Medication- Coping with side effects

  Medication slows me down, but I treat it as a form of appreciation to stop n view how others do things. It sometimes give me headache but my mum will apply medicated ointment on e two main nerves at e back of my neck..drinking warm water helps me too.

  I manage the side effects of my psychiatric medications by: 1) Weight gain - As I'm a couch potato, I intentionally took on job that requires me to be on my feet. 2) Dry eyes & headaches - I use eye wash, eye drops, fish oil, drink lots of room temperature plain water & take lots of rest. 3) Dry & scaly skin on my fingers & soles of my feet - I go for monthly manicure, pedicure, paraffin treatment & I apply moisturising cream prescribed by the doctor.

  I don't experience any side effect after I change to this current new medication . Previously when I was on psychiatric medication prescribe by SGH doct I experienced very bad nausea and I will drink lots of water and sour stuffs to counter the uncomfortable feeling that I am having.

  I didn't check the side effects of medications

  I did not seems to have much side effects. Maybe at that point of time my anxiety level is already very high. The anxiety symptoms may have covered up the side effect (if there is any).

  (contd) (4) Another side effect of SSRI is my 'sad' or 'low' emotions are blocked so I became overconfident, out of touch with vital signs like fatigue and nothing seems to hurt me or make me sad. This set the stage for a very severe burnout later on (5) Because I couldn't feel sad emotions, I couldn't feel empathy, couldn't cry when someone close had died. I lost the capacity to feel and love, and was borderline sociopathic when I deal with ppl. Thankfully I got my emotions back now.

  I took depression meds some years back (1) It cause bodily temperature to rise, so to cope I kept myself cool (2) I developed bruxism and muscle tensions all over body, I told pdoc and he gave complement my meds with anti anxiety meds (3) I had a concomitant condition ie anxiety disorder and it flared up when depression was suppressed.... (to be continued)

  I am not aware of my medicine's side effect . I heard depression n anxiety medicines will cause hairfall . Not sure true or false but I have patches of hairloss called alopecia aerota n is seeing dermatologist about it . Can I tell me if my medicine I take is the cause for my hairloss ?Thanks .

  At first, I didn't know, but now I know. The main side effect was weight gain and what I am doing now to cope with it is controlling my diet ( totally removing all starch and sugar as much as possible), exercising (going to the gym every day except Sundays) and drinking a lot a lot a lot a lot of water. It's working and my weight is reducing now. I also spoke to my psychiatrist and changed my medication to something which doesn't have weight gain as a side effect.