Personality Changed From Paxil
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My mother's doctor started my 87 yr. old mother on Paxil in the nursing home & it completely changed her personality. She got many side effects, dry mouth, irritability, unable to focus on conversation & so on until she ended up with such severe abdominal pain & urinary retention that she ended up being readmitted to the hospital. Boy has she lost a lot of rehab time (she is recovering from a fractured hip).

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Actually, this type of thing would NOT be addiction, addiction occurs when someone uses a med and abuses it for enjoyment, what you are actually referring to here is DEPENDENCE, that is what happens when your body gets used to having any substance on a regular basis, anything from a medication to your morning coffee or orange juice. Your body learns to rely on that substance to function and the sudden removal of it will cause some mild reactions similar to withdrawal.

However, they are not as severe as withdrawal symptoms, as those occur when someone has been abusing a med for enjoyment, because they like the way it makes them feel and since that effect is really a side-effect of taking it that eventually wears off as your body gets used to the medication, they have to keep taking more and more to get that feeling that they enjoy. This is why withdrawals can be extremely dangerous, they can cause seizures and in some cases even be fatal.

Thus, that is also why there is a difference between addiction and dependence and why it is so important to understand the difference between the two.

For instance, I suffer a chronic pain condition and I have to rely on narcotics each day, or my pain is so intense I cannot get up and function to take care of my family. However, I do not take more than I am prescribed and I do not take them more often than prescribed, so if I forget a dose, I do experience some symptoms, but the return of my pain is generally much worse than those symptoms and if I had to stop taking them suddenly I would feel awful for a few days, but it would subside much quicker and not be anywhere near as dangerous as it would if I were addicted and taking increasingly higher and higher doses.

My husband is on Paxil, he has been taking it daily for years, so if he forgets his dose in the morning, yes, he has some irritability and feels a bit foggy headed, but nothing severe that makes him sick or prevents him from continuing on with his day and just taking his next dose when he gets home from school.

When speaking to people about meds, ashley, you need to make sure to differ between the two conditions, otherwise you will upset many people, who do not want to be called addicts, and aren't if they are just taking the med as prescribed. You also could scare some people off of taking medications that they need, because many people are scared of addiction, they have heard the horror stories and don't want to go through that.

So, as I said, what you are talking about is Dependence which is much, much different than addiction.

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any type of drug that has chemical compound can be addicting, anything from caffine to paxil. You're body becomes accustomed to the drug and the chemical being put into your bloodstream, when you stop taking it, its like if you were to stop drinking caffine if you are an avid caffine drinker. any pill has potential to become addicted to. especially anti-depressents/anxiety pills!!! Good luck!!

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paxill is a mental health drug she dont to be on it tell the doctor to take her off my mom is 74 and she has alhiemeries the doctor gave her two and a half ml of zanex as needed paxill causes all kinds of different mood swings i would never give it to my nother

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I don't understand, if you've been on the Paxil for any length of time, how could missing one dose have such an impact?

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Whenever I forget to take my Paxil, I begin to feel anxious, moody,sad vulnerable and hopeless. Is this normal or is it just mental addication towards the drug?

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