THE INITIAL EFFEXOR EVENT, PART 3

A couple of hours after my first dose of Zoloft, I was able to stop crying and drift off again into a restless sleep. I kept to myself, letting my husband, my friend, and my other neighbor manage the kids. About twelve hours after my first dose, I felt the horror descending upon me again, so I took another dose. After about another twelve hours, the feeling of slippage started again, so I took another dose. I took four doses over the next 48 hours.
At about 5 a.m. Monday morning, I awoke from a dreamless sleep to a state of total panic. My brain, not just my mind but the organ itself, felt very, very wrong. A feeling of pain and pressure was building like a dam about to burst. My heart, like a gathering storm, began to beat faster and faster. My entire body began to tremor uncontrollably; I feared a seizure might be imminent. I woke Jason up and told him he had to take me to the hospital immediately. He piled the kids into the car and took me to the ER.
Over the next several hours, I was hooked up to monitors and poked and prodded. A cat scan indicated that I had not had a stroke, which was my first fear. My heart appeared to be healthy, no blockages or damage that might account for any sort of heart attack, no indication of heart disease, although it kept racing erratically, bouncing between 80 and over 160 beats per minute. My normal resting heart rate had always been around 60. They injected me with Benadryl, which rather than making me relax, as they hoped, made my heart race more, and made me feel like I was climbing the walls. As the day wore on, however, the most puzzling development was the tremors. They went from convulsive to almost graceful remembered gestures. I felt like the girl in the tale “The Red Shoes”, who couldn’t stop dancing, except it was mostly in my hands, which couldn’t stop typing, playing the piano, writing, and making other familiar movements. If I concentrated very hard, I could stop the movement, but it took a great deal of effort. My right leg also kept moving of its own accord.
Dr. W, who was on call for Dr. O’s office, came to talk to me and told me she thought this movement might be tardive dyskinesia, a disorder that is associated with prolonged use of anti-psychotic drugs. She'd never seen it with anti-depressants, she said, but it fit the symptoms. I made a decision to tell her about my alarming thoughts about my children, and she labeled it a psychotic break. She prescribed Zyprexa to help me sleep and keep the horror at bay. I spent another night in the hospital, then they sent me home with the hope that once the Effexor and Zoloft worked their way out of my system, my symptoms would resolve.
The following two weeks were exhausting. My tremors gradually began to resolve, but my nights were filled with both amazing and terrible dreams. The Zyprexa worked for about three days, after which it caused me to tremor more and sleep less. Dr. E, a psychiatrist to whom Dr. O had referred me for management of my drugs, was at a loss. She’d never seen anyone respond to Zyprexa like I was responding. It was generally supposed to have a calming effect. She took me off of it and pondered what to do with me next.