Posted by tulip on March 12, 2000, at 13:23:38
first post here. 7 months ago i went to my gp for er, skin picking (there, i said it). he decided i was depressed, started me on paxil, 10/mg for a month, then up each month to 20, 30, 40. at 40 stayed because gp would not go higher than that. when i started paxil is when i realized i was even depressed at all. i had been apathetic depressed, the blah kind everyone thinks it is. not social, not taking care of me hygenically, sleeping alot, etc. after paxil brief moments of positive emotion peeked through. lows felt not quite as low. still, i knew it was only a dent and it was doing diddly for the original thing i went in for, the picking. 40 seemed to not work so well after a while too, i now had agitated states mixed in with the apathetic, being forgetful, frustrated, highly irritable, confused. i would sleep a lot to give my brain a rest.. i had to be the one to suggest seeing a psychiatrist, and that paxil for other things like ocd and such need higher doses than normal. so, 2.5 weeks ago i saw the psychiatrist for the first time. he upped paxil to 60mg and started me on neurontin for mood stabalization, 300mg/day for a week, stepping up by 300/day each week until i got to 1200, after which i would see him again. for the next two weeks i was having like deja vu. laughing, enjoying, speaking, sounding familiar to myself at times and thinking it sounds so strange, so distant, and realize it's because i haven't sounded like that in *years*, at least a decade!
3 days ago, exactly 2 weeks after the med addition and increase, i woke up and it was all gone (seems a mood, agitated or apathetic, is determined as i awake and ends when i go to bed for the evening... it starts all over the next morning). my period also started that morning (the 4 days before was also when i was at my *best* in the 2 week good mood itself, like dyslexic pms?!) what i had was *extreme* agitation, the worst i've ever had. i was very irritable, forgetful, confused, couldn't keep a though in my head for more than a moment before it flew away. worrid about the about face and the meds, i called my pdoc and he had me increase my neurontin to 900 that night (as i was scheduled to) and then to 1200 the next night if 900 went okay, and after a week to call again if something screws up again so he can adjust the meds before i see him again a week later. anyway, i took the 900 (midnight) and for the next 6 hours i was flippy, i was online with a support group for self-injury and was doing what several desribed as manic or hypomanic. i was wide awake, typing fast, stringing thoughts by relating words through excessive rhyming, still having some sort of meaning though, from kinda silly to "deep" and insigtful to angry at the human race in general. i just couldn't stop, my mind was on overdrive or something, flippy! by 6am i was just exhausted and the next day i was just tired and not sure where my mood was, i was like in limbo, on hold, went to 1200mg neurontin that night, and saturday the good mood was all back from the days before this happened.
i am just trying to understand this reaction. did the paxil increase help for 2 weeks or the neurontin? what was the neuontin's role in the crash? and the hormones in all of it? how did all this play together? i'm the kind of person who needs to understand why. because i don't quite believe or trust the effects of something unless i understand what makes it work or not work, the thinking behind it. so, if anyone out there can shed some light on this through personal experience or practical knowledge, i'd *greatly* appreciate it. now i know why people say this is so hard. not knowing what your emotions will do, especially when before at least you figured out a way to *cope* even if it wasn't great, it was known, y'know?
thanks all, tulip
poster:tulip
thread:26764
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000312/msgs/26764.html