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How to get off psychotropic/ antipsychotic drugs?
Hello B,Is it possible to get off psychotropic drugs and substitute them with natural therapy?
This person has been put on different drugs 6 years ago following a traumatic experience that badly affected their mental state. They are currently on lithium, rivotril or dormicum to help with sleep, xnanax (only if there is anxiety). In the past they were on Seroquel and Valdoxan. This person is desperate to remove these drugs, but the moment they come off them the problem becomes much worst, with suicidal attempts, sleepless nights etc etc.
Is there any hope in situations like this? Could you recommend a professional who could help in the transition? This is affecting their entire family and the conventional psychiatrists just prescribe more drugs….
Thank you!
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3 Replies
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Hey ,
Unfortunately, I couldn’t personally help you recommend a professional who can help you in Dubai, but I know Bernadette once recommended the Vivamus Clinic. They offer counselling and EMDR I believe. I wish I could have helped you by recommending a psychiatrist with a more holistic vision in Dubai.
But there are things you could already recommend to this person.
Trauma hijacks the brain. We have in our brain a system called the ‘fear network’. The fear network involves three elements of the brain: the amygdala, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.
That sounds really difficult, but basically, these systems work together to monitor the environment, to remember what the threats are, to regulate emotions and then to make decisions for us in the face of those threats.
When Trauma happens, it hijacks that fear network via the enormous amount of neurotransmitters your brain and body produce during the traumatic event. This can in the end result in a person who is continuously on high alert, who is continuously on edge and who is continuously activating his/her sympathetic nervous system.
It is my experience that a broad approach works best. More recommendations you can find in this video, but here are the ones I like:
• EMDR can help to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences.
• But EMDR is often just part of the healing process. Finding meaning in experiences that happened to them is often part of this process as well. A good therapist can help with that, but it requires some work from the person itself.
• DBT or Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is especially effective for people who have difficulty managing and regulating their emotions. DBT has proven to be effective in treating and managing a wide range of mental health conditions, including Borderline personality disorder (BPD), self-harm, suicidal behaviour and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If the person you like to help has problems with this, you could consider this type of therapy.Working on fundamental stuff to help the body can help enormously as well:
• Improving sleep (I know some of these medications can make this very difficult),
• making sure someone has enough vitamin D, and adding in DHA, EPA and protein in their diet since these are needed to produce serotonin,
• Checking inflammatory markers and working on reducing inflammation by focusing on an anti-inflammatory diet.
• Food sensitivities/allergies can increase inflammation.
• Checking RBC magnesium.
• Checking for a slow thyroid (Click here if you would like to look for other signs & symptoms of a slow thyroid. Click here if you like to know how to test for thyroid hormones), since a slow thyroid can cause depression and might make things worse.
• In the adrenal balance course there are a lot of tips about how to balance stress hormones.
• Having enough B vitamins in the diet is important. Especially B6 is needed to create neurotransmitters. But B6 is also needed to create adrenalin/nor-adrenalin so go really low & slow since it could also increase anxiety.A last tip:
What often can happen to trauma survivors after a while is that they might get offered a lot of solutions from their friends and family. Trauma survivors often get told by their surroundings that ‘all is going to be ok’ or they ‘need to cheer up’. This type of advice can come from a good heart. But for a traumatized person this could also feel emotionally invalidating since it is sometimes felt as ‘he/she doesn’t want me to talk about this anymore’ or ‘talking about this topic makes him/her uncomfortable’. This can often lead to a feeling of loneliness in the victims.If there is an opportunity to educate family and friends, explain to them that the best healing environment for a traumatized person is one with empathy, compassion and one without judgement. That road to finding meaning in their experience can take a while. Making sure the environment facilitates healing can help these persons enormously.
I hope this advice can help you
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Hi – these drugs are real monsters – especially if on them for some time, so my heart goes out to you and to this person.
But there is definitely hope if this person WANTS to get off of them; they just have to realize that there’s no quick-fix like medications, and it’s going to be a journey of a slow weaning process while peeling layers off one at a time.
Daniel provided the video on the different healing modalities. EMDR, DNRS (but with private coaching), and emotional release (with 1-1 coaching) are all therapies that can help his body release/deal with the traumatic experience, and put him in a state that will allow him to heal.
Vivamus clinic offers EMDR, and so does Thrive Wellbeing Center (Dr. Tuna Bereket – she just recently joined and is qualified in EMDR and trauma-focused CTB – cognitive behavioral therapy). He will have to try them and see what works best for him – and again, be willing to try different modalities and be in the mindset that this won’t be a quick-fix.
I did not mention neurofeedback in my Healing Modalities video, but this treatment can also be an excellent tool to for post-traumatic stress disorders. I can recommend Hope, Health & Healing with Dr. Lilya Chub for that and the German Neuroscience Center in JLT or Dubai Health Care City.
In terms of additional holistic support, I used to have a client in a similar situation who also became suicidal. I referred her to a homeopath in London who does virtual consults, and he was able to help her come off all medications over time (again, it’s like peeling layers off as they work through the different root causes). I think it took about a year. He doesn’t have web presence, so Dr. Ramnik’s email address is
info@sublimehealing.com if there is interest going this route. I can also give the doctor a heads up that this person will be coming from my side if that helps. He’s an excellent classical homeopath.If they prefer seeing someone locally and in-person, I can recommend Dr. Manjari – another classical homeopath but with a very different style to Dr. Ramnik.
Hopefully these resources and referrals will be able to help you guide this person towards the healing they are hoping for. Please do keep us posted.
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Thank you so much for this D & B. Super informative. I have forwarded this to their family. Hope they will go by your advice. That’s the best I can do for them for now…
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