lovelyboy

Member
I was just curious to know is there any of you who had to go on medications to help you cope with your difficult child?
My sons psychiatrist has put me on SSRI to try and help me be less stressed, anxious, kind of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).....in general to help me have more patience and not loose it easily!!!!
Ok....I was first on Cyprelex......side effects......then Zoloft......I was sweating by the buckets, and because I have bleeding tendency this SSRI worsen it......but it was so nice to sleep well and hubby is begging me to stay on it because he says it makes my sharp edges a bit rounder!
I dont really feel like taking medications to deal with situations.....but I know I needed it since I was a teen......
 

StressedM0mma

Active Member
I am on Lexapro, and just had to double my dose and add the occasional ativan in to deal with my difficult child. We are going through a super difficult time and cant find the right help for her at this point. So, I am taking the brunt of her instability. And it is very difficult.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Joining the club here, I was on Lexapro for a while. It got increased, then I got switched to Zoloft which was like not taking anything at all. With our attempts at IVF I had to stop taking them, but I guess I learned to handle things (better, not completely) in that year I was on them!!!

...Though sometimes I miss the calm...
 

buddy

New Member
Before I became a mom i started on paxil then lexipro. lexipro worked best but paxil was ok. When I was stable for a few years (I stuck with it because I had no desire to ever feel like that again) I went off. I have been off for many years but i do remember thinking that my ability to get up, to think clearly etc. actually got better off of them. But I was also not depressed which interfered with those things way more than the medications alone did. If I felt that way again i would not hesitate for a second to go on medications again.
 
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Bunny

Guest
I am. I started taking Wellbutrin in the fall of 2010 because of the depression that I was dealing with because of the difficult child issues. While I've dealt with depression on and off for all of my life, that fall it was just crushing. I'm a stay at home mom and I usually kept myself pretty busy during the days. I was laying on the couch and doing nothing but cry. It's helped. I'm not as bad as I was, but I could probably up the dose and get a little more relief.

The psychiatrist calls it "situational depression", which I get, but how can it be called "situational" when the situation that causes the depression never changes? He is talking about weaning me off of it in the spring and seeing how I am doing, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea. difficult child and I go to see him next week so I can talk to him about it then.
 

zaftigmama

New Member
I'm on medications, but I have bipolar disorder so it's a little different. I took Zoloft for years, and when it "pooped out" as SSRIs tend to do after you take them for a long time (10+ years) my psychiatrist gave me Abilify to boost the Zoloft, which triggered a manic episode. I've only been diagnosis'd BiPolar (BP) for a year and I'm still learning how to deal with it.
 

crazymama30

Active Member
I take zoloft, buspar,trazodone, klonopin and synthroid. Sometimes I feel like I look like more of a psychiatric patient than some psychiatric patients.

I hate having to take them, but I have gone off them when I should not have, and it was not pretty.
 
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Bunny

Guest
Does drinking half a bottle of wine after a really bad difficult child day count as medication?
 

trinityroyal

Well-Known Member
When husband and I first got together and I was unfamiliar with difficult child's issues and the resulting chaos, I was on lorazepam for about 6 months. I found that I liked it WAY too much. Made me feel all loose in the spine and I-don't-care-ish, so I had to wean myself from it.

Since then I've focused on learning better coping mechanisms. So far, so good...
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
I am. My doctor recently added Abilify to go with the Effexor, which wasn't working as well as it should have been. I also have Xanax just in case.
 

ready2run

New Member
Does drinking half a bottle of wine after a really bad difficult child day count as medication?

haha.....that's what i do, but i go for a 6 pack of girly drinks.

i was taking celexa to deal with difficult child but went off it when i ran out and never started again. i find while i don't necessarily 'need' it that it did help me cope with him a bit better, made it so his crud didn't throw my other activities out of whack and gave me the extra incentive to go out and do stuff with my other kids to give them some 'normal' time.
 

mazdamama

New Member
I have been on many but with the fibro they put me on Cymbalta and then added Lexapro to the mix. Recently the psychiatrist put me on xanax because not only was I not sleeping but my hair was always in knots and my mouth was horrible from me chewing the inside of my lips. Things have eased off a bit anxiety wise since Daniel went into Residential Treatment Center (RTC) but with David still here....I still need my xanax once in awhile.
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Yes, for the first time in my life, I could not control my emotions. I was on a AD for about 6 months. I figured out better ways to cope and of course things improved so I did not need to go back on them.
 

somerset

Member
I was already on Wellbutrin for my own depression, but I started having trouble getting to sleep and then I would wake up at 4am and start panicking "Will she go to school today? Is there something I can do to get her to go? How long can this go on? What will the school think? I can't stand this anymore!" My psychiatrist put me on trazodone and it helps. I also have xanax to take as needed, but I use it sparingly.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Yep! The last two years that Kanga lived with us, the doctor tried a couple SSRIs but I had really bad reactions so we went with daily Buspar and a PRN of Xanax. Once Kanga was placed in Residential Treatment Center (RTC), I was able to come off the Buspar but still needed the Xanax to deal with visits. No medications since her "reunification" goal was discontinued!!!
 

CrazyinVA

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I took Prozac for awhile when Oldest was a teenager. Things became more stable, and I stopped it. When Youngest became a teenager and her behavior was even worse than Oldest's, *and* both my parents became ill during the same time period, I crashed big time. Cymbalta pulled me out of a deep dark hole; I don't know what I would have done without it. I've been off it now for about 3 years, but earlier this year got an Rx for Xanax because of sleep issues and panic-attack-like symptoms at night (why is it all the "what-if" scenarios pop into my head when I'm trying to fall asleep?!)

The difference with the Cymbalta was not only that the medication helped even things out for me (moreso than the Prozac had done), but I began regularly seeing my own therapist at the same time. I think the combo of the medications and the therapy is what truly saved me. medications can help you get to the place where you can begin to work on your own issues.

If your husband is begging you to stay on something, I think you need to listen. Sometimes it's hard for us to see just how bad things are, when we're in the middle of it. The perspective of an outside person is a great help. And you also can't help your difficult child, if you're falling apart yourself. My therapist likens it to what the flight attendant says when you're on a plane: when the pressure drops and the oxygen masks drop down, put yours on *first* before assisting other passengers.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Bunny, lol!

Zaftig, I always wondered about that, meaning, medications in general, and whether we build a tolerance to them. Glad you mentioned that Zoloft pooped out after a while. Interesting.

Okay, I don't have it in my signature {blush} but I've been taking Effexor for a few yrs now. Started out about hmm, maybe 4 or 5 yrs ago? with- a small dose for PMS, because I had breast cancer and can't take estrogen (you think I'd remember when I had cancer but I deliberately blanked it out :) ). Now I do 150 mg time release. I honestly don't think I could handle difficult child, my crazy cousin that I moved here, and my dad, with-Alzheimer's, if I weren't on it. The therapist says it's situational depression but I actually like my increased productivity. I have high expectations for myself and love, love, love to lie in bed at night and think, "Wow, what a productive day. I feel like a real human being."

Interesting thread. Good question, Lovelyboy. :winnersmiley:
 
i've been on/off various SSRI's for various things (difficult child stuff/quitting smoking/perimenopause) too, and probably should be on one now. i do have a prn for xanax too.

for me, the side effects were worse than the benefits.

but i never say never--i havent tried the newer ones. i'm sure they would help...heaven knows the "situation" wont be changing any time soon.
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Count me a member of this club. My "working diagnosis" is PTSD and I'm up to 80mg of Latuda. I still think she should give me a PRN for acute issues, but no luck there yet. Not sure what would be best if she did, so still using 1/2 a chlor-tab as PRN.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Oh! Me! ME! ME! I DO! I DO!

I suppose you could say I had a mini nervous breakdown in 1999.
difficult child 1 was recently diagnosis'd ADHD and was 5 years old, about to start kindergarten.
difficult child 2 was bouncing off the walls and was 2.5.
easy child was a sweet little baby, still nursing full time.
husband was in his full difficult child-ADHD-bipolar glory driving me to the edge of sanity.

And I simply could not take one more thing on my plate. I had chronic diarrhea and was crying all the time, so I went to my GP (mainly about the diarrhea) and as I started to explain everything I was dealing with, I just burst into tears. The doctor felt really bad for me and wrote a scrip for Celexa right there. Helped a little but not enough. Two years later we were hooked up with a psychiatrist and that's when things started to turn around.
 
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