As of today I’ve been off psych meds five years.
You can read about why I was on them here. At that time my psychiatrist agreed that I could taper down and then stop altogether after I’d been stable on them for two years. That time came and in March 2003 he let me start tapering down. On June 18, 2003 he said I could stop taking meds but should go back on if I start having symptoms again.
I’m not suggesting anyone should stop taking helpful medication. I wanted to know if I could manage without it.
I was hoping I’d be five years completely meds free today. It hasn’t worked out that way because of Crohn’s Disease. But I’m still pleased I’ve made it to five years without psych meds.
Wow, Helen. That’s huge. How are you feeling?
Thanks Beth! I’m very pleased I made it to five years – who knows how things will go in the future but, so far so good!
you are a brave person- I am so happy to have met you
Jim thanks for helping me be brave. I’m very glad to have met you too.
having been a psych nurse I am so pleased to read this…I got so sick of the old school thinking of drugging people up which blocked their ability to talk through stuff at the root…
got sick of the revolving door syndrome of ‘patients’ being discharged only to be readmitted. Left the hospital/nursing – went to work in a charity rehab hostel [for people who had been in psych hospitals] – much better holistic approach/methods.
you don’t think that the psych meds might have led to the Crohn’s Disease do you?
I ask because my husband’s long term need of painkillers and other drugs have affected his stomach badly.
[Maybe I am confusing Crohn’s Disease with something else though].
Hi Marion, sorry, I guess I never replied to this. I don’t think any of my psychiatric medication could have led to the Crohn’s Disease.
I am inspired by your story of being med-free. I would like to be able to go off of my psych meds but I don’t know what steps to take. I am doing real well and hope that the doctor will recognize that I am doing better. Did you just ask your doctor flat out if you could go off of them? I am worried that I will have to take medication the rest of my life and I don’t want that. I feel like I am fine and sometimes I don’t feel fine and I think that may be a side-effect of the meds. Thanks,
Tim
Tim, this is how it went. I have a secondary diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy, although the only time I ever had identified seizure activity was during my second manic episode. Because of the secondary diagnosis I went to a free epilepsy seminar and heard that the policy of the doctors giving the seminar was to allow a break off epilepsy medication after a person had been symptom-free i.e. seizure-free for two years.
The next time I saw my psychiatrist I told him about it and said “I wish doctors would do that with Bipolar also.” I was surprised and pleased that he responded with “We could consider that.”
At that time I think I’d been stable on medication for a little over a year. I was eager to try going off meds at 2 years if I stayed well. My doctor let me taper down to half the dose three months before the 2 year date. When the 2 year date arrived he gave me this big precautionary talk about “You know, you don’t have to do this and of course if you have any problems you can go back on.”
I really wanted to do it, so I did. I continued to see him once every three months for the next year. After 12 months he said “You’re not on meds so you don’t really need to come see me unless you have problems.”
It wasn’t much fun seeing him anyway by then since all he did was say I could go back on meds if I had problems so I was happy to stop going regularly.
That was the last time I saw him. However, I still see a professional counselor regularly (about every 3 weeks) and one of the main reasons is so he can assess whether I am developing any Bipolar sysmptoms. I started seeing a counselor with my husband soon after my second manic episode to help us deal with the illness. That soon turned into me going by myself and I like having someone professional help assess my mental state. This particular counselor has had experience working with Bipolar patients in an in-patient day program which is great, because it means he is very familiar with how manic symptoms present. If I didn’t know that I’d know he was anyway from the questions he asks.
These days unfortunately our discussions tend to be more about whether I am depressed, since having Crohn’s can be quite discouraging at times. So far though I’ve managed not to cross the line into depression, happily.
Anyway, back to psych meds – whether your doctor will agree to you going off meds will depend on his flexibility, the history of your illness and how he thinks you’re doing now. Doctors vary in how willing they are to let people try going off medication. And I think it’s important to have a good support system that will help you get help if you need it, when you go off. It was important to me that I had a watchful husband and counselor checking how I was doing just in case. In fact, it still is important that I have those.