Posted by Elizabeth on July 8, 2001, at 15:26:41
In reply to Re: Weight gain and SSRIs, posted by aetherial on July 8, 2001, at 11:47:37
> I have been on a calorie resticted lo fat eating regime: Strict then semi- veg etarian hi fibre, etc etc. (I was a healthy hippy type in the 70's and kept the habits).
Have you tried a carbohydrate-restricted diet? (Atkins, etc.) A lot of people I know who have weight troubles from psych meds say that kind of diet really helps them.
> I am not a fitness fanatic but my BP is 126/80 and I'm 44.
That'd be quite good for a man, but it's pretty good for a woman too.
> For the last four or five I've been even more careful as I approached and hit the magic forty.Despite this, in the last two years I have put on 2-3 dress sizes and 4 stone (56 pounds or 20 kilos approx). The only thing I am doing differently is taking aropax (paroxetene/paxil)
I have heard a lot of weight gain stories related to paroxetine -- more than the other SSRIs. Have you considered switching to a different SSRI, or perhaps to nefazodone? (What disorder are you taking the paroxetine for? Another SSRI is about equally likely to help, but different classes of drugs may not work depending on what's being treated.)
> Clearly eating more and doing less is NOT the only cause of weight gain. The resting rate of our unique metabolism is affected by all sorts of things, so why not by complex drugs like SSRI s.?
The only thing I can say here is that the effect is centrally mediated, and there's a lot more variation in human brains than in other characteristics. And that's why SSRIs have such widely differing effects on different people.
> But PLEASE, don't try to tell us that we need to eat less and do more, cause it just doesn't work!
Yeah, I hate when people say that too. :-)
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:59947
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010708/msgs/69413.html