TIFU by mixing my medications and possibly giving myself serotonin syndrome

Submitted by emptyempty0000 t3_1037335 in tifu

I have anxiety. Social anxiety especially. I start off my day at work by taking one of those olly gummies for stress. Ive been taking them almost every day for a few months now. At first it started off with one a day. They started to not affect me as much as they used to, so I started taking 2, then 3 a day. They make me feel great and worry free, so I don’t stress about my 12 hour shifts.

I’m also on a very low dose of cymbalta, 5mg. I also take 2.5 mg buspirone if needed. I can’t take them together at the same time or my body reacts all weird. Must be an Interaction thing. I thought nothing of it until today.

The fuck up comes when I’ve been slacking on my cymbalta. Over my weekend, I skipped a day or 2 and messed up the time of day I took it at. Come around to my Monday at work, I get my usual withdrawal anxiety from fucking up my cymbalta schedule. I didn’t take it that day either. I’ve done this before and the easiest fix is to take a bit of buspirone with the cymbalta to cancel out the anxiety so I don’t panic at work. I figure my cymbalta schedule will be on track by the end of the week. I know I shouldn’t mix them, but I was desperate to calm down. I also had like 2 olly gummies that day as well. Felt great after that! The next day comes and I feel weird when I wake up- very panicky and anxious, like something bad was gonna happen. So I pop more olly gummies. The day after that, couldn’t sleep for shit and I was agitated, fatigued, mentally foggy and had loss of appetite. Then today I woke up, still a bit anxious and paranoid. Come 10 hours into my shift, I have a panic attack. Everything is disorientated, I’m paranoid as hell, shaky but tense at the same time. It was so embarrassing, my coworkers could tell I was tweaking. Any time I looked in my coworkers eyes, it felt like he was staring in my soul like a demon.

I forgot that I mixed my medication and then realized that for the past few days, I was having mild serotonin syndrome effects. I’m currently refraining from taking any of my medication until the rest of it is out of my system. Currently feeling like nothing is real, and my vision is sharp . Apparently my medications can cause SS And too much gaba (an ingredient in the olly gummies) can cause SS as welll. I’m Just gonna go to bed and sleep it off.

TLDR: mixed my medication along with gaba gummies and messed with my natural serotonin receptors resulting in paranoia

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Stock_Charming t1_j2x8072 wrote

Replying to emptyempty0000 (#1,279,301)

You know sometimes random ingredients can trigger interactions. I take Cymbalta 60mg if I take dayquil anxiety and paranoia occurs.

It could be from the ingredients targeting the gaba receptor. Typically gummies don't go through clinical trials so the interaction or pk is not understood.

Sorry to be short in the first post. But don't stop your regular meds, look into the gummies and potential interactions.

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Lokivstheworld t1_j2x9boy wrote

I truly think you will only start to get better when you get off the meds. It's only meant for temporary use. Good luck to you in your future.

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UsagiBonBon t1_j2xomu6 wrote

Replying to Lokivstheworld (#1,279,421)

Not always true. Some people need medication to get through tough things, or to respond to supplemental therapy, or for the rest of their life. There’s nothing wrong with taking medicine for a medical problem if it makes your life better.

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Rumpelteazer45 t1_j2y68pi wrote

The dosage is way way too low for that to be the likely side effect. You are on a very low dosage for both drugs.

The body and brain are mysterious things. What could be happening is your anxiety about serotonin syndrome being a potential risk is causing your brain to interpret it as serotonin syndrome since you know that is a “side effect” (reality it’s at much higher doses). You know how people can experience a placebo effect of a placebo drug, the reverse can also happen in people with anxiety.

When you experience the symptoms under those conditions, the anxiety makes you jump to that conclusion which further spins you up emotionally taking your brain further down that path. I’m not saying what you are experiencing isn’t really, not even close - it’s very real. I don’t think it’s serotonin syndrome but more of an anxiety spiral you get into and you attribute it to that due to it being a very real potential side effect (at higher doses).

You should take your medications daily as written. Set alarms if you have to, missing doses have real impacts your life!

I stopped reading side effects due this happening. I only look it up if I honestly experience one. It’s cut down on side effects by 40%. Anxiety sucks and can end up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. As a kid I got stomach aches and upset stomachs all the time. I was labeled “sensitive stomach” - no one dig deeper (it was back in the day). I honestly believed if my stomach got upset that it was a warning that something bad was going to happen. So anything remotely negative reinforced that belief. I rode that spiral many times. As an adult, I know that it was IBS and my anxiety caused it to flare up, which made my anxiety even worse, which made my stomach even worse and down the spiral I went. It was (and still is) a shitty self fulfilling prophecy.

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coffeebuzzbuzzz t1_j3d8j6m wrote

So I looked up Olly Goodbye Stress ingredients and it contains Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid(GABA), which can increase anxiety if you take too much of it.

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