Posted by WAKI on July 30, 2004, at 22:42:22
In reply to Re: Side effects different for anyone, posted by Donna Louise on July 30, 2004, at 6:06:57
Donna,
Hearing you sounds like a mirror image of what happens to me. Get fatigued, sit all day and sleep, watch tv and not be productive.
I'm glad i trusted my p-doc and stayed on strattera, i'm doing 80 mg per day. a proper dose is 1.2 mg/2.2 pounds.
I'm starting to get the hang of my fatigue. What i'm learning about myself is prozac, paxil, zoloft, effexor all did not work for me because seritonin is not my problem. Seritonin makes me sleep more. seritonin is what people need who don't feel happy and have excessive anxiety.
My depression is a straight forward fatigue and no energy. Basically i'm not sad.
The wellbutrin has Norepinephrine which is responsible for constricting blood vessels, which can increase blood pressure, blood flow through coronary arteries, rate and depth of breathing, and can relax smooth muscle in the intestinal wall.
Bottom line is Norepinephrine brought me to the gym, made me able to keep my heart rate up at full potential for easily an hour. I worked off 60 pounds of fat and am getting stronger every day.
My next problem was my mind is extremely "racey", thoughts go 100 mph and my short term memory was basically shot.
Concerta, ritlin just raced my mind more. Strattera has Norepinephrine which at the begining it raced my mind. But as time goes on the dopamine effect kicks in which affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain.
This is giving me pleasure again. The sertonin effect in the Strattera makes me sleepy. But the wellbutrin counter acts the sleepyness. We just adjusted ny dose and i have felt great the last two days. My mind has slowed down.
My problem why i was starting to feel bad was I tried to drop my lamictal. My private p-doc described to me lamictal was like a rocket booster. The lamictal appears to boost my Norepinephrine and dopamine levels which i think after 3 years of messing with these meds i am on to something.
My federal grant medical trial expermential p-doc really is pushing strattera at full to high dosages. I really trust his judgement and am going to use his full judgement and play out each side effect to solve them.
Personally for me provigal made me feel like i was receiving an electric shock. I wish i would have stayed on it more then a couple weeks because I probably missed its "wear in / normalizing period".
We set objectives, fatigue was first on the list which i believe is solved. My second was pleasure and memory. We are making progress here. I want to crank up the dopamine in the very near future because i need more motivation, pleasure and focusing ability. Hence we are going to raise strattera over the recomended limit after I normalize with what i got.
I have an advantage over most people. Because I am an expermental rat for the goverment. i get to see the p-doc once to twice a week and make adjustments as necessary. I then have a board of research scientists reviewing my status on a weekly basis. As you know most private sector p-docs wait about 6 weeks for each visit. I am so glad i got in this program.
If you have a chance to search the medical colleges around your area, look into their federally funded trials. Acadamia in my humble opinion is the only way to go because you have 10 times for people working on you and ten times better response to adjustments.
Anyway, everyone seems to have their own gig that works for them, which is cool if it works. I got in a real rut and srcrewed with meds for 3 years with little progress.
My main point for posting is i believe people need to understand they can miss a life changing opportunity if they back away from a med too early; or do not work it up to full potential and play out the side effects.
I for one am going to test meds to full potential from now on even if i have some bad weeks.
poster:WAKI
thread:353502
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040730/msgs/372538.html