The newer drugs have been rushed to market and are notoriously bad when it comes to side effects. With new drugs the pharma industry says "most people" got relief when really only 61% got relief. It's a clear majority but not enough for me anymore. If you check drugs.com you can see the real stats on how helpful any drug is vs the side effects. Check every med: some have not been on the market long enough for docs and pharma to know well they work over time.
I've tried a lot of the new drugs, just looking for something to take away my depression, but have found problems with all of them:
- abilify made me super nauseous and gave me the sensation of peeing down my leg every 2 minutes. Really. Every 2 minutes.
- effexor put me in the hospital for 5 days after taking half the starting dose for just 2 weeks, then falling 6 timesin one day.
- welbutrin gave me Parkinson's disease permanently.
- latuda made my chin and eyebrows twitch, a well known side effect of many of these drugs that can be permanent if you don't stop immediately.
- olanzapine gave me tremors and brain fog.
- lithium, an old drug, ruined my balance and ability to hold things. I spilled boiling soup down my front and got 2nd and 3rd degree burns
- electro-shock treatments stopped my heart the first time we did it. They didn't tell me. And it made it impossible for me to think straight after just 2 treatments. I stopped then, but most people do 12 rounds.
Now we're trying to find a drug to stop what feel like electric shocks in my legs because of the Parkinson's. Backlofen and methocarbamol make it much worse.
I don't have hope that some new drug will fix me. It's an everyday fight to keep going with old drugs which lose their abilities to work at low doses like they used to.
I have tremors, twitches, permanently slurred speech, incontinence, I'm in a wheelchair because I can't balance well enough to walk and I'm unable to keep up my house, drive or cook. I'll see pain management next week for the first time because my body has been in pain since mid-December.
I was pretty much okay before I started this journey. Now my quality of life is near zero.