Posted by CleverNameInserted on January 6, 2011, at 14:59:32
In reply to Long Term SSRI Use Has Destabilzed Me, posted by NewQuestions on January 16, 2009, at 10:28:30
I'm a newbie. I tried to get all the way through this thread, but lost steam about half way through. I decided I was too overwhelmed when folks were giving advice to folks besides to NewQuestions. I hope this might be helpful to those in a similar situation.
So apologies if any of this has already been said:
I was on anti-depressants over a decade ago, Paxil,(I think generic)and only for six months. It was not helpful and made me feel like a zombie. It took several years to clear the zombie feeling, and by then my health was shot to *bleep*. I subsequently have had many of the symptoms you have had, and also many things are different about our situations. My feeling is that the SSRI contributed to dis-regulating my system; the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back among the causative factors which allowed other disease processes to take hold.
The advice I would tell you is to think of things in terms of AND instead of OR. It has taken a large number of medical specialists and several surgical interventions (body not brain) to get me to an even moderately good place. It seemed inconceivable to me a decade ago to have so many different conditions, most of which are unrelated enough that there is no real way to "treat the whole person."
Also, as my doctors and I have learned over time, learn to think WAY outside the box in terms of dosage and brand. Don't consider anything not useful until you have tried more than one brand, and everything from a tiny fractional dose to the maximum safe dose.
To recover, I found it useful to work on financial stability first. Being able to afford to try lots of types of treatment gives you greater chances of find the right ones.
After all this, it took over a decade before I was willing to try any psych meds again. And it wasn't actually my idea to do so, it was because I was hospitalized with a super-severe migraine that mimicked a stroke and they had me see a psychiatrist as well as a neurologist, and an attending hospitalist, so between the four of us, we came up with a plan that then was adjusted further by my GP.
I started on Wellbutrin, one 75mg pill divide into quarters, four times per day. No ordinary doctor would prescribe a dose so low, but my GP knows how strange my system is. No way I could have tolerated more than that to start. Now, I am happy at 400, but that took several months to get there. Even now I tried to change from 2 SRs to 1 XL and I got terrible nausea at the same dosage.
Best of luck.
poster:CleverNameInserted
thread:874312
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101231/msgs/976023.html