Posted by Vincent_QC on November 26, 2008, at 7:34:26
In reply to Re: Anticonvulsants and Cognitive Impairment » qbsbrown, posted by Maxime on November 12, 2008, at 17:27:34
> Just out of curiousity, which anticonvulsant are you on? I was on 600 mg of Trileptal and I had no cognitive impairment. But on Depakote and Lithium I became very impaired.
Cognitive impairment is a source of extreme anxiety in my everyday life. My first cognitive impairment experience begin back in 2003, when I try Topamax (Topiramate)...I don't remember my daily dosage but it was high. I stop it because of that. Since I begin anxiolytics drugs back in 2005, I notice extreme cognitive impairments...especially with Clonazepam and Xanax. My state never stop deteriorate since then...It getting worse, and more worse with each antidepressants, antipsychotics or anticonvulsives pills I try.
Lyrica, Gabapentin, Neurotin, that's all the same, they give all cognitive impairments, but I suppose it's dose related and different for a person to another. I drop all of this "new" less addictive "Anticonvulsives" drugs because of that BIG cognitive problem.
I also notice that withdrawl an anxiolytic drug like Clonazepam or Xanax worse also the problem. I never recover at 100% after, now i'm maybe at 10 % of my intellectual capacity...
YEs I can drive a car (my dexterity and my reflexes are very slow). I can read a little bit on the web, but I can't do a long work and I can't focus on something for a long time. Just playing cards games is hard and every time me and my friend want to play the same "game" night after night, I always have to ask him how to play because I forget the rules and things like that...
In fact, it's why I mention in the begining of my post that it's an everyday source of stress for me. Since I stop the university and I don't work, I can't stop thinking about my future and about the fact that I don't know if I will be able to regain all my cognitive ability that I lost over the past few years.
I ask my psychologist yesterday about that and she said that I can ask for a medical paper( reference) to see a neuro-psychologist, He will determinate if my cognitive problems will be permanents or not!!!
At the same time, I have a lot of frustration coming from that cognitive problem. Before I was really fast, I never had to study a lot or do a lot of mental efforts to do a good job at school or in my daily work. Now, I begin a discussion, I try to read or to just follow a discussion and I became lost in the middle, sometimes I can't recall what I was talking about 1 minute before... That's so frustrating!!! I feel lost or in the fog. I was so performant before, so intelligent...now I just feel not usefull, and no , that's not just a symptom of a deep depression...it's really the way I feel...
Remember that my problems is not depression at first but social phobia and general anxiety,panic attacks and also boulimia...since all my problems come from my childhood as a fat kid and about the fact that I had a gastric by-pass because I had morbid obesity...and now I can't stop gaining weight because of the pills I take...at the same time I have a lot of problems because I can't find a lover or having affection or sex, because i'm not able to show my body to someone else, I have extra skin all over my body, being at 445 pounds to 170-180 , now at 220...you can imagine that my body don't look very appealing!!! Ho and i'm gay...and it's hard to find a good looking guy and also and interresting one who is not "superficial" in that "gay world"... I had bad experiences from guys who see me nude and told me that they was not able to do something with someone like me...that's so humiliating, that's hard to get a good self-esteem after that.
All I hope is just to recover my cognitive state that I had before. I have to do my last year of university (probably in the fall of 2009 and winter of 2010) and I want to be able to do exams or team works and oral presentations in front of a jury and others students with a good self-confidence and all the abilities I had before (if you don't count the fact that I had a lot of panic attacks when I was doing an oral presentation...) but I mean that the quality of my works, at school or in my everyday life was top-notch before...
I'm also sometimes frustrated about the doctors who prescribed to me all these drugs...But I the same time, I know he did his job. Having so much frustrations and anxiety about my cognitive impairments is very difficult to handle in my life now. I will have to work on that on therapy I think!!!
I hope my comments can give you some encouragement ;-) I don't want to be negative, that's just my experience, and i'm sure one day I will recover from all that problems...so I'm sure you will do the same!!!
Have a good day and take care of you ;-)
poster:Vincent_QC
thread:862533
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081123/msgs/865318.html