Theraputic symptoms and conditions

In July my calf hurt for over a week I went and had it checked out and they found a small DVT I was sent home and prescribed Lovenox and taken off my birth control. The next morning I had trouble breathing and went to the ER I had multiple PEs in both lungs. I was in the hospital for 5 days and sent home with a non-therapeutic INR, Lovenox shots and warfarin sodium. I have to regularly increase my dosage I am now up to 15mgs 6days a week and 10 the 7th day. I have recently started seeing small unexplainable bruises, even though my INR is still not and only has been for a short time since my release from the hospital. I have had severe chest, leg and other body pain. I have been to the ER so much I have just stopped going. I have horrible headaches and fatigue especially after they re-up my meds. My periods have been off the charts as well. I think I am done with this and I am really considering taking myself off the meds

I'm having serious side effects currently. The onset of the side effects began after taking Lamictal for over 2 months. I started slowly on 25 mg and gradually increased to 200. I felt a great improvement in Bipolar disorder-mood swings- at 100mg but was told that is not the theraputic dose, so we increased to 200mg.

I had no side effects until the rash began to appear. At first only on legs, then arms, then neck, then face...and surprisingly in private areas. Unbearable itching. Rash continued to rage even after a pack of steroids. Swelling became apparrent in face and entire body. Slight difficulty breathing. Went to the ER and received another dose of steroids intravenously. The rash continues to improve but is still extremely itch. The swelling improved for a couple of days but is back. Had one day of severe headache. It has been 14 days and today I am experiencing blurred vision in the left eye, and new swelling in the tongue.
I sit at home with an Epi Pen next to me waiting to hear back from the doctor.

All of this is so unfortunate because I felt more stable than I have in years while on the medication. I'm feeling very concerned about my continuing side effects. Don't know what to expect.

I am bipolar II and began taking Lamictal on top of my usual cocktail of Wellbutrin and Zyprexa following a suicide attempt. As everyone else has reported, it took a while to get up to a theraputic dosage; once I got there though, I felt the best I had in years (no exaggeration) - I literally felt completely freed from my illness. This freedom came at a cost, however. During my college days (I am a recent graduate) I was the top student in my department and routinely completed tremendous projects in unusually short amounts of time. Since reaching my current dosage of Lamictal, however, I have begun FAILING a Spanish course I am taking as I am both unable to retain anything I learn from studying (especially flash cards, which as everyone knows are the key to learning new vocabulary words) and, more importantly, feel no motivation to correct the situation. I am currently preparing to take two GREs as well as apply to eight graduate schools and have gone from obsessing over the issue to not caring whatsoever. I have also begun a new job recently and have extreme difficulty waking up each morning due to how exhausted I feel (it's notable that I didn't have this feeling upon switching to a large dose of Zyprexa.) My doctor has instructed me to lower the dose and monitor my mood accordingly to see if I can have positive psychological results with minimal side effects. I am upset about potentially having to give up the radical change in how I feel every day, but the side effects are just too severe (at the current dose, that is.) It still remains to be seen whether a lower dose will have sufficiently positive psychological effects with minimal side effects; I will make a followup post after this one once I can assess that.

I have been taking Geodon for about 4-5 years. I was diagnosed with schizophrena in 97. I had tried Seroquel and Zyprexa prior but quit because I still heard things. I saw things. I had disillusions. On top of this, I have extreme anxiety as a symptom. I saw my doctor as a drug dealer trying to take my money. At $240 an hour, he probably was.

After 2 years of being off the medicine, I was quite a mess. In retrospect, my psychosis was influencing my thoughts. In an attempt to be normal by not being on medication, I had reached a whole new definition of abnormal thinking. I justified it by thinking I was a psychic and not psychotic. Hey, if spirits spoke to John Edwards, why not to me. They do make sense sometimes. They are just intrusive.

I came to a point of depression. I had never thought of killing myself before but it became an obsession. I just wanted it all to end. So back with the doctor and he prescribes me Zoloft and Geodon. The Zoloft had to go after 2 weeks because it made me extremely anxious. Anxiety causes increased thoughts and more anxiety.

I stayed on the Geodon. My doctor said that 120mg was the theraputic dose but I take 80 at night. Does it help. I guess. I have forgotten how I was before it. I still hear voices but my anxiety is under control. I can sleep at night when I take it without feeling like I am privy to some celestrial conversation. I haven't layed in bed worrying for years. I forgot a pill last week and had a restless sleep and that isn't fun.

I get hateful thoughts when I am getting close to the night. Anxiety starts to build and I am uncomfortable for a few hours. It takes about 3 hours for me to have an effect. I don't have the side effects other than insomnia when I skip. Sleep is impossible.

The major problem I have been having lately is with my memory. I feel like I am living life with a chemical labotomy. I can study for tests and pass but then forget the material shortly after. I can't remember if today was yesterday or a week before. This could be because I'm getting old though.

My 18 year old daughter (BPD with hallucinations) has been taking this drug since December. She is currently taking 320 mg. per day (split between morning and evening) - rare but it has been done - although I'd prefer not. First, I don't even think G gets to theraputic levels until 80 mgs. DD was on Risperdal (which worked wonderfully but her prolactin level went through the roof) and so they slowing titrated her off of that and on to G. Yes, the side effects were horrible at first. Again, it isn't until you reach theraputic levels that you start to see those side effects diminish and our experience plus other experiences I've heard of is that the higher the dosage the fewer side effects. I would highly recommend an EKG (just to be on the safe side although the side effect of heart problems appears to be over emphasized with the research I've found). I have to say that her hallucinations continue but are better - her BPD is very well stabalized with this drug (and we saw the advantage for her BPD early on). She is very level or able to regain stability when she senses a mood swing coming. Now her biggest side effects are tremors (which she's had with both Abilify and Risperdal) and a dry mouth (typical with Geodon). She occasionally gets headaches which, again, can be a side effect.

Honestly, our experience is that our DD has had side effects that were more intensified with every new medication and every dosage increase. Over time, that has always gotten better (except the prolactin level with Risperdal). I think people sometimes don't give it "enough time" but I know I'm not in their shoes. Lastly, for BPD, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try - the difference in our DD is like night and day.

I have been having initial success addressing the lingering side effect of "twisting" or "turning" or "pushing" sensation in the stomach/middle abdomin by adding chromium (about 200mcg with each meal) to my other nutrional supplements for combatting the lisinopril-caused problems. I will make another status report later on...

The other most helpful nutritional supplements I've found so far are: calcium/magnesium, zinc, and manganese (and now chromium). Given that they are all minerals, I did think to try a multi-mineral at one point, but it made me feel sick after a week or so; also I have tried a zinc/copper since copper is one of the nutrients whose absorbtion is said to be interfered with by lots of zinc, but that made me feel sick too; just the wrong proportions for that stage in my recovery, I guess.

I agree with the posting below that said that taking lots of just one mineral can put your system out of balance. However, the lisinopril did 1000x better job of putting my system out of balance, and lots of zinc for a number of weeks helped tremendously with the lingering cough, so the suffered imbalances were worth it (at the time I didn't know about manganese and chromium).

In general, I have found that to get a theraputic benefit from one of these trace minerals (zinc, manganese, or chromium), I have had to get close to its established upper limits. Eventually, I hope to get to a point where an oridinary multi-vit/mineral is sufficient for me.