Posted by contemplative1 on February 15, 2004, at 18:23:30
In reply to Medication Success Stories, posted by Mr.Scott on December 17, 2002, at 0:32:53
I agree with the sentiment. It is nice to have an equal amount of postive and negative feedback on a drug to muddle through as opposed to the horrifying experiences found here. Although I do understand the basic underlying motivation for posting when feeling awful vs not posting when feeling good.
My postive experiences so far:
Celexa -
Worked pretty fast and helped with social phobia and anxiety. Only side effect was lack of sexual desire. Quit after 1.5 years due to fact this drug is impossible to find in Costa Rica where I was living.
Paxil w/ Lithium to augment -
Loved this drug in the beginning as it did what Celexa did however with same sides and withdrawals were particularly nasty. I actually decided to go off this out of fear of the withdrawals. Logic being that it would be easier now than months/years later.
I was prescribed Prozac to ease the witdrawals and ended up loving it so much I stayed on it for awhile. And I experienced zero Paxil withdrawals due to the Prozac. I really want to emphasize the value in using Prozac to get off tougher SSRI's such as Celexa and Paxil.
Prozac -
Was the best of all worlds. Even though I was afraid that the activating effects would be too much for me, I actually found this to be motivating and soothing, a nice combo I might add. Covered what the above did without the flatness or apathy that tends to accompany SSRIs. The sexual sides were less. I added Lamictal to offset some of the hypomania and this helped.
Neurontin -
I was prescribed this for an essential tremor and it unexpectedly helped me tremendously with quality of sleep and anxiety.
I decided to go off Prozac and fair the weather without SSRIs for the first time in 5 years to see if there was a monster lurking below the surface as I cannot recall what I was like pre-SSRI. Prozac was much easier to get off of than Paxil and Celexa.
I went up on the Neurontin and began taking it during the day as needed. After 6 weeks without any sign of Prozac withdrawals I hit the skids. In the early afternoon I became short tempered and irritable and quite depressed. I found that going up on the Neurontin during the day helped but feared that this was masking the underlying problem not solving it. I convinced my psychodoc to let me try Remeron and after the first dose of 15Mg I slept 18 of the next 24 hours and 48 hours later, which brings me to today, I am still zombified.
The next thing on the list is Abilify or bust and go back to Prozac.
poster:contemplative1
thread:132098
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040215/msgs/313760.html