Anyone have any experience with perinatal mental health

[onedgeagain]

I had my assessment yesterday for ocd and anxiety and intrusive thoughts. It was very intense and I felt mentally drained after but okay. But today I've really slipped and am on edge constantly - I'm waiting to hear back today as the lady was going to speak to a consultant about switching my medication and now I think waiting for that phonecall is making me freak out. I'm worried she's going to say no you need to stay on the same one even though it isn't helping me. It's the waiting that's driving me mad - does anyone know how likely it is that I will be switched ?
I have said the current one isn't helping I feel like I've gone backwards since starting it ( I went from 100mg sertraline to 20mg fluoxetine and then 40mg)

Two things:

It's normal to have a delayed reaction to therapy and mental health discussions. You need to be especially gentle with yourself in the time which follows and know that how you are feeling right now is temporary, it will pass.

Secondly, in my experience mh professionals are quite happy to try you on different medications so please don't worry. And if they do refuse, you are entitled to push back on this.

It's going to be ok, op

@QueenSmartypants thank you, I feel absolutely mental today. I've such heightened anxiety but feel ridiculous as have no real explanation for it. I just feel almost manic, like im wired. My brain is buzzing. Don't get me wrong I can still do my day to day things and look after my baby but I am far from relaxed

I know my medication hasn't been working as I've been taking more and more codeine (it is prescribed for a back issue) and thinking back it only started happening when I was switched to fluoxetine. So now I feel like I've got that issue aswell as my mental health

Can anyone advise. I feel a little calmer now still not right

When we discuss our mh with professionals it can leave us vulnerable for a while so I completely get how you're feeling today. Increased anxiety leads to tension and all sorts so I'm not surprised to read that your back pain has got worse. I don't know what you're back issue is but you might find Curable helpful. I've been using it for chronic pain this year and it really tunes in to how mental health affects pain. I'm happy to chat here as long as you need this afternoon. Is there anything you find helps to ground you? It might be something as simple as a hot drink or brushing your hair or perhaps that exercise where you notice 5 things you can see/hear/smell ?

Here is the 5 senses grounding exercise:
https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/using-the-five-senses-for-anxiety-relief#5-4-3-2-1-technique

Hello, I was under the perinatal mental health team and I can't imagine that they'd keep you on the same meds if you say it's not working for you. If they did suggest you staying on them you could always say no and ask to try a different one.

Also just to add - are you on the waitlist for therapy? Sometimes meds alone won't help if you have quite severe difficulties and should be used in combination with techniques learned in therapy.

Sorry I forgot about this thread. I feel abit calmer now, still abit anxious but earlier on I was really working myself up.

The lady from perinatal rang me back and said they are going to Switch me back if I'm happy with that and also up my dose, and also to recommend I'm given a short course of diazepam to help with the transission as it messes my head up usually when I switch! That's what I've been worried about is my mental health declining further. I am also going to be contacted by iapts within the next week to commence some kind of therapy.

I've been having awful nightsweats which is probably the antidepressants but I never had sweats on them before. My tsh is low so they've asked the gp to retest as they want to make sure it isn't that causing the sweats