 Hello, my good internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you for joining me here today for the beginning of an adventure I'm taking. I have found a wide variety of medications for a number of conditions for the past decade of my life in varying degrees and getting more and more as years have gone on. And I wanna talk about what I'm doing. Things are changing and I wanted to try something different because I'm going to stop taking them. This right here is a bag of just a few of the medications that I have been on. About a month and a half ago, I just sort of got to this point where I was really tired of taking so many medications and not even knowing what's effective or what's not anymore. Not even knowing if I still need to be taking them or if they're still working or, you know, fill in the blank. Quick and incredibly important disclaimer, I have been on medications for a while. I don't have a darn thing against them. They're incredibly helpful for so many different things. And so please do not take this video as any encouragement to change what you are doing and please do not consider if you're on medication changing anything without thoroughly talking to your doctor about it. This is just for me. I am only talking about myself and if you are or you aren't on medications, that's fantastic. Please know that none of this is any judgment or me getting off of them because I'm like drugs are bad. Legal ones taken in proper doses. So as we dive into this, if you want to like this video, give it a thumbs up. That helps it get out to more people. It helps with the YouTube algorithm and I would really appreciate it. Allow me to give you a quick overview of my relationship with medication since the age of like 14 or 15. When I had the horseback running accident that I had that caused all my leg issues, there was obviously a lot of issues with my leg but there was also almost more issues with my neck and with severe pain and migraines, a lot of symptoms. And no one could really figure it out. I have three compressed discs but they're not to the point where surgery would be helpful. Normal doctors didn't have any answers and so they sent me to a pain management doctor who eventually did an MRI again and realized that I have a Kiari malformation which is basically where my brain is compressed against the back of my skull. It causes a lot of pain. It causes a lot of symptoms. And if you ever want me to get more into detail about that condition, I'd be happy to. But long story short, there is no cure for it aside from brain surgery which I almost did have but doctors along with myself decided that would not be a good option for me. So I have been on medications for pain since the age consistently of 18 onward. And if you know anything about those kinds of medications, your body adjusts to them. Your body gets used to a certain dose and then you need more to actually get the same amount of relief. So we would change medications up, see if something worked better, give my body a break from, you know, fill in the blank. But long story short, taking opiates and painkillers at that level from the age of 18 onward can have serious consequences on your body, on your internal organs. And more than that, I have such a high tolerance for them that it's really difficult to get my pain under control when it's really bad, like after surgeries, which we talked about. But not being on them every day was agony and was not a way to exist. And so I've been on heavy pain medication pretty much every day for the last several years. Let's pause there for just a second. I was also introduced to a medication that could help with my brains. There wasn't like a huge impact. We tried like seven medications before this particular one, but there was enough of one lowering the severity that I was like, okay, let's give this a shot. And so I've been on that for like three years. Then I was prescribed medication for anxiety. Anxiety is a big problem in my life. It's crushing all of the time and made it for a while so I could not sleep. I developed PTSD a number of years ago, had horrible flashbacks and nightmares and didn't sleep for many years basically. And the medication I was prescribed helps with panic attacks, helps people sleep. And then I went to the Mayo Clinic to try to solve the problems with my neck and my head and see if they had any solutions. And in the process of talking, they actually prescribed another medication that's usually used for blood pressure but helps regulate your adrenal system because I was having such horrible nightmares and it can actually help with PTSD even though that's sort of an off-label use for it. And it worked. It changed my life at that point because I went from having really bad dreams just about every night to being able to sleep through the night and man, getting good sleep makes a difference in your life. So I've been on that medication for five years now, I think. Last but not least, I am on an antidepressant and I have been for many years. I've been on the same one, same dosage. It really made a difference in my life when I started taking it. It brought me from staring at walls, feeling absolutely nothing and everything and tear streaming down my face for hours at a time, not being able to function, to being able to get up in the morning, to being able to function many days. It helped, but I've been on that for a really long time. And I've been reading this book called Lost Connections, which I would highly recommend anyone read. It's a fantastic, well-researched piece of literature. It's all about connection and depression and anxiety and how it all works together and it's very non-judgmental. And it is a wealth of information that's presented in a very digestible way. And as I was reading through this book, I started thinking about all the medications I was on and all the pills that I take every day and every morning I wake up and I assemble all of them from the different bottles and I take them and make sure it's the right amount. Then I have to carry medication with me throughout the day. Then every evening I'm taking these, you know, drugs to be able to go, these medications to regulate my system and be able to sleep and all of that. And I just sort of hit this point of being like, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of living on chemicals. I don't know if I would be any different off of them as far as like personality and focus and productivity or not. But I do know that it's been a really long time that I have consistently been on all of these medications and I don't even really know if they're working anymore. I don't know if some problems have resolved themselves like the nightmares, for instance. Do I really still need to take medication for that? Or am I at a place with my mental health and healing that they just, they aren't there as much anymore? And so it started. And the first priority that I had was pain medication. I was on two different ones. One's like a long lasting opioid you take every day and the other one is sort of as needed. And along with my doctor supervision and with their help, I stopped taking the long lasting one so that I'm only taking pain medication in moments where it's bad and I need it. I was really scared to do that and see what might happen. But I came off of the long lasting stuff completely a couple of weeks ago and it's actually been okay. I didn't experience any crazy withdrawal or super negative side effects. I experienced a lot more anxiety for a few weeks and I guess that that can be related to coming off of drugs like that. But because I was able to successfully basically half the intake of pain medication that I take every day, I started thinking about the other drugs that I'm on. And so the next one that I wanted to experiment with was the one for migraines because it only had a minimal effect and that was years ago. And so the proper way, under supervision, all of that, please keep that in mind. That's incredibly important if you ever consider coming off of any medications. Please talk to your doctor. These are conversations that we shouldn't have online or alone. They should be had with professionals slowly but surely I weaned myself off of that and I've been off of that entirely for about a week and it's been okay. I still get migraines often but they haven't changed in severity or frequency since I've come off of that. So I moved on to the next one on my list. I started coming off of the nightmare medication that I was taking and it's now been two days without any of it, slowly decreasing over the past few weeks and I'm actually okay so far. I'm trying to really pay attention to symptoms, pay attention to things, take notes, be very aware of what's happening with my mind and my body and all of that. So I started moving on to the next thing on my list which is the anxiety medication I've been taking. I have experimented with not taking the full amount, seeing if I can get through days with half as much and really implement other coping strategies and really focus on that and there have been a number of days where I've been able to go with half as much as I have normally taken which is mind blowing to me because like I said, anxiety is a really big problem in my life. It's very, very present all of the time but I honestly was just kind of curious because that in particular is a medication that you have to keep taking more and more of for it to really be effective and I'd rather have it be effective still but not in higher doses and one way to do that is to come off of it as much as I can and only use it when I really, really have to. So all in all, I have come off a significant amount of the medications that I was taking every single day for years. Something else that always bothered me is when I would go into doctor's offices, they always have you go through the entire list of medications, what you're taking and that would be like a frickin' five minute conversation, I'm taking this in this dosage and oh here's another one, oh here's another one and I just reflected on how long that list has gotten and it's not a bad thing, none of that's a bad thing to be on medication at all. It's incredibly helpful, it's important but I just wanted to kind of see what would happen and I'm gonna continue trying. I'm going to try to come off of a little bit more of my pain medication in a very, very slow fashion under doctor supervision. I'm going to see if I can continue to taking less anxiety medication. I would like to consider coming off of the anti-depressant I've been on and just seeing how things are now because when I started taking it, that was before I was married, that's when I was still dating Brian, it's been a long time and I still really struggle with depression but I wonder how different it would be without that, how effective it really is being for me. Do I need that in my system? That one I'm a little scared to come off of and so that'll be a longer process, supervised and slow tapering, making sure that people are checking in on me and that my mental health is okay and that I'm not falling into an incredibly dark place. Here's the thing for me, our bodies and our minds change, our chemical structure changes, we are constantly evolving as people and all of the medications that I've been on have been effective for what they have been effective for when I needed it at that point in my life but considering the length of time that I was on some of these, I wondered if I needed them in the same way that I did before and it seems like for some of them, I don't and I've always been of the opinion that if medications can help you, gosh darn it, take them but for me personally, I've always wanted to be on as few as possible, if any but the list got really long and I just don't love that. I don't love having to make sure prescriptions are refilled and being terrified of what if that doesn't happen and what if I have to go two days without it and would I be able to exist? Would I be okay, you know? And so far, anyways, it seems like I have been able to come off of a lot of stuff and I'm okay. One thing that has always concerned me and it's a balancing act for anyone who's taking any kind of medication is the side effects. These medications do have side effects and those are very real and can have long-term consequences and sometimes that's entirely worth it so that you can live, so that you can exist, so that you can fill in the blank but I've wondered for a long time how much those side effects are affecting me. Are they causing some of the issues that I've been dealing with? Are there interactions or possible interactions that could occur that I don't know? I will continue checking in with professionals. I will continue paying very close attention to my mental and physical health and symptoms and what's going on. It's been a challenging few weeks but it's been good and I'm excited that I maybe don't have to take as many drugs as I've had to take for so long. We'll see what happens. I will keep you guys updated on the process. I think I'll probably check back in on this in about a month. I think that's a good time to kind of get a better idea of how things are leveling out. I also do want to mention I've done this in stages, like I'm not cutting out one medication and another and another all at the same time. It's been staggered out. I know that I said this at the beginning of the video but I really, really want to repeat it again. There's nothing wrong with medications. I'm not like stopping taking mine because I think they're bad or fill in the blank. I'm curious if other things could work. If other things could assist me in the way that I need help now. And I'm fine if I need to stay on some of them but I'd also be pretty excited if I didn't have to worry about refilling things and making sure I packed enough medication for the day and worrying about if I run out and do I have everything I need if we ever travel on a trip because otherwise I'm screwed and just all of that. And yeah, we'll see how it goes. Also just as a friendly reminder, please don't ever do anything like this without talking to the people who are prescribing the medications without having supervision, without checking in with people. Bad things can happen if you come off of medications. I personally know of some bad things that have happened when people just stopped taking medication because I didn't think they needed it anymore and then things got really bad. So please, for your health, never do that. Make sure you are going about the right way if you ever decide to come off of anything. But I'm curious if anyone's been in the same boat, do you relate to this on either side of it? I'd love to hear from you down below in the comment section. I'm gonna keep you guys updated as this little adventure continues and I really appreciate you being here. Thank you to my patrons over on Patreon who make these videos possible and support me in so many ways. I really appreciate you guys. If you're interested in what Patreon is, check the link out on the screen or the link in the description. Lastly and most importantly, please take care of yourself today. You're worth it, you deserve it and I hope you're hanging in there. I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video. Bye guys.