Hi Everyone,
I'm in a disturbed, frustrated, and a not so feeling well, type of way tonight. I just received a letter in the mail saying that I need to see family doctor urgently because my cholesterol is up high again. Recently I have been trying to include some healthier fats and an egg every couple of days into my dieting, but I can see it is backfiring on me. For now, I think for now I will have to go back to my older dieting ways, which was
no fat at all, to keep my cholesterol down to a borderline high. My food intake has never really been that bad though, I can't see too many areas to improve on.
It is now no longer a secret that psychiatric meds can commonly cause weight gain, changes to metabolism, increase cholesterol, and even obesity. My Sister in Law and I both are facing a problem with a hardly-controllable weight gain problem ever since starting anxiety treatments. I used to be able to pick her up way off the ground, even with my fused back (seriously), but now it looks like she is 4 times her size. I recently lost 13 pounds (mainly because of increased exercise I think, including therapy and jogging indoors), but I am still about 75 pounds beyond the weight I was before going on any psychiatric meds. We both are currently taking anxiety and antidepressant medication.
The problem is that neither of our doctors want to blame the weight gain problems on the meds they have prescribed us and are not willing to take us off of. The last time I saw my family doctor he told me that if my cholesterol gets any higher he is going to put me on cholesterol lowering meds. I suppose I might as well take them for now, but he's about to find out that I am taking myself of of the psychiatric meds whether he helps me or not... I don't feel I have a choice to continue them anymore. I will have to find a way to ween myself off of them though. At least now they aren't as habit forming as the ones I used to take.
The one thing I don't like about my family doctor is, if the symptoms and side effects aren't listed in is black book of medications he carries around with him, he won't believe me when I say I have a problem with certain meds.
Google Search results for obesity and antidepressants. Frustrated...
