Posted by ZeitGuest on July 2, 2006, at 3:41:21
In reply to Re: 3 months on EMSAM - My take on it » Jakeman, posted by RobertDavid on July 2, 2006, at 2:25:17
Hi Robert,
Glad to hear that things are going so well for you on Emsam and Klonopin.
I'm still on Emsam (week 8, the past two weeks at the 9mg dose), but it's not really doing much for me, other than causing anxiety and irritability and anger outbursts. This week I began adding Klonopin (25mg/day, taken at bedtime), but so far it's merely made me feel drowsy and slow-witted during the day. I'm planning on increasing the dose, and hoping that the foggy effect will subside in time.
You referred to Klonopin as the go-to drug for social anxiety. I'm still not clear on the precise effect Klonopin has on S.A. In other words, I'd like to know whether its main action is simply a matter of dampening the fear response in social situations, or whether it also has a separate, positive effect on verbal fluency, word recall, and verbal reaction time -- all of the verbal cognition skills that allow sociable people to easily engage in the give-and-take of human interaction.
Here's why I ask: One of my big problems in social situations is that my brain just doesn't make neural connections quickly enough for me to participate in conversational badinage, small talk, and all the other cues necessary for social participation. When I first tried Prozac (prior to poop-out), I really did experience what Peter Kramer in his book, Listening to Prozac, referred to as increased "quickness of thought." It was definitely an amazing and thrilling phenomenon, to suddenly be able to joke with my co-workers, attract new friends, make smalltalk with strangers, *connect.* I'm convinced that the Prozac effect was much more than the med simply reducing my social fear response and thereby freeing up my formerly nervous mind to think more quickly and creatively. I believe that my neurons were actually firing faster, making more connections, reacting to verbal stimuli more quickly than before. (I've read testimonials from people on Nardil -- which I've never tried -- who have experienced a similar effect.)
Unfortunately, Emsam has done nothing to increase my thinking speed. In fact, it seems to have done quite the opposite: hampering my short-term memory and verbal fluency. I now often find myself struggling to summon the right word to complete a sentence. (Wellbutrin had the same effect on me, so maybe too much dopamine is not a good thing for my brain). BTW, these congnitive troubles began before I started taking Klonopin, so I'm fairly certain the culprit is Emsam.
So, Robert, I'm wondering whether Klonopin at your optimal dose affects you as Prozac early on affected me--i.e., not just dampening your social fear response, but actually enhancing your cognative social skills, i.e., "quickness of thought," word recall, verbal fluency, mental elasticity, etc.
Thanks in advance for your response.
Zeitguest
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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060701/msgs/663443.html