Medications for Aspie - suggestions?

Post Reply New Topic

Asperger is not something to be cured. The only reason for taking medication is for depression and anxiety.

Frankly I won't even take asprin

Well all the online tests = depression for me except i am not suicial and i suffer anxiety attacks almost daily, mild ones but they still suck. I meant no offense like Aspies are nuts and need drugs or a cure, on the contrary i think more should accept us as we are instead of changing us around. Hope i did not offend anyone.

hey
why do you want to use this medication for? you dont need it just accept you for you you dont need to go using chemicals and drugs.
xx

i only do that natural stuff. mostley herbs, my system is too sensitive for drugs

Frosty,I know exactly what you are going thru:Hell!
Don't try drugs until you have explored every other posible therapy!

This is what i am doing, & it does work for me:
For insomnia;
I read that a lot of Autistics have really low pH - under 7 is bad. Mine was 5.4
Buy a roll of Litmus paper,pee on a little bit, and if it is under 7,
take a level teaspoon of aluminium free Baking Soda,
a tablet of calcium carbonate &
a teaspoon of potassium bi-carbonate.
They are all totally safe 'systemic alkalynisers'.
I was not expecting the insomnia to go away,but it did,as a side-effect

For anxiety; If you are not claustrophobic,
get someone to roll you up in an air-mattress & then 2 meters of carpet,
gradually inflate the air-mattress with a decent air-compressor & relax for an hour.
I found I could just keep increasing the pressure indefinitely.
This is a variation on Temple Grandin's Hug Machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine
except it doesn't cost $5000.00
We have tried this on a truly autistic guy & it was amazing to watch him relax,
probably for the first time in his life!
It is a reducing therapy,so you will get to the point where you hardly need to use it.

For Mind-Racing,if you have the discipline, Learn to meditate;it's amazing!
First i lie on a rug on the floor next to a wall,put my feet up the wall, put an eye-bag on my eyes,like this:
http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/1140
and relax for twenty minutes. Then i do a proper Meditation for 40 minutes.
Sit still,however you feel comfortable and do this:
http://www.shfyoga.com/MattsYogaWebPage ... utras.html
You see, your body is in a constant process called Homeostasis;
it is adjusting moment to moment to achieve equilibrium in all it's systems,
Blood pressure,heart rate,respiration rate etc.
When you sit still, your body stops sending electrical messages through your muscles and your Central Nervous System gets a huge rest.
The result is a calm peace that no drugs can match.
The trick is to sit still - don't squirm, fidget or scratch - that is activating the CNS again.
And give it time, even if you can't stop thinking, that's not the point.
The body will relax,even if the mind can't.
It's fighting back against perceived inappropriate dis-use!
It has to be trained to not think ocasionally, for it's own good, in spite of itself.
It took me a dozen separate attempts before my mind reached a 'still point'
One of the high points in my life.

Best Wishes & Good Luck in all your endeavours.

Ok, first St John's Wort isn't as harmless as many would have you believe. Where I go, the Vets Admin, they have a computer that will spit out side affects and pros of most anything related to this discussion. The interaction of St Johns is long, be careful.

Second to those trying to say we're out to treat AS, reread this whole thing, you are missing the point. To go into this thing with that attitude, well, you obviously haven't faced severe depression for just one example. If you have, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water. Now, I'm not speaking of mild and temporary type here. There are comorbids that come with this sometimes and sometimes they can be attended to with meds. Long range affects not known? Bull s**t, you grab what you can and worry about tomorrow when it gets here. The important thing is to see a tomorrow. At the same time I'm not out pushing pills, I get anough of that crap where I go. And yeah they don't understand completely how the one I'm on even works, let alone what it might do down the line, but there will be a down the line and that's a good thing. The bad part about the type I do is, they aren't designed for what is being attempted at treating to begin with. You'll see a lot of that if you need to go down a med route, not good. Don't do it unless you have to.

Booze saved my life but would have killed me in the long run. Had I had a clue earlier in life, it would have saved a lot of grief. If you still stick to your guns about this I suggest you step into the Haven on a bad night and take a peek. You go spouting that bull s**t and you're going to get someone killed. This s**t isn't theory, this is life and death at times. This my friends is the real game, the real world. But this depression isn't I lost my girl friend (which is legitimate in itself, don't mean to belittle it), this is the kind that goes on for months. This isn't what we're really talking about in this thread, but very real for some of us. Again this is just one example.

I'm Bipolar officially, bad DX, not the first. However there is a good chance I'm BiPolar as well, really hard to say at this age and I don't much care anymore. I treat the distress, makes life a bit easier, on some days. So, am I trying to treat AS or BP or PTSD? Dunno, like I said and it doesn't really matter. Labels. But I haven't had a serious depressive bout in a long time and it's pretty damn nice.

Back to the matter at hand. I would still go on the presumption this is a temp thing. That when things start to settle into some kind of grove it might get a bit better. But yeah, getting the normal day to day out of whack isn't an easy thing to adjust to. Power naps? Meditation?

These are very significant and serious issues. At my age in particular, I'm facing general, aspie-specific health issues. I've been fortunate to overcome depression through brahminic meditation, and, thanks to that, once I had my aspie breakthrough, I became seriously happy and blissful once I finally found out who I was, as the healing had begun to happen immediately.

Our medicinal and dietary requirements (you cannot consider them separately, they are symbiotic) are difficult. Modern western medicine still makes mistakes in diagnosis, as happened to my aspie son who was diagnosed ADHD, which is a very common mis-diagnosis. Getting the wrong diagnosis means the possibility of being prescribed meds, or herbs, that one may be naturally allergic to, and the long term side effects of any med, herb or alopathic, can range from disturbing to devastating.

Withdrawal from some of the "psyc meds" has been implicated in violent depression, and linked to violent and psychotic episodes, including mass murders, such as Columbine.

My ASD ex was mis-diagnosed, and after trying the prescribed meds for a while, she had to stop taking them, as she was experiencing allergic reactions, or they made her feel like a vegetable.

If my prognosis is correct, we aspies are all of a specific genetic type, that requires particular herbal and/or alopathic medicines, properly prescribed, when we have specific health problems, as well as specific, general dietary requirements, and the need to be sure to have the right balance of Vital Minerals in our dietary systems, in order to have and maintain good, everyday health.

Indian Ayurvedic medicine may actually know more about how to treat our aspie-specific health and medicinal needs than traditional western medicine, to which we are still a relatively new phenomena.

They have been correctly diagnosing and treating people of our genetic makeup for thousands of years, and would tend to have an edge over western medicine in this respect.

I would definitely recommend checking out an Indian M.D. who has knowledge of this kind of medicine, or any other M.D. who also has this understanding.

Body chemistry plays a pretty important part of who we are, and all these factors are involved. Putting ourselves right, staying out of depression, eating right, sleeping right, these are all involved, and our chemistry is different, and somewhat more delicate, than that of the general population.

Your Obedient Brahmin,

Exercise, for your mind and body, and meditation, to help cut off the edge of life. I go hollistic.

so basically its like one of restain tecniques ihave got into but a big planket ower a persons body when he is down and sit top off it so that he cant get away

I have worked in a profession where drugs were used as a restraint and in the same job physical restraints were sometimes used as well. I didn't like to see it and I think some of it was just plain needless, a way to save money. More to it then that, but I'll be brief. I have done meds that were worse then what we were attempting to control. Not fun and very restraining and I said so.

What is good about the ones I use now, it allows me more freedom. I can do things that I couldn't very well do before. It is no cure, it is no answer, they just allow me a bit more comfortable freedom.

So you could look at this either way if you so choose. What makes it different to my eyes is I have the choice and it isn't forced on me.

In the profession I was speaking of, being aspie had nothing to do with it. In that case I saw it as lack of staff, lack of understanding but most of all lack of treating the trouble before it became a problem. There were some cases where there was just no choice in the matter, but even then it had to have a Doctor order the type of restraint, med or other wise. I still didn't think just because a Doctor signed it made it right, especially when they didn't seem to have the time to even come see for themselves.

I don't know you well enough to even guess. I really can only speak about myself and how I react to things. In an ideal world one would hope you could find workarounds or something to help with the meltdowns before they occur. In my case the meds make the melt downs far apart mostly, but then I'm not terribly sure what one really is. I suspect (the Doc can't say for sure, but thinks probably) I've had a nervous breakdown at least once, perhaps twice. If that is a meltdown, then mine were pretty far apart, like 30 some years apart. I don't think I've ever seen the term even defined very well, seems to be a generalization, least what I've seen for it so far. But I do have rage at times, pretty controlled but wouldn't look it to anyone near and I can get easily overwhelmed in an outside setting, again more to it, but I'll be brief.

Thx all. Specially Pospaleo for the candid insight.

Okay honestly i drink a lttle more coffee than that, but last yr i went cold turkey and i still seemed wound up.
- but the last yr or so it gets worse. plus i think the large doses of st johns wort, large i say tongue in cheek, as 6 for a big guy like me moderate, but with that double SAM-e lots of vit e, garlic for blood pressure. My BP is really down, one time it was 175/135!

But i think the Wort & vit E is doing weird stuff as my pupils dialate huge, like when you eat excess magic shrooms. Freaky. So i backed off wort and E for now. plus I broke lots of eyebloodvessals with bronchitus this yr & the E thins yoour blood - a lot.

Back to depressed. Men I hear depress but instead of tears they turn it to anger = Frosty. Also, i say to my shame i have been brought to tears and cried in front of co-workers, by the verbally abusive jerk that is now fired- PTL!

Thus the mechanism bringing me down/anxiety is work issues/home life, my SO is now much more supportive as i explained the Aspie perspective.
I also have traits of OCD ADD & I have bi-polar symtoms.

I am very blendable as i function very well in society, some Aspie traits don't even apply or i hide them well, but believe me, so many traits apply i have to be an Aspie to a degree. My fear is i am going to major meltdown at work and be discharged or documented. also the depression scares me as said the online tests say SEEK HELP now. but i don't feel the least bit suicidal at all. but i do feel overly aggressive about most everything, plus i am standing up for my rights more everywhere & confounding those who know as to what my game is.

Okay i wil be honest again, i also thought a happy pill, just a simple solution would cure my work problems personal relationship woes & anger/meltdowns.

I mean when ready to meltdown i can actually feel the adrenaline/blood rushing thru my veins - like a drug - totallly weird.

Booze - i use now n then to calm down or for headaches or to sleep. I am considering using pot per other msg board suggestions, but pot is illegal & i don't break laws usually ever.

I almost always drive the speed limit and use seatbelt - is this an Aspie thing?

Wow sorry for the big mouth.

Also the anxiety attacks are a b***h i can have one in the mid-day and nothing actually happened to trigger it - been having these off n on for 5 yrs now. i can recall the times i almost choked to death on food, seriously. I had some last yr and thought it was a heart attack, thru other reasons i was checked out and my heart rate and cholesterol is splendid for my age and i actually had a brain ct scan and they found nothing there, haha.

As one who has tried the "tough it out" approach and the med route I would suggest talking to a MD about your symptoms. There is a fair amount of research on how the SSRIs work and for a large number of people them seem to be a cure all.

I lived with dibilating depression for four years before I was brave enough to seek help. Looking back I probably would have gotten a lot more out of those years had I gotten some help, medication or talk therapy. I haven't found the perfect pill that I can take and it makes me "normal" but with the meds I'm on now I am able to work toward being normal, which I find fulfilling. I too have heard the horror stories about how people felt when they were put on meds but the way I think about it is I want to be happy and whatever I find that will put me toward that, I will do.

It of course is a very individual choice but I see it as a quality of life issue. Life should be good and meds (and my cat!) help my life be okay.