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Re: Giving up

Posted by Joe Schmoe on July 1, 2001, at 12:48:53

In reply to Re: Giving up » Joe Schmoe, posted by Rick on July 1, 2001, at 12:16:26

> Before settling on Xanax, did you try Klonopin/Rivitrol?

No. I don't take Xanax very often. I often go months without taking any, or only taking it once a month or so when things get bad. I am pretty functional in most situations, just not very happy. Klonopin sounded like more of a daily thing. I don't want to be tired or suffer cognitive impairment on a daily basis nor do I want to get addicted. Xanax seems better for crunch times like presentations and interviews. I would be tempted to try daily Klonopin if it weren't addictive, but I was addicted to Xanax once when I was first taking imipramine/Trofranil a decade ago, and detoxing from that was not fun.

> BTW, how long did you take Serzone, and how much did you take?

I slowly ramped up to 550 mg/day over the course of two months. All it did was make me a zombie and made my blood pressure so low I could hardly stay awake so I slowly ramped back down, so I was on it a total of three months at various dosages both coming and going. Extremely disappointing. It did not work at any dosage.

>it took a full twelve weeks before the Serzone started kicking in. With Serzone I think a lot of Social Phobics and their docs end up rejecting what could have been a big help just because they don't realize it can take quite awhile -- and a minimum 400 mg -- to kick in for this disorder.

You'll forgive me if I am skeptical about this. How on earth do you know what dosage to take if it takes that long for an effect to manifest itself? Trial and error with a three month gap between each change seems totally impractical. Doesn't this medication supposedly have a very narrow therapeutic window? How could you possibly find it if it takes that long? Anyway this drug made me very dopey and the dopiness did not wear off with time, nor did it help with the social anxiety at all. If anything it made it worse because people began to notice how dopey I was acting. My doctor was so startled by how low my blood pressure had become that she would not even tell me what it was for fear of scaring me.

> In the larger of the two open studies of nefazodone (Serzone) for social phobia, treatment benefit took by far its biggest leap between weeks 8 and 12!

I have read a number of Serzone studies but none of them were conducted over six weeks, at least none of the double blind ones. I am curious if you can give me a reference for this study. All the other drugs which work by serotonin reuptake effect and whatever that does to the brain seem to work in a couple of weeks. I don't understand why Serzone would take so much longer. Anyway I was on it for three months with no benefit.

> I know the meds merry-go-round can be damn discouraging, but don't give up!

Thanks, but I am pretty discouraged and don't feel like continuing to be a guinea pig for the pharmaceutical companies. Experimenting with drugs sounds like research, not treatment. My experiences so far have been so unpleasant that I have no motivation to continue with them.


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Psycho-Babble Medication | Framed

poster:Joe Schmoe thread:68599
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010701/msgs/68618.html