By Phobia - 29/12/2017 15:00

Today, thanks to my new anti-anxiety meds, I am finally no longer agoraphobic. Today also marks 5 weeks of constant diarrhea due to the same meds. Guess who's not leaving the house anytime soon. FML
I agree, your life sucks 4 055
You deserved it 312

Same thing different taste

Top comments

PhantomCrevan 8

Call your doctor and have the medicine discontinued already! Chronic diarrhea and vomiting can and WILL kill you eventually, not to mention they can do permanent damage. Have the med stopped, have them call in a new one, ask if you need to wean down off the old one, and if so have them make a schedule that weans you off the old one and onto the new one. Medicine is supposed to help you feel better overall. If the cons outweigh the benefits, then you look at other options. If your doctor doesn't take you seriously when you say that the side effects are intolerable, you need to find a new doctor and consider reporting the older one. They also aren't supposed to treat phobias through drug only therapy. The meds are supposed to supplement a therapy plan written to desensitize you to the phobia. The number of people that don't know that they can and should voice concerns to their doctors concerns me greatly.

If your mind won't stop you from leaving the house, you bowels sure will. It seems as though you're being tag teamed by your own body.

Comments

PhantomCrevan 8

Call your doctor and have the medicine discontinued already! Chronic diarrhea and vomiting can and WILL kill you eventually, not to mention they can do permanent damage. Have the med stopped, have them call in a new one, ask if you need to wean down off the old one, and if so have them make a schedule that weans you off the old one and onto the new one. Medicine is supposed to help you feel better overall. If the cons outweigh the benefits, then you look at other options. If your doctor doesn't take you seriously when you say that the side effects are intolerable, you need to find a new doctor and consider reporting the older one. They also aren't supposed to treat phobias through drug only therapy. The meds are supposed to supplement a therapy plan written to desensitize you to the phobia. The number of people that don't know that they can and should voice concerns to their doctors concerns me greatly.

julfunky 29

Get it discontinued? They rarely discontinue medications that have a possible dangerous side effect. They slap a warning label on it. To be fair this could be a less common side effect, making the medication help more people than it hurts.

discontinue it for the OP, not the world..

If your mind won't stop you from leaving the house, you bowels sure will. It seems as though you're being tag teamed by your own body.

you might not want to hear this, but could the diarrhea also be because of the anxiety? I was agoraphobic for 2 years (couldn't leave the house) and when I eventually did my bowels started ******* up. When I figured out that was anxiety as well, the diarrhea disappeared almost completely. nicely done with overcoming your anxieties btw! If you can't change the meds, take a fiber thing (hardens stool) or loperamide.

exileonmainst 16

*Guess who’s not leaving the lavatory soon.

Comment moderated for rule-breaking.

Show it anyway

Alternatively, humans are as diverse in mental health as they are in any other area, and as such the old days had their share of non-functioning basket cases just like there are plenty of folks around nowadays whose brains are perfectly normal. Only difference is that the internet has given the former a platform where no such thing existed previously.

Did you just call the OP a "non-functioning basket case?"

No. It would take someone actually qualified and with far more information than just a couple of sentences on the internet to make that call. I'm just saying that your implication that people never had phobias or other mental issues in the past is bullshit.

But you are saying that it is ok to describe someone with mental issues as a "non-functioning basket case," correct?

Really. Had to look up agoraphobia. Basically your afraid of everything. Pussification of America at its finest.

cheshireau 26

Mine upsets my IBS too. I feel you, OP.

You might want to talk to your doctor about the side effects of this medication. S/he might be able to find a different drug for you.

You know what? I'm not very good at running a marathon. I could probably take some drugs that would help my performance. Or, I could get out there and actually practice the marathon, and eventually I would get better at it. And you know what else? I used to be shy when I grew up in the early 90s, and you know what I did? I practiced and worked on not being shy, and now I am not nearly as shy. If I had been growing up in the last decade, I bet all kinds of teachers and doctors would have meetings with my parents, and eventually I would have a bumch of pills shoved down my damn throat. Who knows or cares what the long term life changing side effects would be, as long as I sat in my desk like a good boy, and answered all the teacher's questions. I feel like drugs are the wrong answer, just because you weren't born as a social butterfly. I realize the pharmaceutical industry, and in turn the government, would stand to lose a lot of money if doctors stopped prescribing so many pills, but I feel like a better solution to solve the fact that tonnes of people have some quirky little mental health issue would be to research the root causes of the problem. So, why are so many people so mentally sick in 2017? Could it be poor diets? Could it be light pollution in the cities leading to improper sleeping patterns? Could it be because doctors cut babies umbilical cords off, instead of leaving it to happen naturally? Could it be from so many c-section births? Could it be because children want to have some quirkiness about them to feel special? Maybe something else, maybe people keep their room temperatures too steady, instead of having a natural cooling off pattern at night? Could it be because we mostly always wear something on our feet, causing our electrons to be out of balance with the earth? I don't know the answer, but I feel like putting so many children on drugs, instead of actually fixing the problem, is borderline child abuse.

Does anyone care to explain why they are down voting this?

Anxiety isn’t just something you can push through.

ohsnapword 21

Alanis Morissette would appreciate the irony here.