Question about taking psyche meds

My 23 year old grandson has just been diagnosed with Lyme and Bartonella. He is seeing my LLMD who feels that he is in the very early stage of these diseases. Right now his sleep is very erratic, he over talks with pressured speech and has periods of rage. It has caused havoc in his household. He wants to see a psychiatrist for meds to control this behavior and states he doesn’t really care what happens to him so depression is another issue. Any thoughts on the use of psyche meds would really be appreciated.

Patty

summer16 said...
My 23 year old grandson has just been diagnosed with Lyme and Bartonella. He is seeing my LLMD who feels that he is in the very early stage of these diseases. Right now his sleep is very erratic, he over talks with pressured speech and has periods of rage. It has caused havoc in his household. He wants to see a psychiatrist for meds to control this behavior and states he doesn’t really care what happens to him so depression is another issue. Any thoughts on the use of psyche meds would really be appreciated.

Patty

Patty - Are you happy with your LLMD?
When he says early stage - what does that mean?
How long has he had symptoms?

Another link I just found, while searching Chris Kresser's website for something unrelated to depression:

https://chriskresser.com/depression

There are many links to various resources.

Yes, psych meds can be used responsibly and beneficially for folks with Lyme. They are not a treatment for Lyme, obviously, but they can help ease symptoms that add stress to a body. Psych issues (even the ones we think of as fairly normal like anxiety and depression) suppress the immune system, cause neurological issues, disrupt the microbiome and digestive process, interfere with sleep and attention - and that's in people who don't have tick-borne infections that do all those same things! So to some degree it's a chicken or the egg issue. Even if tick-borne infections are causing the psych issues, it's still good to control them if possible just to make the Lyme treatment more successful.

That said, psych meds should be used very responsibly, carefully, slowly, and on as short-term a basis as possible. I highly recommend finding a psychopharmacologist to prescribe, and talking over the toxicity levels of various options with your LLMD before choosing a path. "Rescue" meds are a good idea, since they can be used as needed and not every day. Other options to try that would have a lower toxicity profile are cannabis (CBD or THC or a combination), full-spectrum light therapy, and various herbs. Rages, depression, unusual behavior, and insomnia are all relatively common with Lyme, so a trained LLMD should have ideas for you, but sometimes the better options might take a while to kick in. In the short term, I think in his situation I would try a benzo or something else to chill out the nervous system while other things have a chance to work.

JovaLyme: You're one smart cookie and incredibly resilient!

I would certainly take the name of the drug, research in the internet before giving to anyone... Specially about withdrawal and about INCREASING depression middle-long term.
There's this Swedish guy from inside the pharma who started talking, and his statistics are pretty scary (concerning psycho drugs causing DEATH of many thousands of people every year).
I forgot his name.. Don't use google to search. He's a whistle blower, I'll see if I find his lectures.
I would go herbs and homeopathy, and be far from psycho drugs, but that's me.

Some people with lyme said that some psycho drug withdrawal symptoms are MUCH worse than lyme symptoms.
Well, I wonder what can be worse than lyme, so....

If you would like just a short version, you can watch this 9 min video of a particular psychiatrist doctor who testified helping patients suing pharma companies from damage from psycho drugs.
He wrote a book about both psycho drug and how to withdrawal from them (very dangerous thing to do).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luKsQaj0hzs

Shasta said...
Some people with lyme said that some psycho drug withdrawal symptoms are MUCH worse than lyme symptoms.
Well, I wonder what can be worse than lyme, so....

I am one of those people. Of course, symptoms of both Lyme and withdrawal are different for everyone. For me, withdrawal was worse. Partly because it was new and scary and NO ONE prepared for what I was about to go through. Withdrawal was my first foray into doctors ignoring me and lying to me and blindly following pharmaceutical reps. It was my medical wake-up call, much like Lyme is for most people. It also came with great fear that the effects were permanent.

I knew the drugs were bad when, even with Lyme disease and not knowing if I was going to survive, I felt BETTER than I have in years when I stopped taking them- I suddenly had joy, and empathy, and FEELINGS and a brain. Even if it was a lyme brain and an emotional roller coaster, it felt REAL. Lyme despair was not like antidepressant despair.

Now that I am off the drugs, and still battling Lyme, I have residual depression from withdrawal (only 1 week off totally after months of tapering) but I suddenly have coping mechanisms that WORK. "Normal" depression is nothing like pharma depression.

I know many many many people go on psych drugs during lyme because doctors are all concerned about depression and suicide. But I would highly recommend using this time to get into therapy and learn coping skills, learn how to grieve, learn how to accept changes and your limitations. LL therapists do exist, and hopefully more will be trained as this disease spreads.