Posted by Paul on Long Island on May 12, 2006, at 20:41:07
In reply to Re: Prozac not my friend anymore. » Paul on Long Island, posted by blueberry on May 12, 2006, at 13:45:12
> Hi Paul on Long Island,
>
> To answer your questions...
>
> I was on 20mg prozac along with 5mg zyprexa up until Sept.
>
> This time around I am on 2.5mg zyprexa (about a week now) after being off meds for 10 weeks.
>
> In Spring of 2005 I was not depressed but rather flat and socially withdrawn. My GP said add st johns wort to the prozac and zyprexa, but reduce prozac to 10mg. I did. It worked fantastic. Best I ever felt. After a couple months it pooped.
>
> Upon weaning off sjw, all hell broke loose. Massive anxiety, emergency room panic attacks, severe body tremors and shaking, very scary. I could no longer handle coffee, or prozac, or marijuana, because they all became extremely overly stimulating. So all of a sudden I was withdrawing from sjw, prozac, and coffee all at the same time cold turkey.
>
> Later I found out more about sjw. It binds strongly to benzo receptors and is also a gaba reuptake inhibitor. Of the 30 or so symtpoms of benzo withdrawals, I had every one of them.
>
> I also found out sjw increases zyprexa blood levels by 300%. I should have known. My appetite had increased a lot, I had a strange tongue twisting thing happening, weird head twitches, just overall heavy antipsychoticness. My zyprexa dose was actually around 15mg - 20mg even though I was only taking 5mg. So in addition to withdrawing from eveything else, I was also cold turkey withdrawing from an antipsychotic.
>
> Put it all together and no wonder I was going 1000mph, tremors, and everything.
>
> Got on 7.5mg lexapro and 500mg depakote and 2.5mg zyprexa. Things calmed down, but I was considerably depressed. Doc weaned me off all of them hoping to go natural...5htp, tyrosine, all that jazz...which was a flop. Then 10 weeks with nothing.
>
> And here I am, now on 2.5mg zyprexa to end the aweful physical symtpoms...total anorexia...loud tinnitus, intense acoustic startle response, terror filled sleep. Prozac just doesn't feel at all like it used to.Wow!!! You've really been through the ringer! My heart goes out to you and my prayers are with you. I'm not clear on one thing though. You mention several times that "prozac is not your friend anymore" and "prozac just doesn't feel at all like it used to". At this point, are you ON prozac?
If you are, how long have you been back on it and at what dosage? And what does your doctor say about all this?
I've been very lucky so far. I've gone off prozac quite a few times, even tried other things, but I've always come back to prozac (that sounds like a commercial). But the thing is, it's always worked for me. There've been times when I had to have a higher dosage and other times I had a lower dosage, but one way or another, it's worked for me. (This is as much to reassure myself as to inform you...). Something else that could have something to do with it besides body chemistry, is what each of us is being treated with prozac for. I tend to suffer from mild to moderate depression and OCD. When I get very anxious, the OCD gets considerably worse. I've taken prozac with xanax in the past, although I usually would only take the xanax on an as needed basis. Not knowing exactly what your exact symptoms are, I can't get too heavy into a "mr know it all" routine :) but I can tell you that for my symptoms in the past, before I ever tried Prozac, I found a good deal of success with anafranil (tricyclic). If you've never tried it and some of your symptoms are similar, talk to your doctor. Well, obviously talk to your doctor no matter what. One thing I will tell you is that there are sooooo many different medications out there, varying from slightly different to a world of difference, and then there are combinations. You're gonna be fine, but it may take some experimenting. The only one of the other drugs you mentioned that I have any experience with is st johns wort. I took it for ONE day. Apparently, I was very lucky, in that I was not on anything else at the time. The reason I took it only the one time is that I immediately noticed myself getting kinda confused and losing focus. I'd really like to find out more about you and your situation. If you want, you can email me at: mattonLi@optonline.net I think it can never hurt to have a friendly ear or two (or a thousand). Feel good and take care of yourself. You're a very important person. Paul
poster:Paul on Long Island
thread:642910
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060510/msgs/643209.html