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Vision rapidly deteriorating; medication side-effect?
Oboro
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I started three new medications recently (about two weeks now), one of which lists "blurred vision" as a side-effect. I noticed, however, that the side effect is taking place not just when I take the pill, but all the time. I'm sitting now with my laptop on my lap, no more than a foot away, and it's noticeably blurry -- when, before all of this, my vision was so good I only needed the glasses for very long-distance sight (driving, essentially).
Is this something that will clear up, or is it going to continue getting progressively worse as I take the medication? I don't see the prescribing doctor again for a week-and-a-half, so if this isn't going to clear up I'm going to need to reschedule that appointment.
Alternatively, is this just a side-effect of not updating my eyeglasses prescription in over two years, yet continuing to wear the helpful-but-slightly-off glasses? Or just growing up? I don't know. H/A?
EDIT: For bonus points, assuming this is a medication thing, if I discontinue the medication it should improve, right?
Is this something that will clear up, or is it going to continue getting progressively worse as I take the medication? I don't see the prescribing doctor again for a week-and-a-half, so if this isn't going to clear up I'm going to need to reschedule that appointment.
Alternatively, is this just a side-effect of not updating my eyeglasses prescription in over two years, yet continuing to wear the helpful-but-slightly-off glasses? Or just growing up? I don't know. H/A?
EDIT: For bonus points, assuming this is a medication thing, if I discontinue the medication it should improve, right?
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To answer your more general questions, blurry vision will persist while you are ON the medication (not necessarily just with dosages), because the drug level will remain more or less equal all of the time.
Assuming it's a side effect, yes, by definition, it will go away after stopping the medication.
However, seriously, you need to give some more info here.
EDIT: The third is lithium, so it wouldn't realistically be the culprit anyway.
EDIT 2: It was there the first time I woke up after starting the full regimen, but I wrote it off at first because I was being fed a sleeping pill nightly (Trazedone) and I assumed the culprit was that -- no longer on that though, and it persists.
More often than not, psychiatric medications do get better overtime. For the most part, the side effects should abate as your body becomes more comfortable with the medications. So, to answer your question - they should improve. It could take up to two months though to achieve the right levels within your body. If the vision starts to get notably worse (or anything worse appears - such as seizures, hair loss, violent mood swings, etc.) then you need to contact your provider.
If you have more questions, by all means, please speak to your provider - but you would probably be told the same thing.
Psychiatric medications, similar to chemotherapy or other anti-cancer treatments, have some serious side effects. The balance you'll need to work closely with your provider to achieve is one of ease of side effects while still benefiting from the medication. It'll be difficult, but I am confident that you'll get there - also, as I'm sure you've already gathered - the medications are a better alternative to what they treat.
As you progress the side effects should improve. Or, I should say, studies demonstrate vast improvement in 6 to 8 weeks.
Finally, for your own safety, do not stop taking those medications cold turkey. Don't miss doses and do not 'double up' on doses if you miss one (contact your provider instead). If you want to go off the medication, talk to your provider - you could really hurt yourself otherwise.
So you took both Lamictal and Zyprexa for a while, then stopped taking them for a while, and then started again?
How long was the period in which you weren't taking either drug?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
And yeah, it's getting worse in the sense that a week ago, I didn't need my glasses to use my laptop. Now it's just enough out of focus without them that I get a headache and my eyes twitch occasionally trying to focus.
You should probably talk to the doctor that prescribed them to you about the side effect and see what he or she says. It may be that there's another drug you could go on that won't result in the same effect.
I'll definitely bring it up, since there are some other undesirable side effects. Thanks, thread!
Ah, okay. Yeah, just echoing what others have said - that's not enough time for the drugs to leave your system. The elimination half-lives of Lamictal and Zyprexa are really long - about 25 hours and 30 hours respectively.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
On the other side, it should go away when you stop taking the med, but the brain is kind of funky when it comes to optical channels, and puts quite a bit of erffort into optimizing optical neural pathways. So after 3 months of being on the drug, even if you were to stop, it would probably take that same amount of time to have your vision restored back to what it was before.