Anti-depressants

My T asked me if I had ever taken a drug for my moods. I said, "No." She asked if it was ever recommended. I said, "No." I am just curious what it is like to be on anti-depressants? I hope the topic doesn't come up again. But, I sure like to cry on an almost daily basis lately. I am rather used to my moods being weirder than other people. But, I could stand to go without the sleeping problem. I think I am getting 6 hours of sleep now.

AD's, if recommended by the doc, can be a great help to 'get you back on your feet'. They don't have to be a long term thing, but they sure can help at getting you in a better place to deal with things... IMO

I used Sarafem for a year to help with my PMDD / Mood Swings for about a year.... then I went off the medicine and was fine for about another 2 years.... but now my Mood Swings have return and I am taking Celexa for the mood swings / anxiety, and I am grateful for the healing power that has come to me in such a little pill.

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

I've had bad experiences with anti-depressants (Lexapro, then Wellbutrin) but I have bipolar, so I react differently to them. Wellbutrin made me feel like I had bugs crawling all over me, and highly agitiated. Although even when on a mood stabilizer (which is supposed to make you respond normally to ADs) the Lexapro still made me feel horrible.

If you can manage to work through things by therapy alone, you're better off IMO. They all made me feel detached, suicidal, and I have big gaps in my memory during the time that I took them... but then at that time in my life it was relieving to feel detached, so I guess it depends on how severe the depression is.

On the flip side of of the good anti-depressants might be able to do, over the past 12 years, I have probably been prescribed most of the possible meds for depression & other psyc problems to see if they might work. I am the living psych med guinea pig. During my worst period of depression, I wasn't able to find even 1 that didn't have worse side effects that any help they might have provided. To top that off, I had never had a headache in my life & ended up now with migraines that won't go away for even 1 day without being continually on a narcotic that controls them. I have had reactions from stiff joints to the point I couldn't sit up in bed, to anorexia (massive weight loss), to having parkinson's symptoms that took several months to clear up (thinking it was permanent....quite a scare). The best effect has been no effect at all where they did absolutely no help at all.

I am at the point now where all my Dr's are afraid to give me any meds at all because of all the side-effects I end up with (even my medical Dr hasn't had any luck).

I have been lucky right now that the seroquel does knock me out so that the nightmares & flashbacks don't attack so bad. I get the kind of drunk feeling when I wake up after taking it, but it goes away after I'm up for about an hour.......which is much better than the feelings I was going through.

People's reactions are all so different.....& what works for one doesn't work for another. If you are lucky to find one that works up front & don't get frustrated with the guinea pig testing feel, it's great.......if it is bad enough, then it is worth trying to find something that works for you.

Debbie

I'm hoping they never suggest it. I'm sorry about the bad luck that you have had. It difinitely shows how complex the human brain really is.

Everyone is different in their reaction to medications. You're going to see both extremes - extremely sensitive to meds and extremely resistant to meds. You can't know your reaction until you try it, and you shouldn't give up on the first med if it doesn't work.

My doctor would prefer to have me on an activating med because my form of depression makes me very apathetic, but I'm so sensitive to those meds that I need to be on a calming med. What that does is at least settle any anxiety I have about the depression so I'm not always feeling on edge. And it's great when the household gets hectic, I can let the little nuisances roll off my back instead of getting uptight and making a mountain out of a molehill.

At least a cup of strong coffee in the morning gets me moving.

Please don't be so quick to dismiss even the idea of medication. If you had an illness that affected your body (and most likely your emotional well being as well), would you shun all medication even though it meant your quality of like would improve?

There comes a point in any illness where we realize that fighting it in a negative way is more detrimental than letting go of the denial that we'll get better overnight if we ignore it.

Just my two cents.

I am adverse to taking any type of anti-depressant because I have had horrible side effects. I was prescribed Effexor at one time and all that did was make me nervous, extremely dizzy, and manic. Pretty much the same with Serzone, only with Serzone I went to the ER because my heart was racing and I had bad tremors and my hands/arms turned bright red. When another doctor tried putting me on Lexapro, I said no way! She said there were no side effects with this med, but still I refused. Too scary after the effects I had with the others, and these effects happened the very first time I took them!

I am not saying that all meds are bad, or that you shouldn't take them. Everyone's body reacts differently, and what works for one person might not work for another, and vice versa.

I find my best treatment is talk therapy, and exercise helps too. There was a report I read that said exercising at least 3 days a week for 30 minutes is equivalent to taking an anti-depressant, since it releases those feel good endorphins. ( I realize that everyone may not be able to exercise though, but if you are able, give it a shot. Whatever you decide to do I hope you have great success! (I have also known some people who have had good experiences with anti-depressants).

Best Wishes,
Sujin

I have mixed views. I have tried 3 different ADs and given up on 2 of them not because they don't work (they work pretty well on me) but because of real/imagined side effects ... I think I was partly looking for excuses not to be on them to be honest. I initially tried Prozac and it worked well for my mood (at that time I thought everything was due to the stress of a PhD thesis so stopped it fairly quickly and found I was fine for quite some time).

Celexa *did* increase my appetite - to the extent that I could eat a whole pizza in one go by myself. I am not that big but I definitely, noticeably put on weight in just a couple of months and I found it very hard to control my appetite. My eating habits have not always been the best so I switched to Paxil (don't ask me why I got given that one, I've changed GPs a few times due to finishing university, living overseas, and ending up where I am now). I *did* find that if I didn't remember to take it every single day at the same time I got quite spacey or a bit headachey and I am not very good at remembering sometimes. It has a very short half-life compared to others which is why if you forget, you may notice it.

Recently I ended up being prescribed prozac and managed to skip it for ten days without noticing anything when i went overseas so having some leeway is much better for me (although it is not exactly recommended to do what I did). I have also been told that the reason I keep getting meh moods again might be partly to do with not staying on meds for a good solid year before tapering off (which is often recommended).

I don't know if any of this helps but I resisted taking drugs for quite a long time and I don't know if I would still be having to take them if I had done it properly in the first place - although I don't really have a way to tell, it does make sense.

good luck