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The Trouble With Medication

Modern psychiatry can do wonderful things. No longer are patients chained to the wall for people to come and laugh at, or sent to asylums for their entire lives. Just a pill a day can help reduce symptoms. But it isn't the be all and end all, especially when it comes to psychosis. Anti psychotics in particular have some nasty side effects.

The worst one has to be weight gain. Anti psychotics affect both appetite and metabolism. At the moment I'm at a weight increase of three stone. Another side effect is double vision. I'm writing this with one eye closed, because the screen is so blurry.

Medication is a balancing act, a careful tightrope walk between doctor and patient, increasing and decreasing, swapping and changing until just the right combination of drug is found. And again, there is no one size fits all. It's different for everyone.

Next week I'm due to start lithium, a mood stabiliser. I'm worried about it, because I don't know how it's going to affect me. My psychiatrist is very pro active, and she wants to get me back to my highest level of functioning, ie, as I was before I became ill. But I'm dubious... Is that really possible? Can I get the 'old me' back? How many different pills do I need to take in order to achieve that? I never even used to take a paracetamol for a headache, and now.... that reminds me, time for meds!

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