Crawling out of my skin

[Aries]

I'm up at 1:30 a.m., and it's looking like it'll be a long night. For the last week or so I've been noticing a jerking in my legs. It started off small and has gotten to where it's almost like a reflex kick when a doc checks your reflexes in your knee. It does it on its own, with no warning or anything.

And tonight I feel like there's a crawly feeling under my skin everywhere, under my scalp, almost like restless legs syndrome, but all over my body.

So with my OCD, of course I was thinking that I had early signs of multiple sclerosis or Parkinson's and was going to die a slow, painful death and lose all of my independence. Then it dawned on me that the symptoms started shortly after I started taking Seroquel. I looked up the side effects of Seroquel and found that the muscle jerking is a severe side effect and that if you don't discontinue the drug, that jerking and those twitches can become *permanent*.

Now I'm scared, of course. What have I done to myself by agreeing to go on medication? Part of my OCD is a fear of medications making me an addict or whatever so that I lose control and independence, even die. I reluctantly went on the medication because I was told at low doses the big issues of diabetes and so on shouldn't be a problem. And now I'm feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin, and my muscles in my arms and legs are twitching and jumping and jerking. What the hell?

I am angry. You know, OCD sucks, but I don't think my OCD is going to kill me. Yes, it's making life miserable in a lot of ways, but the alternative is this? Tardive dyskinesia or a zillion other side effects? Is the medical community totally nuts? There's got to be a better way to manage OCD other than putting people on antipsychotics that can cause lasting damage. Apparently, insomnia is another side effect of going off the drug, but I'm glad to go off of it.

I feel so disappointed. I was hoping the Seroquel would take the edge off the OCD to where I could fix it with CBT. Now what? Join a monastery? Crap.

[J.L]

Originally Posted by Aries

I'm up at 1:30 a.m., and it's looking like it'll be a long night. For the last week or so I've been noticing a jerking in my legs. It started off small and has gotten to where it's almost like a reflex kick when a doc checks your reflexes in your knee. It does it on its own, with no warning or anything.

Hi Aries. If your jerking movements are occurring around the time you are falling to sleep, it could be "hypnic jerks". Unfortunately, when a person is on medication, they will never be able to know whether symptoms are the result of the medication or not. That's one reason I got off them, and got myself better after doing so. I felt more agitated on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

[Aries]

They're occurring all day. It's the medicine. I didn't have the symptoms before the medication.

[J.L]

I do my best to try and convince people that medication only makes things worse. Some people are pro med others like myself are not. I would love to see you go about recovering without medication Aries. I got better without it, and many others have. The last psychologist I saw said she had 20 years of experience working with mental health patients and never came across anyone who had properly recovered using medication. On the other hand, she has seen hundreds and hundreds recover without it. She got into private practice and has all her patients come off medication when she treats them. I agree with what she says regards medication. That's why I chose to see her back then.

[Aries]

I would like to do it without medication. The shrink told me that most people beat OCD only with the aid of medication along with their CBT. Glad to hear you did it without med. This isn't worth it. I already have fears of medications. It took a lot of convincing to get me to try the Seroquel, and now I see I should have gone with my inclination to try other things. Aggggh! I hope the jerking/twitching isn't permanent. It probably isn't. I guess I'll find out over the next several days. Glad I stopped it.

[J.L]

Taking medication is avoidance. You have to experience the anxiety to be able to learn from it. I constantly read posts where people tell people that they shouldn't avoid things, yet in the same post suggest the person goes on medication. It makes no sense.

[Aries]

Originally Posted by J.L

Taking medication is avoidance. You have to experience the anxiety to be able to learn from it. I constantly read posts where people tell people that they shouldn't avoid things, yet in the same post suggest the person goes on medication. It makes no sense.

That's exactly the impression I'm left with--that it makes no sense. The medical community has their own form of insanity. Nothing I'm doing with the OCD is lifethreatening. Maybe it's quality of life-threatening, but I'm not ready to give up yet.

thank you for your words of wisdom, JL. It helps to hear someone else saying "don't take the medicine." I don't have any issues besides depression (on Zoloft), anxiety and OCD, and my OCD, while sucky, isn't as bad as many cases I've seen on Youtube or here. I know it has potential to get worse, that it is getting worse in some ways, but they're still not costing me that much quality of life that I want to risk damaging my body with medication. The shrink admits every time I see her that they really don't know how things like Seroquel work, that it's a mind-altering drug that can have different effects on different people. I'm going to hit this with some other things, not meds. I just know I'm in for a headache with the therapist (not the M.D.). She's pretty much convinced that you can't overcome things without medication. Oh well. You really have to be your own advocate with healthcare. Everybody has a different opinion. Only we can say what's acceptable to each of us.

I have managed to stop biting my nails. I picked at my cuticles pretty badly yesterday, but managed to stop. Everything else will just have to be eliminated somehow, maybe one by one. Going cold turkey hasn't worked very well other than for my nails. Reducing seems to work better.

[partlycloudy]

medication is indeed a personal choice, but i take issue with calling medication "avoidance."

i had to wade through a lot of fears to start and stay on medication, and i did not take medication simply to avoid my problems. i wanted a fuller life, and that is what i now feel. i am embarking on goals that i would have absolutely avoided before, and in my book, that's a good thing.

my father has been on anti-depressants for many years, and i wish deeply he had started taking them when i was a girl. i hardly had a relationship with him growing up, and it was only after he started getting help and medication that i got to know him in any meaningful way. i feel sadness for the years i missed with him, and don't want my possible children to grow up feeling the same way.

[MrCowbell]

If ocd is a biolochemical disorder then taking medication for it is no different than taking meds for Alzheimers or epilepsy.

[J.L]

Greetings Mr Cowebell. So why then are people able to recover without medication if it is supposedly necessary?