Posted by vic80 on February 25, 2010, at 12:57:37
was given tianeptine (stablon) in december 2009 end for what to my GP appeared to be endogenous depression and anxiety. On his advice I saw a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression on Jan 08 2010. My prescription was a 10mg Escitalopram to be taken in the morning. I took this medicine as prescribed. The anxiety was taken care of in 10-12 days and in the 3rd week or so I felt its anti-depressive effect... I felt a little hyperactive, talkative and excited. This lasted for a couple of days, but the insomnia that came alongside made my situation bad. I had a bad bout of depression and also felt quite apathetic and strange in days to follow - anxiety was back too.
On 4th feb, Mirtazapine 15 Mg was added - as sleep aid and as anti-dep to augment Escitalopram. The Mirtazapine gave me good sleep no doubt, though initially I felt anger and agitation. In its 5-6th day my sadness started disappearing and a happy mood came over - mainly in the evenings. after 9 days on Mirtazapine-escitalopram combo - I felt suddenly like I have no emotions/feelings etc - it made me quite uncomfortable and wretched and I decided to cold-turkey on both meds. I think I dont know if stopping the drugs made much difference. I restarted Escitalopram on 20th Feb, and have been taking it for 5 days now. I do feel that emotionally I still feel blunted - I lack motivation - and have again started feeling dysphoric moods - without melancholic feelings - just very wretched and dumbed - i tend to blame it on some anger of not being able to feel all emotions - or perhaps(and hopefully) it is just my fear/belief that I have this so called emotional-blunting. I could call it lack of excitability - lack of full range of emotions.
I know it would be absurd to think, but could it be possible that the Escitalopram-Mirtazapine combo could have caused a permanent emotional-blunting effect?
I changed my pdoc yesterday - but he advised me to continue escitalopram 10mg for a week and added 0.25 mg clonazepam for anxiety (perhaps for my reporting of feeling irritable).
I have heard that benzodiazepines can worsen depression - cause dysphoria. This particularly makes me scared because past 2 days I have felt spells of wretched moods - adding clonazepam could worsen this?
I would like to know if Tianeptine could be added to Escitalopram in a hope to provide offset for emotional-blunting effect.I am in dire need to start a new life - not being able to be emotionally fully active would be surely unwanted. Plus my profession demands me to be creative and sensitive.
My escitalopram pattern has been:
8th Jan 2010 - 13 Feb 2010 - 10mg once daily
13th-19th Feb - None
20th onwards - 10mg once daily"PLEASE HELP
PS: could it be that its some learned assumption - I CAN have 'emotional numbing' - may be I have scared myself into believing so - perhaps - whenever I am to feel a strong emotion my sub-conscious tells my mind 'just keep it down' ??
poster:vic80
thread:937868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100216/msgs/937868.html