I would like to report a successful med story. Tentative though because it has only been two months on the new meds.

I was on Effexor and Abilify for at least a year. Were not working at all. I was in one of my much longer term now fairly deep depressions. I have very refractory or treatment resistant depression. To meds and therapy. I have cycled in and out for many years. Some meds have worked better than others some not at all. I have been on almost everyone and every combination and it has never stopped the cycles. Over all I think they have helped or I would have given up on them along time ago. When in a very deep depression I don't ever remember meds pulling me out. Maybe they have at times. Usually it just has to run its course and I snap out of it.

Two months ago I ditched abilify cold turkey and went on lamictal. The plan was to also ditch the Effexor and switch to Fetzima but we wanted to wait a month to see how the Lamictal did. With the Lamictal I noticed a big improvement in mood after about two weeks. Still had all the other symptoms, no motivation, no energy, no showering, won't leave the house. We know the drill. Same after a month on Lamictal, just better mood over all.

So we ditched the Effexor and went on Fetzima. After two weeks I started noticing a huge difference. It was getting me kind of manic sometimes and I would be very calm at other times. It has been a month on it and this last week I have felt wired a lot. I have gotten very weepy at times and cry real easy. Over all I have slowly seen a huge improvement in all those symptoms I listed above. I am not totally out of the woods yet but right on the edge.

Now I always get a little manic for awhile when I come out of a depression and I could be that it has just run its course again and I am snapping out of it like usually happens with me and it has nothing to do with meds. But I know that is not the case. I know my body and mind well after all these years and I can totally tell it is the meds. From the side effects which I am having some but nothing real bad and the fact that I am getting real wired and different effects I cannot explain. But I can totally tell it is different from the other times and it is the meds.

I am a little worried it might trigger a manic episode, this Fetzima is very activating (it is the nor epinephrine), but I think it will balance out and I will be back to my normal self again. Thank God. My normal self is mild to moderately depressed but maybe it will even keep that at bay. I fully suspect that next Nov. I will cycle back into one but who knows maybe not.

So I still say tentative. We will see. My hopes are very high based on what I am seeing.

Now I still have this theory that people who are doing very well on meds long term don't come to these boards and tell us about it and we don't hear a lot of success stories. It gets depressing reading the depression section.

I would like those of us on these boards who read this to post in this thread if they have had success stories with meds. Thank you in advance.