Posted by BLPBart on June 20, 2002, at 18:09:29
In reply to My Story (a bit long) » Chloe, posted by fachad on June 17, 2002, at 0:52:44
> >Hey, if you feel like sharing, what's your story?
>
> My story goes like this. For as long as I can remember, I felt like something was "wrong". When I was in Elementary school, I used to always ask my pediatrician if he would do blood tests, because although I did not have any specific symptoms, I felt like crap much of the time.
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> Today, that would probably be diagnosed as childhood depression, but then it was dismissed as nothing. The docs usually granted me the blood work, which of course always showed nothing wrong.
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> I had several episodes of depression in middle and high school, but I was brought up in a very fundamentalist religion, and I attributed my depression, which included crying a lot and not eating to "spiritual difficulties".
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> In my late teens in college I renounced all religious belief and much of my severe depression abated. But that feeling like crap most of the time never left me. I tried all sorts of things to feel better like exercise, good diet, vitamins and herbs, internal cleansing, etc., but nothing really worked.
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> In my late twenties Prozac came out and all the craze with "better than well" and "personality change" and etc. So I thought maybe I had been depressed all this time and that ADs would make me feel good and feel good about myself and that that ADs were what I had needed all this time.
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> So I got Prozac, first 20mg/day, then 40mg/day and although I took it for a year, it did not really help.
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> Then I came across an article that suggested that Wellbutrin was more effective in depression that was more toward eating too much and sleeping too much. So I got Wellbutrin. After a few months, I decided that the exhausted feeling that was really my worst symptom was not being helped, so I wanted to try something different.
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> My pdoc gave me Paxil, which is the shortest trial of any drug in my life. It just made me feel awful, and I quit it after three days.
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> I then asked my pdoc for desipramine; it is by far the most potent NE uptake med and it has the lowest values for H1, Ach, and other side effect causing blockade. I took that for about 3 weeks, and then I could not stand the dry mouth and constipation any more.
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> So my pdoc gave me Zoloft. It wasn’t too bad, and I was tired of trials, so I just took it for about three years. I was gradually feeling worse, but I never attributed it to the Zoloft.
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> Then on the old "Psychopharmacology Tips" that was the original site of Dr. Bob I read about the SSRI induced "frontal lobe" apathy syndrome. It is caused by the interactions between serotonin and dopamine, and it leads to lethargy, apathy, and fatigue. I realized that those problems had become much worse in me since I started taking Zoloft, maybe since I started Prozac!
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> About this time Effexor was just being introduced. It was being marketed as "Prozac Plus" and the NE uptake was supposed to be more energizing and etc. So I stopped Zoloft and started Effexor.
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> Effexor caused dry mouth for me, as well as constipation and sexual problems. I endured it for about three weeks then quit. Back then there was not as much awareness of AD discontinuation syndrome; but I suffered immensely from quitting Effexor.
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> While still trying to stay on Effexor, I had suggested to my pdoc to try Ritalin to both combat the sexual side effects and to reverse the SSRI Induced Apathy. Both ideas came from Dr. Bob's Psychopharmacology Tips.
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> Well, Ritalin really worked, but I did not see it at the time. After quitting Effexor, I started Serzone. It was not supposed to cause weight gain, or sexual problems, or sleep problems. I took it for a year or so, then I realized that the Ritalin was what was really helping me.
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> I quit Serzone and took only Ritalin for about 5 years. Those were the best 5 years of my life. I felt good, finally. My mood was good and I did not feel like crap. I could not believe how well Ritalin worked, and I was irritated that it had not been tried earlier.
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> Then I had a few severe psychosocial stressors, and was hit with another major depressive episode. I had felt that all the ADs I was on before were of questionable worth, but this was bad and I had to start something. I chose Prozac, because I had not remembered having any side effects, and I knew the patient was running out in about a month, so it would be dirt-cheap.
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> Within two days of starting Prozac, I had terrible insomnia. Then I realized that all that early morning awakening that was used to further confirm my diagnosis of depression was just a side effect of the SSRIs! So both the insomnia and the fatigue/lethargy which were considered part of my depression, were really just medication side effects.
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> Those two experiences, the SSRI induced apathy and the SSRI induced early morning awakening, have really given me a negative attitude about SSRIs. I am also on the alert for med caused side effects being mistaken for psych disorder symptoms.
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> Earlier this year I switched my pstim from Ritalin to Dexadrine. I felt like I needed something stronger to reverse the increased SSRI Apathy/Lethargy caused by the Prozac. So far Dex has been OK, but I actually think Ritalin is a superior med for me. Since starting Ritalin many years ago, I have overall felt much better, and pstims will always be my primary medication.
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> During the whole Zoloft/Efffexor/Serzone era I had taken doxepin for sleep as needed. I know this sounds odd, but when I started Ritalin I started sleeping so much better, and didn't need dox anymore until I re-started Prozac.
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> I didn't really want to restart dox because I had lost some weight and kept it off for awhile, and I did not want the weight gain risk that comes with so many psych meds, including TCAs.
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> So my pdoc gave me Ambien. It really knocks me out, but it wears off after about 4 hrs. So I went back to dox for awhile and did OK, no weight gain. Later, I tried Ativan, but it left me groggy and melancholy the next day. Then I came across the trimip articles, and that's where I'm at now.
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> I think by the end of the year I'll be able to discontinue the Prozac and the trimip, and be back to just Dexadrine.
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> If the idea of stimulant monotherapy for depression seems odd to you, take a look at a few other postings I've done on this board.
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> Ritalin for SSRI Induced Apathy Anergia:
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> http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020307/msgs/97130.html
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> Ritalin is not marketed as AD:
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> http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020307/msgs/97442.html
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>
> Re: Dexedrine Tolerance? A Theory:
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> http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020215/msgs/94906.htmlHi Fachad,
I just read your story and wanted to comment because mine is similar. I remember as a kid always feeling "different", sort of like I was looking in at the world from the outside and always feeling melancholy and down. I realize now that I was extremely depressed all through college and it's amazing to me I even finished. As an adult, I continued to have that different feeling and always felt like I didn't fit in and could never feel as happy go lucky as other people. A couple of years ago, after some very stressful years of trying to deal with infertility and some tough issues at work I was diagnosed with depression. The way it hit me was I was teary all of the time and I got extremely lethargic. I remember feeling like the walk across the parking lot at work seemed like an incredibly difficult task, not to mention just getting up in the morning.I was started on prozac which actually seemed to help for a while. Then I quit the prozac which was dumb because I crashed pretty hard. I went to a new doc who put me on prozac. It seemed to help again with the mood, but I was really starting to gain weight from it so when I mentioned this to my doctor he switched me to wellbutrin. After being on the wellbutrin alone for a while, I had an incredibly horrible week which coincided with when I would have PMS so my doc thought that was what it was and put me back on a low dose of prozac (10mg/day) in addition to the wellbutrin. Again, this seemed to help for a little while but a few months into it I had some horrible side effects from the combination. I started having menstrual irregularities, joint pain that felt like arthritis, muscle pain, horrible fatigue so bad I would sometimes sleep entire days away, and a return of the depression that was not related in any way to PMS.
At that point my doc took me off the prozac entirely and we decided to wait until it was totally out of my system to see what to do next. During the 5 weeks that we were waiting for the prozac to completely wear off, I started doing a lot of research here on p-babble. I came across some of your posts and others and talked to my doc about stimulants. He agreed to try it and I've been on dexedrine spansules since January and I feel better than I have in a very long time. What is adding to that is it has helped me lose the prozac weight and I have the energy to keep up with a regular workout program which I wasn't able to do while on the prozac. IMO, dexedrine has done wonders for me where the anti-depressants have either been extremely detrimental (as in the case of prozac) or of questionable efficacy (as in the wellbutrin).
Just thought I'd share my story plus ask a question. Just a few weeks ago I started having a strange side effect from the dexedrine that I have not experienced before. Several hours after taking the dex which can range to up to 9 - 10 hours later, I get this very strange sensation in the back of my throat that makes me feel a constant need to swallow and I feel a pressure in my sinuses and ears. I have no idea what that is. It's more annoying than anything and was just wondering if you had experienced anything like it.
poster:BLPBart
thread:108844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020617/msgs/110352.html