Posted by S.D. on June 6, 2000, at 19:08:19
In reply to Re: thanks / how it's goin' / supplementary whining, posted by SLS on June 6, 2000, at 10:30:13
>>I've got antidepressants that have eventually worked for me (at least for a while, but long enough to lift me out of The Pit) and at least one med that seems to work decently for Social Anxiety.
>
> Would you be kind enough to give some details regarding your medication regimen? I’m still looking for ideas.
>
------Absolutely. The first part is uneremarkable, but it gets a little more interesting at the end.
I'm not on an antidepressant currently, but I'll outline what I've been on in the past 20 months. (Note that this was not a highly severe/debilitating depression during this time.)Zoloft worked for me, starting to kick in after a few weeks. I don't think it did any good against SAD but I was given clonazepam (low dose) for a while to treat anxiety side effects, and I noticed that the stuff did reduce my inhibitions about speaking to my boss or in confrontational situations.
I quit the Zoloft and went with Parnate, which took I guess 3 months, including time to ramp up to 60mg/day. Again worked for depression, and no "apathy effect" setting in which was partly why I quit Zoloft. Quit it 12 weeks ago.
Here's the more interesting part, pharmaceutically speaking.
Was going to take the plunge with clonazepam/Klonopin but thought of Kava Kava. Maybe it was a Sign, that GNC had a bunch marked about 80% off.
It works! For me. YMMV of course. Side effects mainly were sleepiness for first few days, and itchy eyes. Supposedly doesn't have negative cognitive effects. 1000mg/day of 30% kavalactones preparation.
You can search for my posts a few weeks ago about kava kava if interested. Some more dosage info and links to more info sources.
It didn't transform me lightning-bolt style, or like Kramer wrote about in Listening To Prozac; maybe eventually it could. Hard to say how much it works because I have to experiment for a while with anxiety-inducing situations to really know, and I've trained all my life to avoid such situations in the first place.I would have stayed with Kava Kava except for an appt. I already had scheduled to talk w/ psychopharmocologist about Neurontin. So I started taking that (1200mg/day) and I think it too works. It's been about 10 days. Nearly zero side effects. I have a history of epilepsy and shyness/undiagnosed SAD in my family and this connection is why I was interested in Neurontin. You can search for my previous posts about epilepsy/SAD/anticonvulsant-med connection, and the one published study on Neurontin for SAD.
peace and health,
S.D.
poster:S.D.
thread:34862
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000603/msgs/36349.html