Side effects

Following on from my first visit to the psychiatrist, I thought I’d mention some of the side-effects of the medication that he put me on (for no actual rational reason, as far as I can see – it was more a “throw some drugs at the situation and see what happens” approach).

Paroxetine, a.k.a. Paxil

This was a complete disaster! I couldn’t function, and actually ended up taking a week off work because of it, which meant I had to explain to my boss why I was taking time off work, which involved a discussion about Tourette Syndrome and OCD. Not particularly fun it has to be said.

The main issue is that I was tired. Sooooo tired! Mrs. Twitchy couldn’t wake me up in the morning, and this was after my alarm had been going for ages. Then the first thing I wanted to do when I got home was go to bed and sleep. Add to this a complete inability to focus on anything at all and you have a drug that simply wasn’t going to be feasible for me.

There were some interesting side-effects as well. My dreams were very vivid, albeit somewhat disturbing. Then there was the auditory hallucination: I woke up one night (and yes, I was definitely awake) to hear “hello, hello”. I thought it was my father’s voice and that I’d somehow left the phone off the hook. This of course didn’t account for the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him the previous day, and that if the phone was off the hook then he couldn’t have called me, but hey, my brain was somewhat fogged by the drugs anyway.

I actually ended up getting up to check the phone and prowl around the rest of the house making sure we had no intruders. Mrs. T of course reported hearing no noises at all, and wondered why I was wandering around at 3am.

I confess that I’d have liked to experience a couple more hallucinations – in the name of science of course – though it’s certainly not something I’d want to deal with on an ongoing basis (it confused an already confused mind!) and I think I got a small taste of what other people with worse problems than mine have to deal with.

Diazepam, a.k.a. Valium

This was prescribed for both anxiety and against tics (?!)

It did have a calming effect, but also made me (even more!) sleepy, meaning it was effectively useless except in the evenings when I was due to go to bed anyway.

I still have a few of these left, and I do take one occasionally if the anxiety is especially bad.

Fluoxetine, a.k.a. Prozac

Since Paroxetine can cause problems if you suddenly stop taking it, the psych swapped my medication to Fluoxetine instead. This did make me less tired, so it was a definite win on that front, but had bugger all effect on anything tic-related.

It did smooth out my emotions a little though. I was less angry and suffered fewer rage episodes that normal, which was a good thing, but again, it made it very hard to focus. If I’d continued to take this I would have had to quit my job as I simply couldn’t have held it down long-term.  This wasn’t an option, so in the end Fluoxetine went out the window as well. I just stopped taking this and never bothered calling the psych again.

Oxazeapam

This was a replacement for Diazepam, in the hope that it would reduce anxiety without the side-effect of making me sleepy. It didn’t.

That is, it worked, in that it didn’t make me sleepy. In fact it did absolutely stuff all. It didn’t make me less anxious (or more anxious) either. In fairness, I have since found that a double dose taken with a glass of wine does knock me out for the night, though I can’t say I recommend mixing benzodiazepines and alcohol.

—

So what have I learned from these? Well, pretty much that I don’t want to try and treat anything with drugs as it seems to be too much of a hit-and-miss approach, and since I rely on my brain to make me a living wage, I’d kind of like to keep it fully functional, even if that means putting up with other problems.

I’ve also learned that I don’t have much time for psychiatrists, and that from my (admittedly, somewhat limited) experience, they haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. Given that they have the authority to prescribe mind-altering substances (literally!) I now regard them as rather dangerous entities.

Oh, and did any of these drugs have even the tiniest, slightest effect on my Tourettes and/or OCD symptoms? No, no they did not.