antipsychotics why?

i have been diagnosed with avpd and schizotypal personality disorder.
yes i have some ocd and anxiety mixed in there but i think those are caused by having the personality disorders and trying to cope with the forced feeling of staying on ssi and stopping people from entering my life. i think if i was alone on a deserted island with free electricty and food i wouldnt have anxiety or ocd (maybe).

my problem is all the pdoc's want is to give me antipsychotics,antidepressants and mood elevators.
NONE of these work because its my personality not something that can be changed by a pill.
these pills make me feel horrible and have side effects that im very afraid of.

it sucks cause i need ssi,foodstamps and medicaid to survive but i cant get those without going for help and they just give me pills that dont work and harm me with side effects.what is the pdoc going to do when shes tried everything and they dont work cause its my personality.i cant lie and say its working cause then they will think ive improved and cut off ssi.
the pills i get make me feel real bad mentally and physically.

anyone else have this dilema?
should i take the pills and risk side effects when there not going to help ?

Hi there

I take a low dose of an antipsychotic myself. The AvPD is not the reason I'm on it though- it's more for my depression (which doesn't seem to budge with antidepressants), anxiety, plus mood swings and some mild paranoia. Apart from it slowing down my moods and taking the edge off the depression, I also find it helps a lot with my anxiety and my sleep patterns. When they give meds with a personality disorder, it's not the personality disorder that they are trying to treat but the other symptoms that go with it- like the depression/anxiety side of things.

I had trouble with side effects too- for me it took a long time to find the right combination, but I'd rather be on them than off them- the difference is huge.

Have you asked your doctor why they think those meds are the right ones for you? Or what symptoms they're aiming to try to treat on by using the meds?

It's not like pdocs actually have any idea what they are doing. Some drug company just had a new idea about how to sell more pills so they cooked up a study showing anti-psychotics are good for whatever ails you. I remember the 90s when they were pushing their new wonder drug risperidone. I keep reading stuff like this:

Low-dose risperidone may be an effective treatment for anxiety disorders in which panic attacks are a significant component.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/9/25

But I never believe it.

monster77 said: the pills i get make me feel real bad mentally and physically.

(and no lillyfairy I still haven't figured out the quote thing)

The reason you are taking them is to feel BETTER (or at least improved) mentally, so yes, I would ask the doc about stopping them,or changing the dosage, or trying something new. Be honest with her, because SHE is the conduit between you and your benefits. SSI doesn't care, or even know about the medications you are taking. What they look at are the efforts you're making to get better, or at least function, and most of the time they get this info from the doctors you are seeing. I learned this the hard way.

There is such a thing as "treatment resistant". Which means meds don't help, and/or make you worse. I can't imagine SSI forces you to take meds to stay on, but I could be wrong. Tell the Doc that the drugs make you feel worse. Let her understand how difficult your life is/can be, but the drugs don't help.... Just tell her the truth.

2nd option:
If you feel you need to have scripts to remain on SSI (not sure of this). You could get them from her, fill them, but you don't have to actually ingest them.

Marcus555 wrote:(and no lillyfairy I still haven't figured out the quote thing)

I'm not lillyfairy, but here's how to quote.

1. Click on the "Quote button of the post that you want to quote (top right corner of post).

2. The "post a reply" page will appear with the the entire post that you want to reply to.

3. In addition to the entire post you will notice a [quote='MembersID'] ***EXCEPT THAT INSTEAD OF APOSTROPHES IT WILL BE IN QUOTES*** (So it should be "MembersID", not 'MembersID', but in this explanation I can't use the tags between quotation marks or it will show up as a quote) at the beginning of your "post a reply" and a [/quote] at the end. For example if you clicked on the Reply button of this post the initial tag will automatically say [quote='loneman'] (but in quotation marks), if you click on the reply button of one of lillyfairys post it would automatically begin with [quote='lillyfairy'], etc.

So in summary:
LEAVE the opening quote tag [quote='MembersID']
LEAVE the words you want to quote
LEAVE the end tag [/quote]
DELETE the words in the quote you don't want

Ugh...sorry, I hope this helps

Thanks loneman! Rushing out to work now but I'll try it out when I can.

I was able to get SSI even though I refused to take the risperidone. But that was because the shrinks said my refusal was part of my mental illness. I looked up this:

Possible Justifications for Failing to Follow Treatment

You have a mental illness, and failure to follow treatment is a symptom of the disease. This argument will be much more persuasive coming from your treating mental health provider. Ask him or her to give an opinion to Social Security on this point if non-compliance with medical treatment is an issue in your case.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/being-denied-disability-failing-take-medication-follow-treatment.html

Or you could just do what loneman says and pretend to take the stuff.