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Wednesday, June 04, 2008 Janet asks

Q: Is there any scientic reason while a medication a person is on stops working without any warning?

While I have been on a wide array of medication over 25 years I am curious to know if there is any reason a medication stops working without any warning?

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Answers (4)
6/ 5/08 2:17am

 

Janet:

 

I think you'll have to talk to your psychiatrist about this.

 

I can tell you this: I took the same medication for over 40 years.  It worked perfectly.  And then one day it just stopped working (right in the middle of a speech I was giving).  When the program was opened for questions I found I didn't understand anything and everything that I was asked.  It was like falling of a cliff.  It has taken my psychiatrist and I approximately three years to find a new cocktail of meds that works for me.  During this period I experienced psuedo-parkinson's symptoms, problems with cognition, excess sedation, anxiety and depression.  It was a bummer.  It was suggested to me that the problem might have been caused as a consequence of the normal aging process, that my brain psysiology might have undergoing changes that rendered the medicine ineffective.  I really don't they know. 

 

Robin

 

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6/ 5/08 8:35am

Hello Janet,

 

I wondered that, too, and I'm going to ask my psychiatrist tomorrow when I see him.  Last week I "researched myself" and the events going on in my life when the Stelazine started to lose effectiveness.  I wondered if there was a cause-and-effect relationship.  Though Dr.  Altman did tell me, when I had the meltdown last year, "The drug has run its course."  So perhaps it was a miracle I found symptom relief for close to 21 years with one medication.

 

Again, as Robin said, your psychiatrist should be in a better position answer the question.

 

Regards,

Chri

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8/18/08 9:31pm

This is known with ssri's.  I'm not sure about the other classes of drugs.

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8/18/08 9:32pm

This is known with ssri's.  I'm not sure about the other classes of drugs.

I guess after you've hit certain receptors for so long they become unresponsive.

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