medication

I’m not a Pharmacist or a Doctor. However, I have a degree in Medicinal Chemistry and I have found that my peers have found it beneficial when they ask me about what they have been prescribed. I’m able to put it in to Layman’s terms and not blind you with science. Having said that, there’s still a few parts that are complexed and tricky to understand. I have tried my best to simplify things best I can and if you have any questions feel free to ask me 👍

If you want to post in the comments below any medications that you want to know more about please feel free to and I’ll send you an explanation as best as I can 👌
#MightyTogether

Dr. Vohra (my psychiatrist), I think now we have hit the bullseye with regards to the meds. However, I’d like to give you some feedback and input about it from someone who has lived it. Firstly, it’s going to be an opinion with a heavily biased psychopharmacological perspective. I was prescribed Mirtazapine at the start of my treatment. It worked wonders. I’m not sure how it’s classified now as a NaSSa or a an atypical antidepressant. I know though that it works on Serotonin and Dopamine. I was prescribed Sertaline after a while, maybe because my doctor thought it had become ineffective. The sertraline is an SSRI and with my history of substance abuse, I can only compare it to ecstasy or MDMA. I experienced tingling and sensations in my jaw which caused it to shake. After a couple of weeks this subsided, but it’s from then it made me feel awful. I was prescribed Tramadol at the time for sciatica and I subsequently had three epileptic like seizures. I professed to the health professionals that cared for me that I was on the two drugs and I was maybe experiencing serotonin Syndrome. This fell on deaf ears. I have since come off both medications and had no repeat incidents of fits.

As a result of this, I was awaiting my appointment with the psychiatrist and my GP prescribed me Depakote. It’s an anticonvulsant as you know and it’s strength of dose targets the ailment. It’s around 500mg for migraines, 1000mg for epilepsy and 1,500-2,000mg for bipolar disorder. It’s also used for schizophrenia too. So you can surmise it is a potent drug. I attended my second appointment with my psychiatrist after commencing Depakote therapy and I wasn’t able to speak to the psychiatrist. I wasn’t able to even grunt or shrug my shoulders. Medicated to the point of anonymity.
With a mood stabiliser like Depakote and an antidepressant like Mirtazapine, it causes a monumental shift in mood for Bipolar sufferers that are exaggerated to the extreme boundaries ever experienced. You are calm one minute then you’re orbiting the moon the next. You are more spaced out than Neil Armstrong ever was. I don’t fully understand how it works, but you have a drug to stop you going too high, another drug to stop you going too low, then a further medication to hold everything in place. Some drugs work in tandem with others to achieve this.

For example, I was on Depakote as a mood stabiliser. I was also on Quetiapine as an antipsychotic. These two however have the potential to be detrimental to each other and effect how proficient each one is in treating your problems. I know it’s not up to me to pick and choose what I take but if I’m taking something then I want it to be the best possible medication I can have.
I now take Lithium (600mg), Olazapine (20mg) and Fluoxetine (20mg). Olazapine and Fluoxetine work well together. Olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic, just like Quetiapine I was on previously. The dosage for Quetiapine ranges from 200-800mg, at the end of my relationship with Quetiapine I was on 750mg a day. The pharmacist at my local chemists pulled me to one side as I went to pick this up to double check it was right. They’d never administered a dosage like it before.

So I’m taking an SSRI, so it stops my serotonin being recycled and keeps it in the part of my brain to be effective. I’m not sure of why this is but I’m taking atypical antipsychotic which effects my serotonin and with Olazapine it blocks my dopamine too. I don’t think Quetiapine does this. Dopamine is the pleasure monoamine that causes reward pathways. Cocaine for example hits every major monoamine in the brain and stops their re uptake to cause an overload of brain chemistry. Crazy isn’t it?!?!
I feel disinterested in some activities that arise and my participation in my hobbies is wavering to say the least.
The one thing I can categorically say is that medication for mental illnesses might control the severity of the extremes a person goes through but it also stifles any expression a person has and you are bereft of any enthusiasm to be the person you are.
#MightyTogether #BipolarDepression #Depression #lithium

Anyone relate?
#MightyTogether #Medication

Firstly I am not a doctor or a pharmacist. I have though a degree in Medicinal Chemistry and I have been afforded the opportunity to understand and research the medication used in Psychiatry. I have written extensive explanations for other patients for my CMHT (Community Mental Health Team) to help them understand how the medication works. I use recommended books and resources to structure a comprehensive explanation in an understandable way.

If anyone of you would like me to write a review of any medication that you take please feel free to ask me and I’d be more than happy to do so and hopefully help you as much as I possibly can 👌
#MightyTogether #MentalHealth

Olanzapine belongs to a class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics. An atypical antipsychotic blocks dopamine D2 receptors in the brain. Blocking D2 receptors can help reduce excessive dopamine signaling in the brain, which can help alleviate symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that increases serotonin availability in the serotonin 5-HT synapse. This thusly prevents the reuptake of serotonin in the presynaptic area, and stops it being recycled and which in turn increases the serotonin 5-HT levels in the brain. Therefore it increases its level to interact in the brain. Olanzapine and fluoxetine work by helping to restore the balance of serotonin in the brain.

Olanzapine and fluoxetine work well together to treat bipolar depression and depression in general that has been resistant to other antidepressants. They work by increasing the activity of certain chemicals, called monoamines, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine which are found in the brain. These chemicals can help relieve the symptoms of depression.
#Medication #MentalHealth #MightyTogether

Below is a link to a blog I wrote about the antipsychotic medication Olanzapine. If anyone is prescribed this or has any questions about it, feel free to check it out and if you have any questions or comments feel free to put them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them as best I can 👌
Medication Explained: Olanzapine 💊

Below is a link to a page on my blog that contains some explanations of different types of medication we encounter with Bipolar Disorder and other mental illnesses and health conditions.

I’m not a doctor or a pharmacist but I studied Medicinal Chemistry at university and I have a vested interest in medicine and how it works. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me but if you have any further concerns or need assistance please contact your doctor or health professional 👍

Living with Bipolar Disorder: Medication 💊
#MightyTogether #MentalHealth #MentalIllness #Depression

When working in #behavioral #MentalHealth - I looked away as the Consumers would take their #Medication . Remember having a guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach, knowing that the Medication they are swallowing might be harming them, killing off their creativity, turning them into a shell of a human, wrecking the brain covertly, like a very slow #Lobotomy . I would ask them if they took their meds yet. And with great urgency they would hurry to take their medications, putting the empty cup down with a smile of accomplishment. As a Mental Health Employee, after seeing them take their pills, I felt assured that there'd be no sudden outbursts today. Whether or not the meds were permanently destroying their brain, concerned me little, except that there would likely be no outbursts, that day. So those pills, may have been eating away at their mentally ill brain, still, were a blessing, because they made my work all the easier..

Almost 20 years later, I myself am now a Mental Health Consumer, who sought out Therapy because Depression and Anxiety have finally come for me too. They keep telling me I am an over thinker. So I take my meds every day, letting them have their way with my brain and do their dirty little deeds. And I desperately desire, even sensually fantasize, receiving Electroconvulsive Therapy and also TMS Therapy, while being mandated for the rest of my life to take my Meds, attend Therapy and even receive maintenance ECT treatments, so that one day, I may not be an over thinker, any longer.

And so have signed up for TMS Therapy, am attempting to get ECT Treatments started too and hopefully after my neuropsych testing am scheduled to take later this month, they'll put me back on an antipsychotic and maybe if I'm lucky, mandate its continuous administration, via Court Order, so I don't have to feel guilty about taking it.

Were the Mental Health Consumers, 2 decades ago, already doing this? That in my professional role, I mistook them for fools believing their Meds were somehow healthy for them?! And yet, was I the fool?! Were they keenly more aware, even back then, of the necessity, to quiet down the overthinking brain we are all born with using copious amounts of Medication approved by the FDA to balance out our Serotonin levels and Neurotransmitter Actions, in not yet so clearly understood, ways? Am I overthinking this issue today? Or maybe I am just late, taking my morning 80mg Prozac?!