How are you supposed to feel on meds?

[rogelio63]

Ok,,I've been going thru a med change and I'm confused.  How am I supposed to know which state is normal?  On my meds that I've been taking for over a year (ativan 1mg 3x/day, zoloft 1/day, lamictal 100mg 2x/day, atenolol 50mg/day ambien 1x/night)
i have days when I'm happy and sad, but none of them really seem that dramatic like they were off the meds.  When I'm happy on this regimen, co workers (that don't know my diagnosis) say I'm crazy,(jokingly) talking, singing, joking alot, random things popping in and out of my head via my mouth!  When I'm down, I'm just quiet and I'm quiet more often.
I was changed off the ativan and ambien to Klonopin 2mg/night, all else remaining the same.  At work I felt ok, functioned well but felt like I was kind of numb, almost drunk, but very on top of my job.  I wasn't like a zombie or anything or devoid of any sense of humor, I was just,,,I felt drunk and numb.  Very, very difficult to explain.
Anyway, which one of these is the "normal" way I'm supposed to feel?  I don't know.  I'm very hesitant to change anything again because I'm in grad school right now.  I've been diagnosed and treated almost 2 years.  I've talked my psych into letting me go off meds once, with very bad results.
Thoughts?

Rogelio

[rogelio63]

My diagnosis is Bipolar Disorder type II

[Silversail]

I think you should talk to your psychiatrist. He/She will know which one it is. For me I felt numb on Zoloft. So my psychiatrist changed it. The Ambien also had an effect on me. You could ask your doc about slow release medication. That way you don't have to take so many.

[SLadylani]

Oh, I would definitely not go off all your meds at one time. The thing I would recommend is changeing one thing at a time, until you get on the "perfect" regimen that works for you. Even though you are in Grad school right now, mild dosing changes on your medications should not affect your performance in school. I'm curious to know what exactly your diagnosis is, but at the least i can guess anxiety and  depression. What you described could be normal for you, if that was your normal state before you got on the meds. Medications for mental health at best get you back to feeling like yourself again. Are you normally over-happy, outgoing, or a comic? Are you normally quiet? Either way, it seems that these are both extremes and that your meds could be balanced more to get you back in the middle somewhere. Something that you should also not be feeling is numb, and I think the medication responsible for this is probably the Lamictal, possibly the ambien. Switching to Klonopin, in my oppinion, is a good idea, as for one, it is less addictive, and for another, it is longer acting, unlike Ativan which is a short acting drug. My first suggestion is to ask your psychiatrist if you can either swicth to an alternative other than the ambien, such as trazodone, a well tolerated drug, or decrease the dose on your lamictal. The only problem with playing around with the sleep meds right now is that it may take some trial and error before finding another drug that works for you, which may mean some sleepless nights, or over-sed.ated days-which could affect school. But I do think you could use some adjustments on your medications to get you on your "perfect" regimen, but I also don't know where you came from, so this might be much improvement for you. So definitely schedule an appointment with your doctor and discuss starting out with some small changes, and describe all the feelings that you described in this post, and whatever else you think may be abnormal. I wish you the best of luck and wishes and hope you keep us posted!

Sara RN