Seeking Advice Regarding Medication Side-Effects

[Beaux]

Hi All,
I will try to make this brief. As some of you already know, my husband cheated on me 14 years ago and I left him for a number of years. As it all turned out, after we got back together I discovered that he contracted HIV during the time I left him. It lead to some serious discussions and counseling.

My husband NEEDS counseling, as living with HIV has seriously affected his sense of self worth, but he refuses to talk to anyone about it. In addition, in the past 3 years (since he started HIV treatment) he has slowly become more and more OCD (to the point that he CANNOT stop himself from performing certain, repetive tasks), AND he has become VERY aggressive. He has never hit me, but on more than one occasion he has held me down and screamed obscenities in my face ("Fuck You! Your fucking worthless! I fucking hate you!"). With an hour of this type of behavior he acts as though it never happened. Says he loves me and that he doesn't understand why I am upset with him.

He refused to see a communicable disease doctor until I finally put my foot down and insisted he begin treatment. In his mind he was just planning to let it kill him and had taken out a total of 2.5 million in life insurance with me as a beneficiary.

Our sex life is virtually nonexistent despite me taking Truvia and using condoms because he is afraid of infecting me.

When I finally got him to go to the specialist and get his T-Cells counted, the doctor put him on Atriplia but after every visit to the doctor he claims that he cannot remember what his T-Cell count is when I ask, which leads me to believe that things are worse than he wants to admit...

In any case, a few weeks ago he was given a random drug test for his job and he tested positive for THC. My husband NEVER uses ANY drugs, so we immediately started looking amongst his medications for something that could have cause a false positive, and sure enough Atripila regularly gives such false positives. We immediately requested that his sample be sent off for verification with a gas spectrometry test, and all is well in that regard. HOWEVER, as I was reading the info about Atriplia I discovered that %5 of users experience psychological side effects, including (but not limited too): aggression, lack of emotional control, neurosis, anxiety, depression and OCD behavior problems.

I immediately pointed this out to my husband, but he is in complete denial! He refuses to even entertain the notion that the medicine could be affecting him.

I am genuinely at a loss. The emotional outbursts have become genuinely frightening and I never know when they will occur.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
~Beaux

[LJay]

Beaux, I would talk to his doctor. Explain what is going on and tell the doctor that you understand he cannot discuss the case with you, but that you have information that may be of interest to him. It is possible that the doctor can convince your husband that counseling and psychological monitoring should go along with the treatment using this drug. Ask the doctor to keep the conversation completely discreet. You can also ask the doctor what he suggests that YOU do in the circumstances. Chances are he has seen this before.

[Rareboy]

All you can do is start by printing it out and handing him a copy of the info to read on his own and ask him to take a copy of it with him to the doctor on the next visit.

Lesions on the brain can also cause these types of behavioural change and maybe the way to approach this is to have his doctor review this possibility.

But I appreciate what you're up against. You need to have him on-side to make any headway with this. I'm sure that when he is feeling his best...he doesn't want to entertain the possibilities and when he is having an episode, he would be incapable of accepting your word on this.

In our relationship, we share the same doc...so even if we don't go to one another's appointments...if there was anything that we wanted our doc to follow up with one another we could always have him do this on their next visit. In the case where anger may turn to violence...you deserve to take some extra measures.

If you don't share the same doc...then you are pretty much stuck with your husband accepting and reading the info that you have highlighted when he is feeling well enough to take it all on board and then hopefully he will talk to the doc about this.

[Pyromancer]

I agree with [MENTION=20933]LJay[/MENTION] that speaking with his doctor seems to be your only option.

But Beaux, my concern here is for you. You're very matter-of-fact in the way that you present this, but it has to be tearing you up on a number of levels. Do you have someone you can open up to honestly about what you're feeling? Feeling emotionally isolated makes everything worse. You seem like a very strong man...it comes across in this post and in others that I've read... but even the strongest person needs support sometimes.

[meridannight]

the suggestion of talking to his doctor sounds good. doctors treat a lot of patients, they've most likely seen this before, so they might have some good advice on how to handle this. not only can they advise you professionally, i think his doctor should be made aware of these side effects (if that's what they are), because they could well have other medical implications on his treatment.

other than that, on how to handle this personally --- don't you have a way of getting him to just take a time out and listen to you, and give your point of view some weight? you know him better than any of us here. and every guy tends to be a bit different with regards to how to handle them in these types of situations. some are easy to get the point across to, others...not so much. but you have to get the point across to him. his emotional reactivity notwithstanding, he's still the same man you've known all this time underneath. there's gotta be way for you to approach him on more delicate issues that would cue him in to the fact that this is something more serious to pay attention to. isn't there?

[Beaux]

I agree with [MENTION=20933]LJay[/MENTION] that speaking with his doctor seems to be your only option.

But Beaux, my concern here is for you. You're very matter-of-fact in the way that you present this, but it has to be tearing you up on a number of levels. Do you have someone you can open up to honestly about what you're feeling? Feeling emotionally isolated makes everything worse. You seem like a very strong man...it comes across in this post and in others that I've read... but even the strongest person needs support sometimes.

When our sex life came to a reletive end, I was pretty upset. I felt like I had done everything I could do (starting Truvia, only engaging in safe sex practices, ect..) and when the aggressive behavior started I REALLY was ready to leave. I told him as much, and surprisingly he suggested that we see a marriage counseler. That was 3 years ago. I am still seeing the counseler every 2 weeks, but my husband stopped going after he had an "episode" in the counseler' office. Until that time the counseler listened to me but remained frustratingly neutral. HOWEVERA, after the "episode", the counseler was flabbergasted!

After my husband's irrational outburst the counseler (first) asked him politely to leave the office and cool down, but that didn't work. My husband jumped up and began screaming in the counsoler's face, which lead to the counseler forcefully demanding him to leave immediately or he would call law enforcement. My husband left, and I was going to leave as well but the counseler insisted I stay, saying that he feared for my safty. He went on and on apologizing to me for not believing me about how bad things have gotten and urging me to think of my own safty. When I finally returned home about 3 hours later, my husband was mowing the yard, and waved at me smiling when I pulled into the drive. He acted as though nothing had happened.

We currently DO share the same family practitioner, but she is retiring in 2 more months and I have decided that it isn't in my best intrest that we continue seeing the same M.D. I have tried on numerous occasions to tell her about his changing behaviors but she would just brush it off, saying that his behaviors are psychological and not physical. I haven't had the opportunity to speak to her since I discovered the side-effects of his medication, but from past conversations with her I just dont think she takes me seriously regarding my husband's problems.

I have decided that I want to go with him next time he goes to his infectious disease doctor who prescribes the HIV meds. I feel like that is the only way I am going to be heard and also the only way I wI'll find out what his true T-Cell counts are, since he seems to be hiding them from me. Unfortunately, he only goes to that doctor every 6 months and he has another 4 months before his next appointment.

At this point, as guilty as I feel about it, I think that if another outburst occurs I am going o have to leave him for at least a little while. The stress of never knowing when one of these "episodes" will occur has left me frazzled and walking in egg-shells. He goes from his normal, soft spoken self to a red-faced, spitting demon in seconds with absolutely no warning and it scares the hell out of me. The last time it happend, we had missed the first 10 minutes of a show we both watch, and I suggested we just wait and watch it when it re-aired the following day. The next think I knew he was in top of me, holding my face, screaming obscenities. I really thought he was going to hit me. I pulled free of him and retreated to our bed room and locked myself in. A half hour later, he was knocking in the door and just couldn't understand why I didn't want him sleeping with me that night....

It is true that my husband is bigger than me, he is 6'4" and about 280 lbs. I am 6'4" as well, but I only weigh 150 lbs due to my malabsorbtion disorder that makes it difficult for me to gain weight. So, technically, he COULD hurt me, but I grew up in a very tough enviroment for a gay person (Louisiana) and I can defend myself more than adaquately. Maybe I should feel afraid of him (physically) but I just don't. I fear the emotional turmoil more, I cannot tell you how nerve-wracking living like this has become...

Xoxo,
~Beaux

[Borg69]

I would consider building a safe room. You can't rationally talk to a Jekyll and Hyde personality, or appeal to one through the other. Especially when one personality always thinks they're right NO matter what, and the other personality doesn't believe the bad one exists.

[Rareboy]

Oh Beaux.

This terrible.

Can you not at least get permission from your partner to send the information and relay your concerns to his specialist? I think you really should be putting something in writing to your guy's ID specialist.

And without making it too obvious, I would create a safe room as well. You may only need it once, but better to have this as a back-up than to have something bad happen.

I think you also need to lay it out for your husband that because of his irrational behaviour that is likely exacerbated if not caused by the meds , your own trust and well-being is being eroded and that if he doesn't do something to meet you halfway that you will need to leave him for at least a while in order to give him time to sort some of this out on his own.

I am so sorry.

[Pyromancer]

The guilt is the real killer...and the not being believed, and the feeling that you "should" be able to get through to someone you know so well...someone said that underneath it all, he's still the same guy he was before...sadly, he isn't right now. It's clear that the meds are affecting brain chemicals in negative ways...or, as someone said, there could be the beginnings of a brain lesion...None of this is his fault...we have no control over vagaries in our own brain function. It reminds me of my BF's aunt who has Alzheimer's setting the house on fire to drive out the evil...not her fault at all, again...altered brain function...but the destruction was devastating.

I hope that the ID doctor can help at some point...However...right now, that leaves you. I can't think of anything more painful than the decision you face...stay or walk away, even for a temporary respite....I really want to say, Yes! Go! ...but of course, only you can decide that. All anyone can offer is empathy and support...please know that you have mine and, I'm sure, many others here as well...

[Darius]

Beaux, I have no advice on this topic, because I know nothing about those drugs, but I just wanted to post some support, if possible.

You are in a tricky situation and you can't risk getting hurt, so you need to do what you must to be safe. Whether it's the meds causing this or stress from dealing with the disease or some personality problem of his own, you can't tolerate abuse.
You know he loves you. You're a lovable guy and I can tell that from your posts. I love reading what you post.
His words are meant to hurt you because he is hurting. That is not an excuse, however.
No one has the power to hurt you like someone who loves you.
Obviously, you love him, too.

You are a great guy, Beaux.