Binge symptoms and conditions

I have had the Mirena IUD removed Feb 14, 2009 after discovering, from this website, that it was the cause of all my problems. I had it in from March 2006 to March 2007, then again from Dec 2007 to Feb this year. My symptoms were:
depression
irritability
weight gain & binge eating
lack of energy
insomnia
lack of libido, zero sex drive
joint and muscle pain (especially wrists, knees, ankles)
My question is, my biggest problem that has been lingering since removal is the pain. It has gotten worse these past few weeks, and i have just noticed a weird crinkling of the skin on the inside of my wrists and forearms. This is where most of my pain and weakness is. I understand that it can take up to 18 months for progesterone to leave your system, but I am curious if this symptom is caused by the Mirena or if i have another underlying condition. All bloodwork has come back clear.

I wish I had done my research before getting the Mirena IUD put in. I am 48 years old and have 3 grown children. For the last 10 or so years my periods have been VERY heavy and very embarrassing as leaking was a severe problem every time I had to leave the house during the first 2 days of it. I finally went to a doctor about it and he recommended the Mirena after determining nothing was really wrong. He hyped it up as the best thing to happen for women since the dishwasher but failed to tell me any of the side effects.

Well, I have had it now for 4 months but today I had it removed. Among the side effects that I was experiencing, such as the extreme fatigue and constant spotting, I gained about 25 more pounds (on top of the 50 I already was overweight by) and feel that I will continue to gain because I'm finding my clothes are getting 'smaller' everyday. I've had to increase my jean size twice already. This is really upsetting me because I already was carrying around 50 pounds too much before I got the Mirena. But this weight was at least steady. I hadn't really gain any more for years until last December when I decided to try the Mirena. Then when my husband started getting on me for gaining more weight, I was crushed and thought I better do something about it. The first thought I had was to check and see if there was anybody having this problem because of the IUD. Well, imagine my relief to see page after page of complaints because of this thing and that I wasn't just imagining it.

I thought at first that I must just be starting to go down hill because I'm getting older. I became extremely exhausted, sweating all the time over the smallest of activities, trouble sleeping, in a constant 'fog', and rapidly gaining weight. PLUS, the only help I got with my period was that it became very light and spotty, but stretched out over 3 weeks! That sucks as much as 2 days of extremely heavy bleeding. Well, I can't afford to keep gaining weight as I already have high blood pressure and am in danger of developing diabetes so,...it come out today. I gave it a shot. Just wish I knew the down side before doing this. I know there are some women that have nothing but great things to say about it and good for them. But as for me, I won't be recommending it to anyone. I'll keep you all posted with any improvement now that it's gone.

It's been a while since I've added a post. I had the Mirena removed on Feb. 14/09. I have been feeling great, except for some bad spells while PMSing and ovulating. My last PMS wasn't half as bad as the first one without Mirena. I think next month I will be 100% again. My hair is growing back, have a sex drive again, my joint pain is gone, I am no longer depressed and anxious, I don't hate my husband anymore.. (maybe just 1 or 2 days last month..LOL), and I'm not binge eating anymore and have lost 16 lbs! Not sure about the insomnia yet, as I am taking sleeping pills still.. But I am so happy to be me again!

Can anyone tell me if I'm going mad or if it's my Mirena?
I had a Mirena for 5 years (inserted in 2003), then had another one put in in October 2008. I have no periods - great. BUT I feel absolutely dire. I have depression and anxiety (I feel like I'm seriously going CRAZY sometimes, to the point where I'm worried about getting sectioned cos I can't handle the overwhelming feelings), I feel like my head is full of fog, I have dizziness, when i stand up I feel faint, I am crying (I usually never cry), I don't feel like i can cope with anything except the barest minimum to get myself and my family through the day. My 12-year-old son asked me if i have early-onset Alzheimers because I can't remember anything. If I was feeling ok I'd find that funny, but it broke my heart.
My previous Mirena was fine, I felt ok. Please can anyone help me?

I started taking Femcon FE three weeks ago and I am refusing to finish the pack! Since I have taken it I have been experience nausea ( I throw up ever time I eat), moodiness, and weight gain (I eat healthy and work out 6 days a week) and slight depression. I have also noticed a pattern of binge eating and it’s become constant since I have taken this pill. YIKES! I didn't know what was wrong with me until I got on this website and read all these posts! I just want things to go back to normal! Has anyone experienced my specific symptoms?

I have been taking 150 mg Wellbutrin SR twice a day for about a month now. It has lifted and stabilized my mood to a lifesaving degree. I feel like I have "me" back and my life back after suffering through a very deep depression for approx. a year. My only negative side effects are a bit of cystic acne, which I haven't had since college (I am 45 now) and breast tenderness all month long rather than just before my cycle. I have started using Proactive for the acne and it is working well. I guess I'll just live with the breast tenderness if it means having my life back! I have also had a few positive side effects, namely, my libido which was completely dead has started to re-emerge, and I am eating less, although I haven't lost any weight yet. (I used to have a compulsive desire to binge and that has waned.) I have more energy but whether this is due to the Wellbutrin or just ot being in a fog of depression, I can't say. Overall, Wellbutrin has been a very positive medication for me. I have used Prozac and Zoloft in the past and they neither worked as well on my mood and also had many unbearable side effects (weight gain, loss of libido, inability to orgasm to name a few). I'm hoping once I have been stabilized for a while the doctor will allow me to lower my dose and perhaps then the breast tenderness will go away.

I started taking Yaz 2 years ago after my son was born. I didn't have any side effects for a long time and was generally happy with the pill. About a year after being on Yaz I started getting horrible anxiety and depression. It was really beginning to interfere with my life. I always felt on edge, my heart was constantly racing, I felt down, starting binge eating, etc. I also started noticing that my blood sugar was out of wack. I became hypoglycemic and had to eat little snacks every hour to keep myself from having my blood sugar drop too low. I sometimes even had to take a glucose tablet. My thoughts were always racing. I felt like I was going crazy. After going to my PCP and a psychiatrist and not getting any relief from the way I was feeling, I took it upon myself to stop taking Yaz to see if that made a difference. Well, since stopping Yaz my anxiety, depression, and hypoglycemia has completely disappeared. I feel happy again, normal and healthy. I have gained a few pounds and my skin is an oily mess, but I would much rather deal with that than the hell I was dealing with before. I'm not big on taking medicine unless I absolutely have to and this experience has only made me feel stronger about that. I think I will go back to using condoms and give my body a break. (forever)

I am so glad to have found this site. I thought I was slowly losing my mind. Did late-night binge eating, house cleaning, paid bills on-line - all with no memory of it the following day. As the medication would start to work, I had a nightly "conversation" with myself about how worthless I was, how I deserved to have all kind of bad things happen, etc. I wouldn't have these kind of thoughts during the day. I haven't taken it for 5 days now after 10 months of continuous use. The first night was as if I had consumed a pot of coffee, tossing and turning, with practically no sleep. But each night it's gotten better. When I weigh the side effects against the benefits, for me it's not difficult to say I'd rather have my sanity back!

I've been on Yasmin for maybe 2 cycles, before I went to my doctor yesterday to see if I could stop it mid cycle.

side effects that I noticed (or had pointed out to me).
-severe mood swings, severe decrease in libido, general fatigue and depression, vaginal dryness, soreness, itchiness, it feels almost painfully tight?, my tits became monsters that increased at least a cup size that wanted to escape my shirt (my boyfriend appreciated this part, but they were very painful), general bloatiness/weight gain, binge eating (I normally don't have much of an appetite for anything, and forget to eat in between, school and work)

I stopped taking wellbutrin xl 150 mg and lamictal 200 mg 3 days ago cold turkey because there is no way to cut thewelbutrin tablet in half and take it safely. The first day wasn't bad at all. I felt better than I have felt in years and years. Then yesterday I felt okay, but not as good as I did on the first day. Today I woke up feeling like I have the flu. Every single bone, joint and muscle in my body aches. I feel fine one minute and the next minute the room feels like it's spinning and the body aches return. My psychiatrist started me on all of this poison,,, oops, I mean, medications 2 years ago. I had lost a child and had gone into a deep depression which led to severe anorrhexia. He started me out on Lamictal and Lexapro and after a year of awful side effects from the lexapro(especially sexual side effects=no desire at all) he finally switched me to the wellbutrin xl and told me that it would help better than the lexapro. At my last appointment, 1 week ago, I asked him when and if I would ever be able to go off of these meds. And he told me that I am probably a "lifer". He refused to hear anything about my stopping or weaning off of these meds. So, after my 3 minute office visit and prescription refills written out I left the office. I did not take the prescription to the pharmacy because I decided then and there that the only reason he and a lot of other psychs put people on these outrageously priced prescriptions(the lamictal is $140 a month and the wellbutrin xl is $170 and that is for the generic per moth) is because they get HUGE incentives from the pharmaceutical companies to keep us on them. I will not go back on the meds ever again. I am tired of living in a drugged up state. I want to feel alive again like I felt before I ever started taking this crap.

Hey. Just a disclaimer, before I list my experience. Keep in mind that everybody is going to react to a new drug differently. All drugs, especially drugs like Ambien CR, come with warnings in bold print and all caps saying that if you experience ANYTHING...ANYTHING abnormal after you start a new medication, to immediately call your doctor or pharmacist. Don't let it get to the point where your loved ones are driving. If you notice things have happened and you have no recollection...CALL YOUR DOCTOR! It takes maybe ten minutes to call your doctor or pharmacist. This ten minutes could potentially save your life and others. This goes for ALL medications, even ones like Tylenol PM.

Okay. Here is my observations of my mother (55 yrs. old) while on Ambien CR.

Ever since she’s been on the medication, I’ve encountered strange behavior on her part. These are the most common:

1. Phone calls, with no particular purpose or intent. She sounds like she is very lonely and just wants to chat, but her speech is slurred and her thoughts impaired. Most of what she says is not in coherent sentences, just mixed up phrases. Sometimes she starts off sounding somewhat normal and then fades into the slurred speech. I usually terminate the conversation once she starts repeating herself, asking questions she had either asked earlier that day or even just minutes before in the same conversation.

2. Eccentric “projects.” She recently said, “I’ve found that after I take my medicine, I get very creative.” This particular comment was after I found her in the kitchen putting Hot Tamales (the candy) in her ice water, after she had taken her medicine. Another time, she was standing on a trunk, trying to put up shades in her window.

3. Binge Eating. Just the other night she baked an entire batch of cookies...and ate them ALL within 30 minutes of them coming out of the oven. This is just one of the many times I've seen her eat like this after taking her medicine.

Overall, she seemingly "stays up" until she either crashes from exhaustion or only after repeated commands to turn off everything and go to sleep. I recently, after researching further, have found out that she actually is asleep, but medications such as Ambien CR can induce a complex form of sleep-walking and talking, as well as sleep-driving (though my mother has never done this.) It looks, to an observer, like the person is aware of their surroundings because they can carry on complex conversations, or complete a complex task, even though, they are really asleep.

The most concerning thing to me is that she walks up and down the stairs (or gets up on things, like the trunk in her bedroom) even though she is consciously aware that she gets dizzy and has little control over her balance. Most of the time she is living alone, so if she happened to trip and fall, it could turn into a very dangerous situation very quickly.

Another note: She only seems to remember her strange actions once she is reminded of them. Sometimes she will remember them accurately, and sometimes she has a distorted memory of the events, but almost always must be reminded of her actions before she has any memory of doing it.

Since me and our family have taken time to talk to my mother about this, she (an RN for over 30 years) is calling her doctor tomorrow to talk about alternative solutions to her insomnia.

I was on Lamictal for 4 years and after the first year I suddenly started having all kinds of teeth and gum problems for no discernible reason. But since Lamictal has the possible side effect of "sores or blisters on the inside of the mouth" I wondered if it could be related.

I did a Google search and am coming up with no experts yet, but lots and lots of posts connecting anticonvulsant meds, particularly Lamictal, Topamax, Neurontin, and Depakote, with dental problems. Dilantin is well known for causing gum disease and breaking down tooth enamel, loosening of teeth, and even breaking down of jawbone tissue.

I don't think the experts have connected the dots yet, but is anyone else having this problem?

Has anyone started binge eating since being on Lamictal? I've been taking Lamictal for over a year and the binging has been on and off, but worse recently.

Rosslyn

I went blind on 150 mg of Lamictal. I couldn't see anything. My eyes were blurry all the time. I couldn't figure out what it was and when I weaned off of the Lamictal, my sight came back. Not to mention, it did absolutely nothing for my mood whatsoever.

wow where do I begin. I took the first dose and my kidneys hurt like I had been on a drinking binge for weeks. I cried for three days straight and I started having pain in my bones this was only a warning for what was to come. I suddenly had a weird heartbeat I mean it was a really long weird heartbeat so I call my doctor she tells me to stop taking it and if anything worse happens between the time I had called about 3pm and the next day at 9 am then i need to go to the E.R so i just relax and hope nothing happens but the next day when I am supposed to take the drug (its a 24 hour pill) my brain squeezed in on itself and my dad informed me I was going through withdrawals but I was like how I only took it a few days he said those were DT's. The coming days I had to re learn how to walk and talk and just do simple tasks. Well its been over a year now and I now need to go get my heart checked because I am still having trouble with weird palpitations and beats its very strange. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD ANYONE TAKE THIS MEDICATION!

I've been on Lamictal since December, i started out with 25mg, then to 50mg and now at 100mg which is where my doctor said I should be. I am taking Lamictal for a seizure disorder. Now I'm not bashing the drug but when I was taking 25 and 50mgs it was fine, I loved it. Seemed to work instantly. But now that I'm at 100mg the weight gain problem started. I have always tried to watch my weight so the only thing i can blame for not being able to take the weight off now is the Lamictal. I have been eating right, got back into the gym, watch my caloric intake as well as fats and carbs. Seems like for every pound i lose i gain right back in a day, it is awful. I did go thru a bad depression around the beginning of the year which I gained some weight from, but trying to get it off now is the hardest I've ever tried in my life. I am now 20 lbs heavier than I was since December. Has anyone experience this? And please tell me the outcome. I want to know if its me or is that a common effect that is now really greatly expressed as a side effect.

I have been on Lamictal for almost a year now and everything seemed to go okay until almost three weeks ago when I had to increase my dosage from 100 to 150mg and my Lexapro to 15mg. In the last couple of weeks, I have gained 7 pounds and I am really depressed. I have an eating disorder (bulimia) and because of this, I profusely purge my food in fear of gaining a dramatic amount of weight again. I am going to see my psychiatrist next week because all of this is going to cause me to crash.

I am on topomax for bulimia. it has been amazing considering the fact that i have no appetite and diahhrea all the timeand my menstrual cycle is off. also, i have the tingling sensation in my hands and feet, which hasn't gone away in a month-isn't horrible, though. i wake up in the middle of the night and very early in the morning. (never had sleeping problems like this before). also, very thirsty all the time, dry mouth, but can't seem to drink enough fluids. however, this has medication seems to help my eating disorder like nothing else. i'm going to half my dosage and see if this continues to work. although the side effects are there, until i'm comfortable enough to do this on my own and not binge, this medication has been a a life saver for me! it's worth it b/c of the appetite suppressant issue. i have no urge to use symptoms at all.