Posted by Sabino on June 24, 2005, at 17:16:28
In reply to Re: stopping lithium » Sabino, posted by yesac on June 24, 2005, at 10:46:38
Hi. One more. When you say it started to work after 5 weeks, how did it start to work? How did it make you feel versus the way you felt before it worked?
I was wondering if you experienced any startup SFX, and how long they took to resolve (if they did).
Have you tried the pstims for help with the attention issues yet? Hope you find some help for that. There're lots of things to try, as you know. The pstims, Parnate is said to be good for ADD too, if you want to hassle with the diet. There's Strattera, which I personally hated. Now that I have Lithium on board, I'd maybe go back and revisit a couple of the more activating ADs, like Prozac, which gave me an anxiety attack the first day I took it, at least that's the way I characterized it. The symptoms of what I call an anxiety attack, I think, are the same as what I've seen referred to as mixed states. Awful. But, maybe with Li I could possibly try that again. Parnate caused me a good deal of anxiety too, as did Wellbutrin.
The only ADs I had any sort of success with have been Zoloft (the first one I ever tried). For around 3 or so hours a day, my thoughts were razor sharp on that, followed by a crash for the rest of the day. Serzone, when taken really infrequently, caused euphoria for 3 or so hours, but it only worked like that if I hadn't taken it in a couple of weeks. When I tried to take it as prescribed, it caused a lot of mood lability. Remeron provided some much needed sleep, but did little in the way of mood improvement. And finally to Effexor, which I'm trying now at 150 a day, along with 15 Remeron for sleep. I really have to conclude that this has not really done the trick yet, although things seem to have improved since I started Li. I'm probably only doing around 400 or so a day of Li. I pushed it to 600 my third day, and I felt pretty mush-headed (that is to say, mush for brains).
All of which brings me back to asking how you felt when you say Li kicked in?
Good luck, whatever you decide to try. Let us know how it goes. It's always heartening to see someone that at long last finds some peace of mind.
poster:Sabino
thread:509665
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050622/msgs/518236.html