Mental Health Can I just refuse my medications?

[deadendgame]

I'm on lithium for bipolar, lexapro for depression, zyprexa for schizo, and propanolol for hypertension. Can I just refuse them? I hate these fucking drugs, especially zyprexa which makes me fat and stupid as hell. I haven't been taking them to be honest, except for the lithium. I have a 600 mg concentration of lithium in my body. How do I taper that down? I know lithium is sensitive and I don't want to fuck with that shit. But the other meds I really don't need, or do I? What's gonna happen if I just cut these off?

 

[silverwheel]

Don't change or quit any of your meds without the supervision of your doctor. Evaluate with your doc how much they're helping and how bad the side effects are. Given that you deal with multiple issues, it's likely that you'll need more than just the lithium to properly manage all of them. Your current combo may not be right, but that can be adjusted. Abruptly quitting will worsen your symptoms, and can make it harder for you to return to health in the future.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

I agree with sillverwheel. I don't claim to know which medication or how many of them you should be on, but if left untreated, psychotic disorders can cause a lot of damage to the victim and those around them.

Only a doctor can tell you the medication(s) that you really need, not us.

I thought something very similar to what you're expressing. I hated antipsychotics because they blunted my mind. I was only able to see how much they did for me by deciding to give them a solid couple months. If you give it time, you'll feel more comfortable taking them. It's not like taking a recreational drug. The benefits take time to accrue.

 

[Kittycat5]

Abruptly stopping propranolol can actually be dangerous. It needs to be tapered or supervised when discontinuing.

 

[paranoid android]

As stated above stopping propranolol can be very dangerous because of severe rebound hypertension that can lead to a stroke or heart attack. So it must be tapered slowly. Lexapro is a SSRI which means that it must also be tapered very slowly as withdrawal from SSRI and SNRI's is nothing short of pure hell and trust me on that one. Abrupt withdrawal from anti-psychotics can also trigger nasty wd symptoms including the original symptoms coming back with interest. I don't know if Zyprexa is that bad to come off as i have never taken it long term (could never afford it) and have only taken it when i could get sample packs or was so bad nothing else worked. However i did stupidly stop taking Risperidone all at once and my Bipolar symptoms came back with a vengeance to the point where i became psychotic and suicidal. I am not a cutter at all really but when i stopped taking Risperidone all at once one time when i was on maybe 4mg's a day i ended up slashing up my left arm pretty bad.

Did you develop hypertension before or after you gained the weight may i ask? If the meds are causing you health problems like that perhaps getting your doctor to try you on different ones would help. Zyprexa is a bad one for weight gain (though a godsend for Bipolar imo) so maybe trying a more weight neutral anti-psychotic could help. But just quitting your meds altogether is setting yourself up for a disaster