Posted by schleprock on May 12, 2012, at 20:26:03
I've been lurking around this forum on and off over the last few years, but now I could really use some help!
I suffer from chronic anxiety\depression, and have been on nortriptyline for the past 20 years (started at 200mg; the last 10 years I'd alternate between 100\150mg every other night). The first 17 years I was relatively stable, but things began to unravel when an interim psychiatrist I was briefly seeing convinced me to try switching me over to 1200mg of lithium. Unfortunately, the only results of this very brief "experiment" were me suffering uncharacteristically severe panic attacks. The lithium was stopped, and I was put on clonazepam (initially 1 and 1/2 mgs, I think) and atenolol (12.5 mg) to control the anxiety.
To get to the point, I felt like crap on the extra medications (to the point were I'd rarely go outside), gradually weaned myself off of them, and finally started to feel pleasantly normal for the first six months without them. Then about two months ago I suffered a severe panic attack in the middle of the night, then two weeks later the slightly more typical persistant, lingering anxiety and depression.
Since then, I've tried upping my nortriptyline dosage from the nightly alternating of 100\150mg to a steady 150mg (I employed a similar strategy when I was briefly only taking 100mg and began to experience issues.), and a brief return to atenolol, which only seemed to worsen the depression. For the past couple of weeks I've seemed to be suffering from a cycling, off and on depression, not unlike how I remember feeling just before I've started taking nortriptyline. I felt great the first few days of the atenolol, but now the depression is returning and I'm starting to get worried!
My biggest fear is that now the nortriptyline has just stopped working for me, and I'm really paranoid about switching over to something else! In a few days I'll be seeing my present psychiatrist, and I was hoping I could get some suggestions for what my best options are. I think I'd be more comfortable either augmenting (or increasing) my current med or switching only to another tricyclic (after my first year of nortriptyline I tried switching over to prozac, but had to quickly go back.) I'd even consider going back to clonazepam if it would help with the depression. I'm hoping that someone out there has had a similar experience and found a successful solution.
poster:schleprock
thread:1017798
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120508/msgs/1017798.html