Withdrawal #2

This withdrawal was a little different. The dreams were there, so was the sweating and muscle twitching. My symptoms had some new friends in the form of constant ringing in my ears and uncontrollable crying. Not crying all the time, but just coming from nowhere and for no reason. I was also feeling a strong sense of depersonalization. Like I was watching a movie of my own life or something. Why was my brain doing this to me? Why can't I just feel calm and relaxed like other people I know?

So we are caught up...Here I am, 5 days after my last dose of Effexor. I have slept like crap, barely gotten anything accomplished at work, and gotten even less accomplished around the house. Is the medicine causing this or was I like this before? I can't even remember, I am like a zombie. I just want to go to sleep and wake up in a few days and have everything be over.

Some positives though...I have found great solace in my attempts at Cognitive Behavorial Therapy, Meditation, and some good music.

The therapy helps..seriously. It is comforting to speak to a non-judgemental person who is an expert in their field and whose goal is to help you. It helps to get stuff out...stuff that is repressed and stuff that needs to be said. I hate crying when I say it, but oh well.

Meditation is something new for me, but I have read that it can be a positive influence on anxiety, stress, and fear. Studies show that it decreases heart rate, and increases the release of those chemicals that we need to feel calm, like seratonin.

Lastly, some music. I am not a big music guy, and when I do listen, I usually like some more upbeat stuff, but I have found great comfort recently in the slow tunes of John Mayer, Amy Winehouse, John Legend, and Herbie Hancock. Who knows if there is any science behind this, but I know I like listening to them.

I know I can get better. I know I will feel like a person again. I know I will live a full and happy life. I know I will meet a significant other and I know I will be successful in my profession. I know I will have a family some day and I know that I will leave a legacy with my earthly vehicle. I am at a few rough spots in the road right now and I am committed to doing the right things to get the train of my life back on track.

P.S. I have anxiety, but I can't imagine the anxiety that people in the space shuttle feel. Every time I see that thing go off, I am absolutely floored by the idea of space travel. Man dreamt about this one day and worked to make it a reality. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can put together my brain to make it right again.

The Panic

After about a year free of Effexor, I had been training really hard for a triathlon and had been working out about twice a day. I started to get these headaches and had some bowel issues. I figured that they were no big deal and kept on swimming, biking, and running.

One Saturday morning, I woke up in an anxious state. I decided to take it easy that day to try and relaz. As the day wore on, the panic set it and I began to feel like I was going to lose it. In a state of panic, I turned to my old friend Effexor. I had kept some tablets from my previous go-round for just this occasion. With no doctors orders and with medication that had been sitting in my pantry for a year, I took a 75mg pill and cut it in half. About two hours after, I felt this bizarre burning sensation that started in my chest and ran through my arms and legs. I had never felt that before. I freaked out. Not in the screaming, crying sort of way, but in the laying in bed miserable kind of way.

On Monday, I went to the doctor and got confirmation that it was Ok to continue with the Effexor. They gave me some starter packs and I stated to take 37.5mg per day. I took these for about 3 days before the side effects started. Sweating, blurred vision, feeling like I was drunk, like I was in someone elses body. A few days later, the thoughts started. The obsessive thoughts about wanting to injure myself and someone else. In fact, I remember being on the train, looking at the person next to me thinking I wanted to punch them in the face. I am a very docile person and have never considered myself depressed, but I feel like the Effexor made me like a zombie. I never had any of these problems when I took it before. I went back to the doctor and was given another starter pack and told to take one every other day and get myself off of this mess.

I don't know about any of these SSRI or SNRI medications. I know people who have taken them with great success, but I have also read many accounts on this here internet of many people who experienced many bad things with them. I will save the withdrawal for my next post, but if you have had any experiences with these medications, and happen to be reading this, I would love to hear about them...

Life Without "The Juice"

After a few tough weeks of getting this stuff out of my system, I began to feel some changes in my body. I had energy, I was not dozing off at work in the middle of the day, I was interested in talking to girls again, I seemed to have a focus that I did not remember having, and I began to feel a drive to achieve (something).

The decision to come off the medicine followed a bad break-up and I questioned it many times, but I wanted to venture out on my own, without my medicinal crutch. Within a few months, I lost about 12 pounds, I was exercising and enjoying it, and I had an appetite. However, I also found myself having difficulty concentrating and I lacked the focus to complete a book, reading is a major passion of mine.

I had done several Sprint Triathlons in the past and really enjoyed them. I set out to complete an Olympic Distance Triathlon about a year after I got off of the Effexor. In my training, I began to notice some Obsessive tendencies creeping into my life. The kitchen counter HAD to be clean, the sink HAD to be clear of dishes, and I HAD to vacuum frequently. Also, I could barely spend money on any non-necessary expense. I figured that some of these were healthy, my house would be cleaner and I would save more money. I did not see the OCD nor did I see the lack of concentration as a threat to my long term stability.

Around this same time, many of friends had gotten married and I realized that I had no more friends. I have the best family a guy could hope for and I am lucky that they live very close. I began to spend more time with the family, not realizing that this was not normal for a 28 year old male. After about a year, things came to a point....

Oh the Withdrawal!

I followed the doctors instructions to the "T" regarding tapering my dose of Effexor. I never took more than 75mg, but the first step was to go down to 37.5mg. I would say that this was relatively uneventful. No major symptoms of withdrawal, just life as usual. Following the reduction in dosage to 37.5mg, I was to take it every other day. The first day that I did not take it, I woke up with a pounding headache and blurry vision. No big deal, I made it through the day and then took my next dose and I was fine.

Then came the time to take it every 2 days. Same routine, headache, blurry vision, but this time I had an uncontrollable muscle twitch in my eye. It didn't hurt and it was not alarming, but it was very annoying, it would twitch non-stop for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. But again, I was determined to get rid of this medication and I was dealing with the withdrawal fine. I took the pill every 2 days for 2 weeks, then every 3 days.

When I went to the every 3 day portion of the taper, the dreams started. The most vivid, intense, real dreams I had ever had. In fact, I woke up many mornings thinking that I was in the wrong place, I thought I was somewhere else in the middle of the night. I would wake up in the middle of the night sweating and terrified of what I was dreaming about. What kind of tricks was this drug playing on my mind?

It took about 3 months of scary nights, headaches, and sweats to make my break from this drug. I really don't know about these things. I took them for many years with great success and they definetly helped me a lot, but I am skeptical about the science behind them. I am no scientist by any means, but I have tried many of them and I fail to understand how it is common knowledge that these things can actually make your condition WORSE!!

Some positive things took place after I stopped the Effexor. I had a libido again, I lost the 12 pounds that I had gained on the meds, I began an exercise routine and I no longer had an inexplicable urge to eat a loaf of bread every day. I felt free and happy. I was determined to pursue a lifestyle that would help me make it through life free of Effexor or any other SSRI. It would not be as easy as I thought...

Keep Trying

I had to keep trying. As scared as I was of the medicine, I knew that I needed it. The next medicine on the menu was Effexor. I was so scared to take this, I had a panic attack just holding it in my hand before I put it in my mouth. I took it...

I woke up the next morning and I felt like a truck had run me over in the middle of the night. I checked with the doctor and he said that this was normal. I kept taking it and before long the panic and fog went away. I had found the right one...

With the help of this calming medicine, I was able to successfully ride my bicycle across the country. I felt like a new person and the side effects were minimal.

I would go on to take Effexor for many years. But, I realized that I had to be able to live without it. Life without it would be the next adventure on the horizon....

The College Years

The transition to college was relatively easy as I was taking Norpramine and was able to avoid any serious meltdowns. However, moving from a small private school to an enormous public state university was not as easy.

By my senior year in high school, I had made some very good friends. Life was good and I was looking forward to carrying those friendships with me into the college years. As any college veteran can tell you, most of those friendships go out the window quickly and you are left to start over by making new friends. I made it through the fall semester Ok, but did not really have any success in making some new friends, ones that I wanted to keep anyway. I did manage to meet a nice girl who lived in my dorm and we took a liking to each other . We actually dated for a while, but it never got serious.

I joined a fraternity in the spring of my freshman year and it turned out to be the best decision I made in all of college. I made some great friends, I met some girls, and felt like I had a support system in my 45,000 student university. I had good grades and a bright future. I had even agreed to participate in one of the most difficult physical challenges I have undertaken in my life. For charity, I was to be part of a group of people who were going to ride their bicycles from San Francisco to Washington DC to raise money for children with developmental disabilities.

My memory is a bit hazy here, but in the months leading up to the big bike ride, I began to become concerned about the effect of the Norpramine on such a heart strenuous activity. I was convinced that I would be riding my bike down the road, in the middle of nowhere, and my heart would just decide that it did not want to beat anymore and I would fall over dead.

I made an appointment to see the on campus doctor and told him about my concerns. He kind of agreed with me and I decided to stop taking the Norpramine. He gave me a prescription for L-Tryptophan and explained that this was a naturally occuring amino acid in your body, the stuff in turkey that makes you sleepy. I got the prescription filled and took my first dose about 10 days later. Holy Crap, this stuff hit me like a Mack truck. I woke up the next day and could barely function. I assumed that this is what a hangover felt like and worked hard to make it through the day. I continued to take this for a few days and thus began my love/hate relationship with these anti-depressant/anti-panic medications.

I had a girlfriend at the time and had never really explained the details of my mental condition. Then the big one came. We were taking a walk and I felt my legs buckle a little bit. My heart began to race. I started sweating and became dizzy. I was sure that I was going to pass out at any moment and I was scared that we did not have our cell phones to call the ambulance. I tried to sit down in an effort to catch my breath. Then the adreneline began to shoot through my veins, i was having pain in my left arm, my chest was tight. How could I be having a heart attack at age 22? I began to talk complete nonsense. It was gibberish and completely incoherent. The L-Tryptophan was poison, my throat was tightening and I was sure that this was the end. I began to cry and moan and began to rant about needing to go to the emergency room.

To her credit, the girl remained calm and tried to reassure me. But, at the same time, she had no knowledge of my situation and took me to the emergency room as I had asked. We got there and I explained my symptoms to the triage nurse and she told me to wait. We waited and waited. By the time that I was called into the ER, all of my symptoms were gone. I was so embarrassed. What happened to my heart attack? My stroke? They checked a few things and determined that there was nothing wrong with me. I told them about the tryptophan and they told me that I should probably stop taking it. I did. Next up on the medicine menu.... Wellbutrin.

Prior to taking the Wellbutrin, I throughly researched potential side effects and tried hard to educate myself about the dangers of this medicine. I read that one of the potential side effects was seizures. Looking for help, I took the medicine anyway. Three days later, I was in a movie theater watching "Eyes Wide Shut" with a different girl. Oh my god, here comes the seizure. My muscles began to twitch, my heart was racing, the peripheral vision was closing in on me and I was just waiting for the blackness to come. I went outside to try to steady myself, I had never felt anything like this one before. Outside, it got worse the adrenline was there again, the pulse, my heart was pounding this time. I felt each beat with a dull thud in my chest. Sweat pouring down my face, hands shaking, kneews weak, I walked back into the theater and grabbed my friend. I told her that she needed to take me home at once, I was about to die and I needed to be with my parents for my last moments. I knew about panic attacks now, but this one was different. This was the end.

My mother, having done her own research, was having none of my antics. No matter how much I yelled or cried, she told me that the only was I was going to the hospital was if I was bleeding to death or unconscious. Over the course of an hour or so, she helped me calm down and get to sleep. I woke up the next morning. No more Wellbutrin. I was so angry with the doctor that he did not warn me about this stuff, he made it seem like it was no big deal. He explained to me that different people respond differently to medicines and that it was kind of a trial and error process to find one that worked. I wanted no part of the trial and just wanted to get better.

How it Began

Over the coming days and weeks, I hope to use this blog as a tool to help myself to explore the origin and triggers for my anxiety and panic attacks. The first few entries will be long as I try to establish the history of the 15 years that I have been dealing with this. If anyone ever ends up reading this, and has experienced similar things, please do not hesitate to share your stories with me. Perhaps we can help each other....

It all began in the summer before high school. It was 1993 and I was eating a baked potato at a Wendys. It was the summer between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school. I was with my mother and 3 siblings. As I was eating, a sudden and intense feeling came over me. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before. At first, I thought it was the flu, I thought I was going to be sick. But, as the attack progressed I became convinced that I was having a heart attack (at 13 years old!!) I stopped eating, and the attack passed in about 20 minutes. By the time it was over, my mother was in a state of panic herself as she had no idea what was going on.

I did not go to the hospital that day because we were driving home from a summer at the beach in New Jersey. I spent the rest of the trip lying in the back of our family conversion van refusing to eat anything for fear of the attack returning.

When we got home, I went to the doctor and got a full checkup. Nothing was wrong with me (as usual). But, as the days passed I continued to complain about always feeling full and was scared to eat anything for fear of being sick or another attack returning. I weighed 110 pounds at this time.

I eventually settled into a routine where the only things I would eat were bread and Edy's Vanilla Ice Cream. I drifted through my freshman year of high school with visits to the family doctor, endocronologist, homeopathic doctor, cardiologist, and pediatrician. According to the doctors, I had Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I was deficient in the proper growth hormones, I was
anemic, I was weird, and I was faking it. All the while subsisting on ice cream and bread.

I credit Dr. Albert with saving my life. Following a rectal exam (at age 13) he told my mother to take me to the hospital at once. He pulled her aside and told her that I was anorexic and had to be treated immediately. Upon being admitted to the hospital, I weighed 78 pounds. To this day, this was the worst moment in my life, the realization that I had driven my parents to the brink of insanity and myself to the brink of death over my completely irrational health fears.

The hospital ran every blood test imaginable (incliding HIV!!) in addition to a colonoscopy and a endoscopy and it was determined that there was nothing wrong with me. Meanwhile, I was on strict orders to drink 6 bottles of Ensure per day to pack the weight back on.

Finally, the mental health nurse came in and explained to me that I had anxiety problems. She referred us to a Phyciatrist and and got me ready for my discharge.

At the shrink, I was put through a series of mental tests and it was determined that I had a learning disability and ADD. My parents were given a prescription for Norpramine. Before I took the Norpramine, I had to go back to the hospital for a blood test and an EKG to determine a baseline for this medicine.

Oh yeah, by this time, I had almost failed out of school, had no friends, and 1 VERY concerned teacher.

I took the Norpramine with no real side effects (except the monthly EKGs) and my health began to improve. I no longer felt "full" and I was no longer convinced that I was going to die at any moment. However, I was in a constant state of fear that there was something wrong with my heart. I thought that the medicine was going to ruin it. I was convinced that one day it was going to stop beating and I would drop dead without any chance to say goodbye to anyone. This is all perfectly normal for a high schooler right?

As I progrossed in my Norpramine treatment, I began to make a few friends and my grades dramatically improved. By my sophmore year, I was playing on the golf team and was even considering asking a girl out on a date. Things were looking up.

I continue to take the medicine throughout high school. I now felt that I was accepted and I even had a little self confidence. However, I never got to participate in one of the great high school past times, drinking some beers. I was on strict orders not to mix the medicine with alcohol and as a consequence, I never developed a taste for alcohol and felt like I missed out on a big part of high school life. To this day, I have never had 1 beer.

I breezed through the rest of high school and got accepted to one of the state universities. I was excited to be away from home and try to make my way through what was supposed to be the best 4 years of my life. Or so I thought....