Overwhelming Restlessness/Agitation/Jitteriness...Losing hope!

[Ashley_NM]

      I am dealing with UNREAL agitation, restlessness, jitteriness and anxiety that will not allow me to sit still, sleep or rest. It is absolutely relentless and I have never felt anything like this before. It's definitely more than just my regular anxiety. I wake up with it and it lasts all day. I have recently added a second antidepressant (Viibryd) to my regular AD (Pristiq) to pull me out of a slump I have been in for the past 3-4 months. It has helped with the depression but I'm still crying on a regular basis due to the intense agitation/restlessness so I'm not sure if I'd call it a win yet.

 

      I have tried almost all of the major anti-psychotics (risperidal, geodon, saphris, zyprexa, trazadone, seroquel) out there over the past 3 months and nothing is working. I have been on benzodiazipines for years off and on (mainly klonopin) and now my doctor is really trying to stay away from them due to their high potential to become addicting and also because the klonopin really wasn't working anymore and I was definitely building up tolerance/needing more and more to get the same effect. My doctor is now trying medications with off label uses to treat anxiety (gabapentin/lyrica) but they don't seem to be working either.  

 

     I also take Topomax for migraine headaches and it has been an absolute God send. I've been on it now for 3 months. I would much rather be dealing with depression than this overwhelming jitteryness/agitation. I just want to be able to sit in a quiet room without wanting to rip my own skin off and gouge out my eyes. I can tell my doctor is at the end of his rope as well and isn't quite sure what to do with me. I've even looked into possible serotonin syndrome due to the added AD + tripitan medication (maxalt) + trazadone however I do not have muscle rigidity, fever, confusion, etc. although my pulse and BP are up (VERY vague symptoms). I'm just grasping at straws now. Desperetely searching for some kind of answer to end this suffering! I have an appointment to see my pdoc next week but I don't know what else he can prescribe. It seems like we have tried just about everything and are running out of options. If anyone has any sort of insight into this or any sort of suggestions it is much appreciated.

[dragonfly23]

For what it's worth , I had intense agitation and anxiety on viibryd. I thought I was gonna snap my jaw in two, then the crying started, hours of uncontrolled sobbing. Good luck to you, may be worth a call to your pdoc

[Motoko]

I've found it useful to go to www.drugs.com and look up drugs by disorder. Users rank the different drugs, giving  them a rating, and you can sort the list from highest to lowest.  It might be a good place to start in looking for other treatments for the anxiety.  I was surprised at how many drugs there were to treat anxiety, and not all of them are habit-forming.  Just type "anxiety" in the search form and you should get a list of all drugs that treat anxiety.  I just did this for my bipolar disorder, OCD, GAD, and PTSD and came up with a number of good candidates to discuss with my pdoc.

 

I hope you're feeling better soon!

[crtclms]

You tried all those AAPs in 3 months? What side-effect made you quit them? That is a lot to have tried in such a short time.

 

Have you considered old-school (typical) anti-psychotics?

 

Also, that means you are doing a lot of switching around with several meds at once. It can be hard to tell what is causing what when that is going on.

 

Have you called your pdoc? You really need to do so as soon as possible, before this escalates.

Oh, and print out your original post, and hand it to your pdoc, or read it to her. That is a pretty good capsule of what you are going through.