[Salamander]

Have you ever taken them?

MISS Oh-so-Drugknowledgable has.

In 1981, side effects of a healing brain trauma had a quack stick me on them for a total of 11 years, constantly increasing doses/changing meds because darn it, they just ‘weren’t working’.

[TBI has its own timeline for regeneration of neurological deficits but nobody considered *that* and thought I was “just being difficult”]

Between my impatient mother and jackass husband of the time, it was ‘decided’ that I needed to be ‘medicated’.

There are three years of my life that I do not even *remember*.

As a happy little bonus, I began to have absence seizures [one of the known side effects; seizures] and dealt with drug induced OCD for *years*.

It takes a very long time for that crap to totally leave your system and brain chemistry to rebalance itself.

The final straw was Prozac.

I took that poison for 9 days when I “heard a voice” that was not my own telling me to kill myself.

I turned on my heel, marched back to the bathroom and flushed the rest of the bottle down the toilet.

Thank God in heaven that I had a strong will and determined presence of mind to *know* that it was the pills “talking”.

All of that ended 20+ years ago and so far, I’ve managed to cope with life’s stresses all on my own.

Ups and down, highs and lows are part of a normal life and psyche.
Without one, we can never appreciate the other.

“Flat lining” is not a life worth living.

So.

Now give me *your* informed story.

[shibumi]

"Thank God in heaven that I had a strong will and determined presence of mind to *know* that it was the pills “talking”."

I, for one, am very, very glad that you chose to remain here.

As bumpy as the ride may be from time to time, I thank God for your life and can't imagine that you would be really you "all flattened out."

For what it's worth, I've known two women in my life who are no longer in my life because of inexplicable erratic behavior that was found out after the fact to be related to drugs like Prozac. (Both of those relationships ended in divorce.)

[muawiyah]

http://www.drugs.com/sfx/versed-side-effects.html ~ this is about the side effects of Versed ~ more or less ~ which is a sedative used for minor surgery. Minor surgery would include just about anything to do with the eye, the lower GI, tooth extracts, etc. You really need to read it because you have just reported several of those side effects.

[muawiyah]

When you reach 60 years of age the required dose is 1/4 the regular dose. That’s when the rare side effect of forgetting periods of time sets in ~ I forgot the entire month of February 2006 after taking Versed. Found out through a friend that the manufacturer was aware that those over 60, or those who are overweight tended to stash it in their body fat and it would keep leaking out doing what it does. They finally made a notice of the problem as Baby Boomers started showing up with the forgetfulness problem. Otherwise it’s about the safest sedative on the market.