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....
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
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.
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.
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