is here.

It’s possible to be tested for optimal levels of amino acids, but I personally found that test useless and the doctor who did that supplemented me with a broad based amino acid product that included excitatory amino acids. For now I will stick with the inhibitory and calming aminos.

Probiotics and mental health

Probiotics are catching on in the mainstream as seen here in the Los Angeles Times. Why am I mentioning it here? What does it have to do with withdrawal and mental health. Everything.

The first thing I did when I started researching natural care for mental health was come upon anecdotal evidence again and again about how gut health effects mental health. If you don’t digest your food properly you don’t nourish your brain properly. Given I had a rotten gut and was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and had suffered from diarrhea for twenty years I figured I best take note of that piece of information. I’d gone to one gastroenterologist after another and they did nothing but give one medication after another that did nothing. I gave up and lived with a chronic bowel problem.

When I started reading that this problem could lead to malabsorption of nutrients and hence mental health problems I knew it was the first thing I wanted to attend to. There were lots of potential problems the gut could have but the first and easiest thing to do was take probiotics. I carefully researched brands and with the advice of a number of people I trusted including one of my best friends who is a naturopathic doctor and chiropractor I started taking Primal Defense by Garden of Life. (I get nothing for promoting this product—it simply worked for me and the site I link to has it for a good deal—it’s an expensive product.)

I had a severe and serious gut problem so I was told to ignore the directions on the bottle which suggest two tablets a day. Instead I worked up one tablet a week until I got to 8 tablets a day. It’s important to do this because if you take too much at once you run the risk of having a die-off reaction of bad bacteria that can make you sick. The good bacteria in the probiotic will make you well if titrated up slowly. I took 4 in the morning and 4 at night. I was cured in 6 months of 20 years of chronic diarrhea. Any way you look at it that’s a good thing.

The above article talks about hyped up products catching on to a fad. A fad product like yogurt that says it has probiotics in it is probably not too helpful—especially if it has sugar in it. Plain yogurt can be beneficial but making it at home is usually much healthier. Do research for a good strong product if there is a serious gut problem. The product I used is one that helps heal serious problems.

In my withdrawal and natural care for mental health groups many people have saved their guts from all sorts of bad symptoms, from diarrhea to constipation to bad gas. It’s a first step in getting mentally healthy for many people. And if you or anyone has a gut problem probiotics are a good and safe place to start attempting to heal it.

I took digestive enzymes in conjunction with the probiotic. I don’t know how important they were but again many people I consult with suggest those be taken as well.

And, oh, I now take a maintenance dose of two capsules a day.

Ginseng helps certain symptoms of “schizophrenia?”

WebMd reports on a study done on Panax Ginseng that showed improvement of “negative symptoms” of schizophrenia.

I often think that negative symptoms are caused by the neuroleptics. In any case, this may be of help to someone.

It’s refreshing that a site that is so heavily supportive of Big Pharma is writing about alternative treatments.

Brain technology—cognitive enhancement and neurofeedback

So my cognition has become so poor that after watching the video with Dan Rather on neuroplasticity I went straight to my neuro-psychologist to ask about software to help with my cognitive dysfuntion.

Now my first thought when I watched the video was that it was evidence that the “mentally ill” brain can heal as I’ve seen people heal from meditation a number of times now. But my second thought was, “wow, I have a brain like an 85 year old and I bet I could benefit from the software they’re talking about.”

So instead of getting neurofeedback on Wednesday as usual, I asked my doctor if I could talk to him. He is one of my favorite people in the world and has been furiously supporting me since I decided to start tapering about 4 years ago. He got me off anti-depressants and 7 mg of Risperdal and 50 mg of Seroquel safely and with pretty much no adverse effects, before things started going south. My problem is simply too complex for neurofeedback alone at this point. But my holistic psychiatrist still thinks it’s an important adjunct to what we’re doing and I’m sure it is. It worked so obviously well for so long.

In any case—the cognitive software. I explained to him how I forget everything, misplace and lose everything. Space out on appointments. Flake out on friends unintentionally etc. (yesterday I left my purse out in the community for the third time in about 2 months—had no idea where–but luckily I found it. I never did stuff like that in the past.)

I asked him can this sort of software help me? He gave me a resounding yes. He said that at this point in the game the benefit I’ll get is less than if I wasn’t constantly aggravating my system, but it can help with further deterioration and should also give me some of my cognition back. Apparently he does cognitive building work there in his office which is much more sophisticated, but he said it would be a waste of money for me at this juncture. But when my withdrawal is over I have another resource to get some of my brain back which was exciting to me.

And life continues

Well, I’ve had a string of good days after basically weeks of real hell. It actually got worse before these last few days where I’ve been able to function a bit. I’ve been out every day for three days and driving myself. For a while there I had to have my husband drive me anywhere I needed to go as it was truly unsafe for me to get behind the wheel. Also for three days I’ve not been in bed all day. I had gotten so weak that it hurt my arms to hold a phone to my head! So I lay in bed limp all day. I lay against a big pillow and put my laptop on my lap (taking the name of the machine literally) and that is how I’ve stayed in touch with the world. The phone was too much. And seeing people was too much—even talking on the phone was too much. Nausea, dizziness and weakness kept me in bed.

The last three days (and today seems like a 4th) I’ve been able to leave the house, drive myself, and visit with friends and/or run errands. It’s been very nice. Yesterday I got high just driving five minutes to get a cup of decaf at a cafe. Something so simple made me so happy. Really happy. I think if I regain my life I will be happier with much simpler things. When you’ve been house and bed bound just being able to drive and walk around a store (instead of letting your husband do it for you) gives you a high.

And “high” does not mean mania. It is actually a subtle and profound joy at the simple beauty in life. That my legs work and carry me to where I want to go. That I can sit with a friend over a meal and listen to her problems instead of think about mine. Joy. My god, I’ve been feeling joy. And I’ve been sleeping well too. This is no mania.

Frankly, I don’t expect it to last. In the last three months since I’ve been profoundly ill I’ve had a day here, or a couple of days there where I wasn’t completely out. So I think it’s probably likely things will slide again. But I’m living in the moment now and this moment is good. That is one thing I’m learning to finally do. For a while there everytime I felt good I couldn’t’ shake the dreaded feeling that feeling like shit was just around the corner. Now I know it may be but I just don’t care.

I am working with my new holistic psychiatrist. It’s possible what she’s already done is making a difference. I don’t know. I hope so because if that is what it is it bodes very well for the future.

So here’s to the future!

And thank you everyone who kept me from completely checking out. I really thought the blog was over. But it’s impossible. My life is dedicated to this path of transformation. Mental health, mine and that of others, has always been my vocation and it’s not ending now.

Risperdal will NOT be generic in June 2008

I wrote a while back that Risperdal, the antipsychotic I’m still on at .75 mg, was going generic in June but apparently Janssenn has been able to extend the patent. It’s very hard to find information regarding this and there was some information stating it would be generic in June a while back which I reported on.

I’ve noticed that people keep coming to my site under searches for when will Risperdal go generic. I was looking for the answer today because a week or so ago I read that Teva had applied for exclusive rights to make the generic drug but that it was still pending and that it would not be finalized until June. That made me figure we probably won’t have a generic in June.

So today I started looking for more answers again. I found on Crazy Meds bulletin board information that seems to put any hope for a generic well into the future.

Someone there turned me onto the Electronic Orange Book, put out by the FDA. It has all drugs and the lengths of their patents. Good little resource to be aware of.

Unfortunately, even though I was worried about generic Risperdal not being similar enough for me to continue my taper safely, I was still hoping it would be and that I would save much money.

Here is the chart for Risperdal patents ending. The dates differ depending on what Risperdal was approved for. I don’t really understand most of it, but what is clear is that the earliest we’re going to see any Risperdal generic is October of 2009 and some of the extensions go as far as February 2011.

Somehow I’m going to have to manage my way through the donut hole again this year. Medicare doesn’t cover you at all after you reach about $3,000 in spending (that’s approximate). The donut whole (nice little euphemism) makes you pay a good other $3,000 out of pocket. GlaxoSmithKline kindly paid for my Lamictal last year when I was in the donut hole, but Janssen apparently doesn’t give a shit if you can’t afford their meds and didn’t help me out at all with the Risperdal. At the time I took this to mean they were trying to milk every cent out of us since they were losing their patent.

Oh how I hope by next years donut hole I will be off all the drugs…

A note on the insanity of drug costs: a .25 mg tablet costs about the same as a 4 mg tablet. So even though I’m on a fraction of the dose I used to be on the expense is about the same!! Sometimes it’s even more because I was taking three .25 mg tablets until I switched to liquid. I’ve got to compare costs on .5 mg tablets while cutting one in half. That might save me money.

To hell and back

I was directed to an amazing story of a courageous young man through Furious Seasons. I’ve since corresponded with Thor and he has given me permission to post the piece here in it’s entirety. It is a story of endurance and recovery that validates the intention behind this blog. I am happy to add it to the collection of recovery stories this blog has now gathered. You can see more recovery stories on the “About” page.

This story is of great importance because it is the voice of a young survivor. It’s inspiring to see that he was smart enough to stop the insanity being forced upon him. It is also a tragedy in that someone as young as he has had to live through all he went through, especially knowing that there are tens of thousands of other young people who don’t escape. I was one of them. It’s taken me 20 years to figure out it was all for crap.

Here’s to you listening to that “other voice” Thor.

Here is Thor Nystrom’s beautifully written story:

To hell and back

Editor’s note: Kansan reporter Thor Nystrom was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder his sophomore year of high school in Minnesota and prescribed the drug Adderall. When he developed anxiety, a side effect of Adderall, he was prescribed Paxil. The two drugs, mixed with the beer he consumed as a KU freshman, led to behavior that culminated in a fight in a Lawrence parking lot, his arrest and his entry into the mental health system. Using his own medical records, police records, his own diaries, interviews with family and his own recollections, he wrote this account of what he calls his descent into the “depths of hell,” a journey with an ending that neither he nor his parents saw coming. This is his graduation story.

The mentally impaired should be left to die

Who should MDs let die in a pandemic? Report offers answers

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won’t get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die. Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn’t be treated.

As stated in the article one group among other vulnerable groups is:

Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

Never mind that illness can cause delusions and mental impairment in even so-called “mentally healthy” individuals. Those of us with predispositions to mental anguish are truly left vulnerable to this barbaric ruling.

And we can imagine left to the discretion of the wise members of the medical establishment that the developmentally disabled will be left to die too. I really have no words.

Mental Wellness Group

I posted this on an online bulletin board in my hometown:

Mental Wellness Group:
I’m seeking like-minded individuals who would like to explore natural/holistic/spiritual ways of achieving good mental health. We are people who may or may not be on psych meds but whose goals are to live as clean of a life as possible and who believe in complete recovery through sometimes radical lifestyle changes and maintenance of those changes. We believe it’s possible to live a life free of meds and are only too conscious of how dangerous these meds are and how much they impede our lives. We do not judge where someone is on their journey but hope to have the same goals. We know it may not always be possible to get off all drugs safely.

We are not all where we want to be. We share what we know about diet and nutrition/spirituality/yoga/meditation and how those things have helped us. We talk about barriers that keep us from getting there and we help support each other as we make changes in our lives.

I have access to many recovery stories of people using these methods. Stories of people having achieved complete recovery from even serious mental illness. These people do not take meds any longer and have found natural and holistic means to stay healthy and live productive lives. I will gladly share these stories with you. (they are on the internet–I can email them to you)

I’ve been on this journey of healing for several years. I eat a natural diet of whole foods, I supplement, and as much as I am able I exercise, do yoga and meditate—I personally need support in creating discipline in the latter areas. My diet and nutrition are stellar but I have yet to fully embrace the mind/body lifestyle changes I hope to. I’ve been withdrawing from psych meds and while I’ve found a rich network of like-minded souls on the internet I have not found them in real life…

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in participating in and helping shape please contact me.

I, of course, need to start functioning a bit better before I can actually commit to meeting each week, but in the mean time I want to find out if there is interest.

Recovery Through Mind Training

by Sally Clay

I got permission to reprint this piece from Sally. You can find it in a PDF file here. Some of you may have read it already as she left it in a comment yesterday. It further supports the science behind the neuroplasticity of the brain theory.

Recovery Through Mind Training

Early in the morning I open my computer and load some colorful Buddhist images on the screen. I pull out my practice implements, a Tibetan bell and dorje, along with a rosary made of sandalwood. Then I ignite a stick of incense and light a red votive candle in a crystal holder. Finally, I open iTunes to a special playlist that I call “Daily Practice.” These are a series of prayers and mantras recorded by Buddhist monks and practitioners, and I chant along with them for an hour or so every day.

And that is the secret to my recovery from mental illness. I first experienced madness many years ago when I was a junior in college, and it was a lifeshattering experience. I became wildly psychotic and had to be carried off to a mental hospital in a strait jacket. At that time I was hospitalized for nearly six months, and my psychiatrist later confided to me that he had feared that I would never return to sanity. Mental health treatment was very different in those days at the start of the 1960’s. Most people who became as psychotic as I was very often wound up incarcerated for months in mental institutions, and many of them stayed there for life. At that time Thorazine had just been introduced, and I was given massive doses of it.

More on neuroplasticity of the brain

This program gave me a degree of hope I have not been feeling lately.

Amazing video which shows the vast ability of the brain to heal—that is it’s neuroplasticity. And though it doesn’t explicitly talk about healing from severe mental illness it’s implicit.

An example of someone who has done this is SFJane, who recovered completely from severe mental illness through meditation. Her blog is here.

And for a good article on neuroplasticity by Steven Morgan see here.

This video found through Duane at Discover and Recover.

Note: sometimes I click on google videos and the volume needs to be turned up on the video—not the computer.

Alternatives and why I choose them

This was first posted on October 29th of last year. Some of you are new readers since then and since I’m not up to writing daily, I thought I would occasionally repost something from the past:

There are people around the blogosphere who question the biomedical model of psychiatry as do I. But they also seem to think that since this implies that there are no chemical imbalances that proponents of nutrients and dietary changes are also questionable.

While I’m right there with the people who contend childhood trauma is often a contributory element in “mental illness” and indeed sometimes the only factor, I know that without a doubt nutrition can effect how one feels profoundly.

At this point in my recovery this time around I can imagine some of you wonder if any of my diet and nutrition is helping as I often continue to suffer and there is no way to tell while I am going through profound withdrawal symptoms, though I know that before I made these changes I was unable to tolerate the symptoms of withdrawal and now I can. What I do know is all the anecdotal stories of all the people who are part of my email groups and not only that—when I was 17 to 19 years old I was cured of my extreme mental anguish even in my abusive household by the help of diet and nutrition.

Ten Practical Considerations During Medication Withdrawal

The above article as noted in the title is written by Alice Lee-Bloem. She has given me permission to post it.

Click on her name above to read the rest of the newsletter this comes from. This is Dr. Lee-Bloem’s homepage.

The article follows here. It is the best practical advice I’ve read yet on psych med withdrawal written by a real live psychiatrist—and we thought there was no one who understood. And who can be truly anti-psychiatry when there are psychiatrists like Dr. Lee-Bloem teaching such sense?

Ten Practical Considerations During Medication Withdrawal

There are many important considerations when undertaking medication withdrawal, and the following list provides only a few of these considerations. It would be helpful to consider this list as simply informal, clinical notes on this broad and complicated topic, but even so, I believe it can be of help to those who are interested in this topic. It is not meant to replace competent medical supervision and care, but to heighten awareness of the common pitfalls and problems associated with withdrawal.

When helping a patient through medication withdrawal . . . .

1. Realize that there are at least THREE areas that need to be healed and supported: a) withdrawal symptoms, b) underlying health problems, which led to the patient’s need for medications, and c) damage done to the patient from using a xenobiotic (medication) over time. The naive assumption that, if patients are stable, all there is to do is help them lower their medication(s) will result in some surprising outcomes. Being aware of three areas and not just one when tackling withdrawal allows a better assessment of what will happen during the withdrawal process. For example, if a patient had a difficult to treat underlying problem that began in utero or from early childhood, had been taking medications for decades, many of which were highly damaging to the body, then, even if the patient comes in looking sweet as a rose before medication withdrawal, you will be opening a Pandora’s box when you do so. How a patient presents (symptoms and complaints) does not determine how difficult the withdrawal will be. A patient who comes in after taking a medication for just a few weeks, complaining of a great many symptoms after taking the medication, may be able to withdraw from the medication very easily, especially if the underlying illness has all but healed.

New doc…preliminary thoughts

Oh yeah, I’m still very tired. Exhausted, fragile, on edge—but I want to write! I feel like writing.

I talked to my new doc for 2 hours yesterday. She is extremely unconventional and many people may think I’m nuts to trust what she is doing but I do, I do! She practices “energy medicine” along with nutritional or “orthomolecular psychiatry.” I’ve done the whole orthomolecular thing for a long time, but none of the docs I’ve seen and consulted with totally got how damn sick I am. She gets it. Really gets it. And she knows the drugs are toxic and she knows the withdrawal is dangerous. She gets the double-edge-sword aspect of it all—must get off toxic drugs, but getting off toxic drugs is poisonous in and of itself.

The energy medicine is what makes her truly unconventional. It may sound like magic or hocus pocus to some people. It almost sounds like that to me except it doesn’t because I’ve experienced energy the way she talks about it. Much of the diagnostic work she does she does by essentially scanning my energy remotely—yeah sounds crazy to most people, but, you know, I know that it’s possible because I’ve been in head spaces in my pre-drug era in which I could tune into people’s energy and feel their spirit. She is doing this in a much deeper and controlled fashion and is able to manipulate and heal in the process as well as diagnose. Ultimately she teaches me to do it and our relationship ends. She is not about creating life-long patients. She says she thinks of her patients as students.

I don’t know why I don’t care about telling people about this because I think most people will think I’m nuts, but it’s just I know that I’m not. I know what I personally have experienced and I can hear in her voice her calm, humble, confidence in what she does. I’ve also had a bit of contact with people who have worked with her through email groups. And read lots of testimonies of people she’s helped heal. The relatively drug naive can heal very very quickly with her use of nutrition and energy. They move through her office in a matter of a few months. Someone like me might take a couple of years.

One of my favorite friends I’ve made in withdrawal circles is Cindy. She is one of the few people I know to be completely physically and emotionally healed after years of psychiatric med abuse. The person she found also used energy medicine and nutrition. This was after years of up to 100 doctors as she claims. Her recovery in the end was rapid and sure. She is one of my guiding lights. I did not feel drawn to pursue her doctor though. But having found mine I feel confident it’s where I’m supposed to be.

I say all this seemingly optimistic and all, and I guess I am, but what is most amazing is how truly shitty I still feel. I’m a wreck. We haven’t started a protocol yet and I feel desperate and afraid as well as hopeful. I can’t hang on like this much longer.

My period is six days late and my PMS is out of control. I’m not pregnant—took a test this morning.

Thought is energy. I will use thought to heal myself in conjunction with continued attention to diet and nutrition. That really is all energy medicine is—it’s not some new agey ball of crap. And the doctor is not at all like that either.

Oh—her initial plan or prognosis, has me healing for 4 weeks to 6 months before resuming withdrawal. I love that she is so conservative! I’m ready to take it slow and start healing. I’m so tired of being sick.

Wish me the best all of you kind readers, even if you think I’ve gone off the deep end.

I have no crystal ball, I could be wrong in thinking this might be where I find healing. I’ve been wrong before. I don’t want to sound a like a gullible airhead, but I think anyone can agree that faith and trust in their healers can in and of itself work miracles.

Update and warning

Just want to add a warning to this blog. So that it will be at the top of the page.

Withdrawing from psych meds is DANGEROUS.

Way back when I started my blog I understood this. I linked to a paper by Joanna Moncrieff that makes plain as day the dangers. I said it was a scary paper and withdrawing is scary.

But it doesn’t have to be. If you do it right. I did not. But people should be scared, if only to do it right so that they don’t have to be scared.

I am very very sick and I for the most part I followed the rules of psychiatric withdrawal—what few there are. What I didn’t always do was listen to my body—that is a much more subtle thing than following printed out proclamations of good practice. My body told me I was getting sick and had I listened to one of my mentors who always insists that after each taper one wait until they feel as good or better than before the taper, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

I did not listen to that. What I did follow was the 10% or less rule. No more than every two weeks. One drug at a time. That can still be way too fast. Especially if one has a long and complicated history.

I cringe at the thought of all the fly-by comments left by random readers, many of whom I never heard from again, blithely saying how they were coming off of multiple drugs in a matter of days, weeks or a couple of months….

Why did we never hear from them again? I hate to say it but it’s likely they failed. Short of people who have been on drugs for a short time, coming off drugs is dangerous and should be done with great caution and conservatism.

I have learned the hard way. I’m extremely ill. My endochronological system is shot and I have some awful sort of withdrawal syndrome. I am debilitated in a way I wish on no one ever.

I did not listen to my body.

I have actually found a doctor who gets this. Expressed it better than I could. She also told me she “might” be able to help me with no promises. She told me my situation was dire.

All the other quacks I’ve seen have promised a miraculous and quick turn-around. Doctors in general know nothing about withdrawal. Demand that they educate themselves if you want to come off drugs. Bring to them some of the books and articles I point to.

I trust a doctor who tells me she doesn’t know if she can help me a whole lot more—that in my mind is an educated and humble doctor.

I’m working out of state again, but over the phone.

Coming off of drugs is dangerous. It could make you crazy, or like with me, it can simply be physically disabling.

This site still offers valuable advice, but do yourself a favor and really get into the conservative tone of it. Don’t hurt yourself. Especially just because you’ve heard a few stories of people doing it stupidly and surviving it.

And call me a fanatic, it’s been suggested many times, but eating right, nutrition, spirituality, movement and meditation will get you through. Don’t even try withdrawing if you aren’t going to support your body through these means. Your body has been ravaged by the drugs and needs special care. I say this from watching many people do it right on one specific withdrawal email list. Most of the lists are dangerous in my opinion at this point.

I miss this blog, but I’m too sick and confused to continue regularly. But like tonight perhaps occasionally I’ll step in and say a word or two. If you want to be notified of updates sign up for my email list on the right. Or subscribe to a live feed if you know how to. Today I’m going to send out an email to anyone I have addresses too. But I won’t do that again—don’t want to bother you if you don’t want emails.

Clarification–but yes, I’m still tactically retreating

I just want people to know that I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished here. It’s not in perfect order or organized in the best of fashion, but there is a hell of a lot of information here. Please use it. Please keep me on your blogroll or add me if you’re just discovering me. This is a resource. It is not the end in that respect. The value of this blog goes beyond the daily updates.

I will keep this up and when I feel like it I’ll make the about page and other pages more user friendly, like I said in my last post.

So don’t see this as an end. See this as a place you can send anyone who is wondering how to safely withdraw from meds. There are multiple places to get information on my “About” page. And there are many recovery stories to be inspired by. I don’t pretend to have all the answers and I am not a professional but I do direct people to all sorts of information that can help in ones research.

I’m not disappearing. I’m not gone. I will answer emails and comments. And I will probably be around other blogs. I just don’t want to be a major player anymore. I want to concentrate on other things for a while. Not forever but for some indeterminate amount of time.

Also this blog has never stopped getting more and more readers from the day I started. In the realm of the small blog it’s done pretty damn well. I hope it will continue to inspire and help a few souls out there.

One commenter asked for occasional updates. I may do that, but I don’t know right now. I will, like I said, answer comments and if people are curious they can keep up on new comments. The side-bar on the right shows new comments. I will, I’m sure refer to myself in my responses.

And feel free to email me.

Cheers.

It’s not the end!! It’s the beginning.

Quitting?

I’m tired. And I’m not nearly done with my journey…

It’s looking like I have late stage adrenal exhaustion. I get test results on Monday and if I have it, which I have little doubt about at this point as I’ve talked to several professionals as well as read a ton of literature, healing from it takes up to a couple of years. Since I have the added extenuating circumstances of drug withdrawal it’s possible to imagine that I will be recovering at least as long as it takes to withdraw (another couple of years?) and then another year or two post withdrawal.

I don’t feel like keeping on telling my (at this point, dreary) story and I’m sick of dwelling on the insanity of mental health care. The criminality of doctors who don’t listen as well as the criminality of big pharma controlling what the doctors who don’t listen spew.

I need a break.

I hope I can find it in me to take one. When I’m well enough to leave my bed—that is when the adrenal dysfunction isn’t making me dizzy and nauseas and unable to walk, I hope to contribute to my candidates campaign. I hope this person will be in the race until November—it will give me something to do for 6 months.

I will look for other things to keep me away from this computer too.

I will leave this blog up as a resource and I will continue to accept comments. I may post from time to time—adrenal fatigue makes PMS worse and in the interest of full disclosure I’m in the throws of PMS now—my mind could change about all this—it’s happened before.

I will return to writing and blogging when I feel better. When I succeed. When I recover. I intend to let everyone know I made it. Interest has been expressed in a book, but I don’t feel like even considering that until I actually have a completed story to tell. I do hope that a success story is in the works.

Thank you everyone. I may or may not be around to all your blogs.

If you’re new here a good map to the blog is going to the tabs at the top of the page. Check out the “About” tab for starters. This remains a useful blog whether it’s being updated or not in that it’s an aggregation of resources about psychiatric drug withdrawal. I hope people continue to find it useful. I may add to the resources on the about page from time to time. I hope to clean it up and make it more user friendly too.

Oh—could y’all do me a favor if you’re comfortable doing so—if you have me in your side bar—put the proper name of this blog there. Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and Recovery. It’s really not a blog about bipolar. The URL came about years before I even started this incarnation of the blog and it’s just not what this blog is about. You are of course free to choose how you’d like to list it—I realize the real name is long and unwieldy but I would like it if people find it based on what it is about.

Gotta direct you to Furious Seasons again

An excellent post inspired by Richard Friedman’s piece in the New York Times today. Philip keep ‘em coming. Taking a broad look at the long term effects of our drug culture is extremely important.

Friedman’s piece is still completely within the mainstream. Philip pushes further:

I wouldn’t consider the risk of suicide and suicidality, on or off-meds, to be the only worrying metric for doctors and patients to consider, or by which to evaluate long-term risks and benefits. What about brain development? Sexuality? Reproductive organ damage? Drug dependence? Long-term akathesia? Kidney and liver damage? Diabetes? Muscle rigidity? We already know that antipsychotics cause brain shrinkage in non human primate studies, so we do need to take a serious look at that in our human populations or we are doing them a gross disservice. It’d make sense to be just as concerned about anti-depressants and the whole shooting gallery of psych meds, especially since we are starting children on them at much younger ages than we even did in the 1990s.

Do go and read the whole piece.