maybe, maybe, maybe

When my pdoc increased my AD Monday she said that it would be 5-7 days before I felt anything and that I might have only a tiny response for some time, like noticing I smiled once in a day.

Yesterday my therapist thought my speech sounded better but I still felt the same.

Today I've continued my too-tired-to-move-from-bed routine (which is really weird because this AD is very stimulating normally especially with this much of it) and while I've not gotten dressed or done anything except feed my cats and myself I think that I might feel just a tiny bit better.

I'm a long way from taking that seriously; I've responded slightly to various other med changes in 9 months and it never did much for more than a few days and I know that there is no more increasing my dosage. This is it for this med and really for all my current meds. I'm not even really seeing this as a sign of hope yet, just taking notice that perhaps something is a little different.

Whether that is really true or whether it remains here tomorrow is another story but for tonight there is a maybe when maybes have been few and far between.

Just curious, what is the name and mG of this new med? I've heard it can take weeks. I'm going through exactly what you are right now. Sitting in bed waiting for the new meds to kick in. Friggin sucks.

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This isn't a new med for me, just a higher dose that they usually avoid (I'll explain). The med is called Emsam and it is my antidepressant. It's an MAOI which are the ADs you get when you fail all the others, even though they work really well for a lot of people, because they interact with foods and medications and the reactions can be dangerous so you have to be on high alert to use one. Not all drs. will use MAOIs at all now; my enormous hospital system told me they put about 10 people per year on one.

Emsam only has 3 dose possibilities and you can only mess with that so much because it is a patch. I was on 9 mg for years until this spring when I was so agitated from mania/mixed episode that we lowered it and it stayed lowered until I was in the hospital last month. I'm now trying the highest dose in a last ditch effort to stop this depression. If it doesn't work then I am likely to do ECT.

The 5-7 days is because I already had this in my system. If I hadn't it would have taken a month or longer before we'd have known.

Waiting is hard. Waiting this time is very hard because I know that this is likely to be my last chance before ECT unless something really surprising happens. And I'm still waiting to hear if they'll accept me for ECT. I've been through a ton of meds in 9 months and have a long history of problems with meds (I'm on my 67th cocktail or something like that). We got a partial response with an AP this summer but the dose couldn't go up any more and I developed some major problems and had to get off it fast. That's why I was in the hospital and all the hospital could do was return me to where I was when this started in January. Which didn't help so now we're doing the last few things that can be done prior to trying ECT.

I'm really tired of meds failing and thinking that something good was happening with them only to have something bad happen and so I'm fine with doing ECT. If it's not a med and is something different I'm pretty interested.

What med(s) are you waiting on?

Wow that sounds like a lot of frustration! ECT sounds scary to me only because i associate it with what they show in those old movies. I guess I'm going to have to do some research! My pdoc doubled my risperdal to 4 mg to help with aggression. And also put me back on Wellbutrin SR. So far I like the energy the AD gives me because I'm usually chronically fatigued from depression. But I'm not going to be totally thrilled until this anger goes away.

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I have been accepted for ECT and will be starting next week. I haven't had 67 cocktails but due to parkinsonian side effects I have been cut off of some medications. I also have tried meds that do good but they wear off or something bad happens (I'm allergic to Latuda for example which made my pdoc reluctant to prescribe Lamactil) or such a high dose is needed it renders me unable to function. I'm a little frightened of ECT too but I'm no longer able to choose from such a large med pool. So to keep trying I'm going with ECT.:

I'm really not that afraid of ECT. Less than I ever thought I'd be. The biggest anxiety is whether they'll approve it and figuring out what med will work afterward since I have so few choices. (I've been through all the APs that I can afford that are lower risk for EPS and I've had EPS enough times that when there is a risk of it I'm likely to have it. My pdoc is considering 2 brand new APs but one has a really high risk of EPS and the other isn't approved for bipolar depression and is related to Abilify which was a disaster of a med with akathesia and blood pressure problems that made me fall a bunch.

It helps that they do a lot of ECT where I go to the hospital and so I've seen a lot of people going through it and I know the drs. and are comfortable with them. I dread being in the hospital for a long time but I know that keeps me safer and also is the only way I can afford it.

But I still don't even know if that will happen. If my AD is working better I may avoid it but today I don't feel that tiny lift I felt yesterday so who knows. I have been hungry yesterday and today for the first time in months. Not starving but willing to eat. Unfortunately the thing I most want to eat is at the store not home....

Good luck to you Coco. I'll be interested in how it is going. I think that they'll wait until my next appointment to decide about ECT (or it will be month to month until we are sure nothing else is going to do anything; we have some potential last ditch things that I don't think will be useful to try but maybe one will work and stick. That's what hasn't been happening the last 9 months). I don't know. I just want something to work. ECT has about a 50% chance from what I read, probably less because of my lack of med options when it is done.

I'll do virtually anything right now.

I had ect when I was 18 a very long time ago. I didn't think it was much of a big deal then as far as going through it and they have improved it in the years since then. Forget the movies. Portrayal in movies are going for shock value and also dealt with it from even before I had it done. If I needed to I would do it again.

My hospital at least sometimes does a variation where it is bilateral but to the frontal lobes which is supposed to cause less memory loss. I don't know how they decide which to use but they do have options.

Right now I just want to know what is going to happen. I don't think that's really going to happen though; I think it is going to be one slow week at a time until we know if I'm responding to my AD.

I had Ect and I found it very scary and became more anxious with each treatment. My memory was effected by it

What does AD stand for

AD=antidepressant