Bryce Canyon, Utah
I know that for most patients who want to lower their psychiatric medications, the general advice given is to lower it "slowly." It's analogous to someone seeking to escape slavery through the underground railroad being told to head south with a vague wave of the hand.
Believe me, there is a lot more to successful medication withdrawal than to lower the medication slowly.
For many patients, lowering medications slowly leads to a "relapse," and subsequent hospitalization with more medications.
What are the top 5 mistakes that lead to psychiatric medication withdrawal failures?
After several decades of guiding patients through their medication tapers, I want you to be more informed before you start lowering your medications so you will have a greater chance of success and ultimately, freedom!
The Top 5 Mistakes
During Medication Withdrawal
And Why
Bryce Canyon, Utah
Let's get right to the point. Although psychiatric medications are not "addictive," when people try to withdraw or stop them, the consequences are often debilitating. The withdrawal side effects are just the opposite of what the medications treated in the first place, except oftentimes it feels much worse.
Under these circumstances, the following five common mistakes occur:
1) Waiting for the withdrawals to stop. I would not recommend doing so, because withdrawals indicate metabolic and physiologic debility. They need to be intelligently addressed, or they may never stop. In the meantime, your health often worsens under increased oxidative stress and inflammation.
2) Adding a medication that affects different neurotransmitters. For example, if withdrawals occur from lowering an SSRI, which decreases serotonin function, then in order to stop the withdrawals, the serotonin system must be supported or the medication reinstated. It doesn't help to add a medication that works on other neurotransmitter systems, e.g. Wellbutrin, even though both medications are antidepressants.
3) Adding neurotransmitter or nutritional support after the medication has been stopped. This is analogous to training and preparing for a marathon after you've completed the race (or not). Makes sense? No? It doesn't make sense to me either.
4) Contacting a holistic psychiatrist for help during or after a failed medication withdrawal. The ideal time to work with a holistic psychiatrist is before a patient withdraws from a medication(s). To ask for help in the midst of or after a withdrawal fiasco is like asking someone to fix the house after half or all of it has been built wrong.
5) Not associating reemergent mental health problems to medication withdrawal. Oftentimes, withdrawal symptoms will start two to three months after a medication has been lowered. How do I know? When I support patients properly with nutritional and energy medicine support, the withdrawal symptoms don't occur. If I don't support the patient properly, they will often occur in two to three months.
These top five mistakes seem to be commonsensical to me now, but when I started my holistic psychiatric journey, I had to learn everything the hard way through empirical experiences. Hopefully, this short article will be more than just a vague wave as you seek to find greater freedom in your life.
The Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast (Ep. 46):
Using Medical Fitness for Improving
Function in Progressive Neurological Conditions
Check out the teaser here.
Can fitness evolve into a medical intervention that can effectively improve function in progressive neurological conditions? Peter Francis, founder of Renew Me Fitness located in the DC metropolitan area, believes that it can. Using his background in physical therapy and personal training, Peter and his team works with clients with conditions such as Parkinson's disease or strokes in their homes to renew their physical function.
How does he do this? What has he learned from his work with patients? Listen to amazing, poignant, success stories that illustrate the power of movement that increases clients' empowerment by supporting recovery and function.
Peter Francis once dreamed about pursuing a fulfilling career as a physical therapist… that was until he started working in a physical therapy setting. Peter developed a love for working with elderly patients (especially those with neurological conditions like Parkinson’s Disease or a stroke).
The only problem was that this population often needed more therapy than what insurance was willing to provide. He founded RenewMe Fitness as a safe and effective option for this population, as well as for aging adults who want to take back control of the aging process.
Peter has a Bachelor’s of Science, with an Allied-Health Track, from Salisbury University. He is certified as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist through the National Strength and Conditioning Association, as well as a Functional Aging Specialist through the Functional Aging Institute. He gained from of his experience with the aging population from working in various physical therapy settings.
He loved the therapy environment, but he gets so much more out of working with clients, long term, in a personal training setting. He often tells his clients that he gets more out of training them, than they get from him.
He truly values his time with his clients, not just working on physical goals, but spending the time and energy in each session to make deep emotional connections, and create lifelong bonds. He believes that his clients have no ceiling, and their potential is limitless.
Contact information for Peter Francis:
RenewMe Fitness, LLC
Office: 240-558-4544
www.RenewMeFitness.com
Click here for the full episode available on Wednesday.