7 ms·

Definitely 100% true, first hand experience here. I had mild medication prescribed for regulating blood pressure. Supposedly without psychological side effects

Definitely 100% true, first hand experience here. I had mild medication prescribed for regulating blood pressure. Supposedly without psychological side effects. I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. The frightening thing is, I didn't know !!! I found out a year later when temporarily stopping the medication, my kids started to make remarks, alluding on my changed behaviour. Only that moment I started to realize what happened. Also affected my profesional live: I heard years later that people / collegues had noticed (but never mentioned it). I'm pretty sure it impacted my career. All without me knowing. For medication without any known psychological effects. I took this medication for a year without realizing anything was wrong, that will probably also be the case for other people, and I'm pretty sure in many cases psychological side effects won't show up in clinical trials. I'm pretty sure if you take anything like anti anxiety / depressants, psycho-pharmaceuticals, or just anything with known side effects, the impact must be dramatic. When I found out, discussed it with (several) docters : one said "impossible", another "interesting, tell me more". It assume most doctors are clueless here. When you break a leg, they can set it and it heals. When you have a headache, they look in their book to see if there is a pill. But anything out of the ordinary, it may be hard to find good medical help.

infradig 7y ago
Can I ask what medication it was?
- jdietrich 7y ago
  I'll wager it was a beta blocker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety
  - sugarkjube 7y ago
    Spot on, indeed. However, I wasn't suffering from anxiety, and so the effect was a unexpected. Actually, stress indeed disappeared, but for me stress was never an issue. I used to draw a lot of energy out of my (positive) stress.
netfl0 7y ago
Doctors are not always researchers. The mind of a good researcher is very curious. A good practitioner has to rely on heuristics for troubleshooting due to the high dimensionality of the decision space they deal with.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Usually doctors still operate by the book. All symptoms and deductions have to make sense in the "context" of the "book," if the book doesn't mention it, the doctor doesn't proceed any further. For example, I slept on my bed with a heater blasting onto my face. Next day I developed sudden onset dry eye. Literally from eyes that had zero issues to dry eye. I think the heater was the causative agent, but the medical literature is blank on this, so the doctor is clueless as well. In fact the doctor literally ignores the fact that I had a heater blasting my eyes all night. I came in to the eye doctor and he assumed that my dry eye developed over a long time when in actually I "caught" it three days ago. One perspective of this is that the patient is biased and assigning causative attributes to something that only happens to correlate with an outcome. Therefore all patient descriptions must be cut through and ignored if it's not relevant to the problem. It's largely true but I think doctors bias themselves towards this predisposition a little too much and dismiss many things that are actually important. Either way though, if it's not in "the book" then treatment for it doesn't exist in any scientific form yet, so the doctor can't help you anyway.
PragmaticPulp 7y ago
> I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. So the blood pressure medication made you more calm? You didn’t specify the medication they prescribed, but that’s a common effect of certain types of blood pressure medication. In fact, certain blood pressure medications are prescribed off-label for their calming properties. One blood pressure medication is even approved for also treating ADHD (Guanfacine). If you find that your doctor doesn’t acknowledge your side effects or dismisses your complaints, it’s time to get a second opinion or rotate doctors. I’ve never had a problem with my doctors not believing me. > I'm pretty sure if you take anything like anti anxiety / depressants, psycho-pharmaceuticals, or just anything with known side effects, the impact must be dramatic. In my experience, the good doctors are well aware that all medications come with side effects. The best doctors strive to minimize medication exposure for this reason. Ironically, many patients disapprove of this because it feels like the doctors are withholding treatments, even when it may be the best choice for the patient. The most common example is people demanding antibiotics for common colds. Doctors know antibiotics won’t help and that they come with significant risks, but they also know that patients might leave a bad review if they leave empty handed. In the case of psychiatric medications: Yes, the differences can be significant. However, the side effects are worth the tradeoff for alleviating serious psychiatric issues. Being naturally healthy is obviously preferable to being medicated with side effects, but that’s not the choice that patients are making in these cases. Instead, they’re choosing between continuing to be unhealthy without medication or dealing with some side effects in order to relieve some of their pain. This is also why many people get stuck in cycles of discontinuing their psychiatric medications. Someone who achieves remission from depression with anti-depressant medication might think that they don’t need the medication now that they’re “better”, and when all they can see are the side effects. This leads them to discontinue, which often results in relapse of the underlying disorder if not managed with the help of their doctors.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Blood pressure medicine does make you more calm and this is known anecdotally among the medical community. I know this because I know of medical students taking it before giving a speech. Literally the medicine is well known for making you perfectly calm. You know that magic pill that can get rid of your approach anxiety? I hear, this is it, though I never tried. I'm wondering if anyone more in the "know" can comment on it.
andruby 7y ago
In what way did your personality change?
- sugarkjube 7y ago
  It's difficult to go into details, but lets say I became less focused and driven in both work and personal life, but also an easier person to work with. The kids perceived this evolution as very positive. I'm on different medication now, but some effects appear to be irreversible.
  - Reelin 7y ago
    I'm reading your combined posts as you having had mild anxiety that you weren't consciously aware of (aka high strung), and that the medication (partially?) addressed this without your realizing it. That the effects were lasting (ie continued after you stopped taking the medication) just means the underlying causes were likely mental (ie conditioned or learned) as opposed to an inherent physical condition. Good news! If you want it back just take stimulants - anxiety is one of the most prominent negative side effects of caffeine. (I'm only half joking here - most people will be familiar with the over-caffeinated and highly productive but difficult to work with coworker.)
kirstenbirgit 7y ago
Re: blood pressure meds; this is common knowledge. Look at beta blockers; they're commonly used for people with presentation anxiety for e.g. exams. Some people can barely speak without taking them.
bpizzi 7y ago
> I took this medication for a year without realizing anything was wrong Looks like you were also maybe not really paying attention to your behavior back in those times, as it looks like you would caught such a behavioral change sooner if you were to take medication again, don't you think?
- sugarkjube 7y ago
  Indeed, in hindsight it should have been obvious. It's less obvious at the moment itself. In life, many things are hidden in plain sight.
jczhang 7y ago
Why aren't you calling out the name of the medication given your story of warning?
- GordonS 7y ago
  It's almost certainly propranolol, but it is odd they wouldn't just name it
lhuser123 7y ago
And I agree 100% with you. Also first hand experience here. After that period, I started to read everything I could find about the subject, and it is pretty scary. You are spot on when assume that most doctors are clueless. Actually, I think is too complicated to understand for anyone. Have you seen other people go through the same situation ? Have you tried to help them ? If you ever do, that's when you find out how complicated it is, because they look at you like you are crazy. Many times no one is able to figure out what's really going on. Not their family, not their friends, never mind their doctors, who sometimes just prescribe a stronger medication and all hell brake loose...
heavyset_go 7y ago
Drugs like propranolol, clonidine, nitrates etc that are commonly prescribed for their effects on blood pressure, also exert action on the peripheral and central nervous system.
copperx 7y ago
Do you mind sharing the name of the medication? Was it a beta blocker, which are known to have anti anxiety properties?

infradig 7y ago

Can I ask what medication it was?

jdietrich 7y ago
I'll wager it was a beta blocker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety
- sugarkjube 7y ago
  Spot on, indeed. However, I wasn't suffering from anxiety, and so the effect was a unexpected. Actually, stress indeed disappeared, but for me stress was never an issue. I used to draw a lot of energy out of my (positive) stress.

netfl0 7y ago

Doctors are not always researchers. The mind of a good researcher is very curious. A good practitioner has to rely on heuristics for troubleshooting due to the high dimensionality of the decision space they deal with.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Usually doctors still operate by the book. All symptoms and deductions have to make sense in the "context" of the "book," if the book doesn't mention it, the doctor doesn't proceed any further. For example, I slept on my bed with a heater blasting onto my face. Next day I developed sudden onset dry eye. Literally from eyes that had zero issues to dry eye. I think the heater was the causative agent, but the medical literature is blank on this, so the doctor is clueless as well. In fact the doctor literally ignores the fact that I had a heater blasting my eyes all night. I came in to the eye doctor and he assumed that my dry eye developed over a long time when in actually I "caught" it three days ago. One perspective of this is that the patient is biased and assigning causative attributes to something that only happens to correlate with an outcome. Therefore all patient descriptions must be cut through and ignored if it's not relevant to the problem. It's largely true but I think doctors bias themselves towards this predisposition a little too much and dismiss many things that are actually important. Either way though, if it's not in "the book" then treatment for it doesn't exist in any scientific form yet, so the doctor can't help you anyway.

PragmaticPulp 7y ago

> I found out a year later that it dramatically affected my personality. More or less like in the article, but in the opposite way. So the blood pressure medication made you more calm? You didn’t specify the medication they prescribed, but that’s a common effect of certain types of blood pressure medication. In fact, certain blood pressure medications are prescribed off-label for their calming properties. One blood pressure medication is even approved for also treating ADHD (Guanfacine). If you find that your doctor doesn’t acknowledge your side effects or dismisses your complaints, it’s time to get a second opinion or rotate doctors. I’ve never had a problem with my doctors not believing me. > I'm pretty sure if you take anything like anti anxiety / depressants, psycho-pharmaceuticals, or just anything with known side effects, the impact must be dramatic. In my experience, the good doctors are well aware that all medications come with side effects. The best doctors strive to minimize medication exposure for this reason. Ironically, many patients disapprove of this because it feels like the doctors are withholding treatments, even when it may be the best choice for the patient. The most common example is people demanding antibiotics for common colds. Doctors know antibiotics won’t help and that they come with significant risks, but they also know that patients might leave a bad review if they leave empty handed. In the case of psychiatric medications: Yes, the differences can be significant. However, the side effects are worth the tradeoff for alleviating serious psychiatric issues. Being naturally healthy is obviously preferable to being medicated with side effects, but that’s not the choice that patients are making in these cases. Instead, they’re choosing between continuing to be unhealthy without medication or dealing with some side effects in order to relieve some of their pain. This is also why many people get stuck in cycles of discontinuing their psychiatric medications. Someone who achieves remission from depression with anti-depressant medication might think that they don’t need the medication now that they’re “better”, and when all they can see are the side effects. This leads them to discontinue, which often results in relapse of the underlying disorder if not managed with the help of their doctors.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Blood pressure medicine does make you more calm and this is known anecdotally among the medical community. I know this because I know of medical students taking it before giving a speech. Literally the medicine is well known for making you perfectly calm. You know that magic pill that can get rid of your approach anxiety? I hear, this is it, though I never tried. I'm wondering if anyone more in the "know" can comment on it.

andruby 7y ago

In what way did your personality change?

sugarkjube 7y ago
It's difficult to go into details, but lets say I became less focused and driven in both work and personal life, but also an easier person to work with. The kids perceived this evolution as very positive. I'm on different medication now, but some effects appear to be irreversible.
- Reelin 7y ago
  I'm reading your combined posts as you having had mild anxiety that you weren't consciously aware of (aka high strung), and that the medication (partially?) addressed this without your realizing it. That the effects were lasting (ie continued after you stopped taking the medication) just means the underlying causes were likely mental (ie conditioned or learned) as opposed to an inherent physical condition. Good news! If you want it back just take stimulants - anxiety is one of the most prominent negative side effects of caffeine. (I'm only half joking here - most people will be familiar with the over-caffeinated and highly productive but difficult to work with coworker.)

kirstenbirgit 7y ago

Re: blood pressure meds; this is common knowledge. Look at beta blockers; they're commonly used for people with presentation anxiety for e.g. exams. Some people can barely speak without taking them.

bpizzi 7y ago

> I took this medication for a year without realizing anything was wrong Looks like you were also maybe not really paying attention to your behavior back in those times, as it looks like you would caught such a behavioral change sooner if you were to take medication again, don't you think?

sugarkjube 7y ago
Indeed, in hindsight it should have been obvious. It's less obvious at the moment itself. In life, many things are hidden in plain sight.

jczhang 7y ago

Why aren't you calling out the name of the medication given your story of warning?

GordonS 7y ago
It's almost certainly propranolol, but it is odd they wouldn't just name it

lhuser123 7y ago

And I agree 100% with you. Also first hand experience here. After that period, I started to read everything I could find about the subject, and it is pretty scary. You are spot on when assume that most doctors are clueless. Actually, I think is too complicated to understand for anyone. Have you seen other people go through the same situation ? Have you tried to help them ? If you ever do, that's when you find out how complicated it is, because they look at you like you are crazy. Many times no one is able to figure out what's really going on. Not their family, not their friends, never mind their doctors, who sometimes just prescribe a stronger medication and all hell brake loose...

heavyset_go 7y ago

Drugs like propranolol, clonidine, nitrates etc that are commonly prescribed for their effects on blood pressure, also exert action on the peripheral and central nervous system.

copperx 7y ago

Do you mind sharing the name of the medication? Was it a beta blocker, which are known to have anti anxiety properties?