Posted by Catling on March 13, 2013, at 6:22:50
Hi guys,
I've used this site a long time as a reference regarding medications and I just want to start off by saying how much I appreciate you all sharing things here. It's really a help to others that you might not even know about.
I have been dealing with ptsd related major depression with suicidal ideation and bad anxiety for the past decade. I was on a stable med regimen for a while but my insurance situation changed and I can't afford the primary antidepressant that was working for me (brand name wellbutrin), so I've been getting help from the public mental health system here in New Orleans. I have a great shrink, but we've been having a hard time finding anything that will work over the past two years.
She started me on parnate (tranylcypromine) about four or five months ago for the depression, I am taking 20 mg 2x daily. While it has seemed to stabilize my mood and I am not having any suicidal ideation, the place it is stabilizing at I would still characterize as very depressed. I am also taking 100mg lyrica 3x daily for anxiety (which works well for me and I don't have any issues from it).
My shrink mentioned that she wanted to start me on an antipsychotic to see if it would augment the antidepressant effect of the parnate. We tried geodon first, which was not her first choice but mine, because I'd done some research online that suggested other patients had seen positive results from this combo. I did get incredibly positive results but one of the side effects I was having was unpredictable sleep. Even at the lowest dose of geodon taken at bedtime, I would sleep anywhere from 9-13 hours and then be groggy for a couple of hours after that. She said this response to the medication was very atypical and suggested that we try Perphenazine which she's had good results with adding in with an antidepressant for other patients. I didn't research it, I just took the medication because sometimes I just get tired of all the leg work, you know?
I remember from my prior research (but of course didn't bookmark it) that there has been some research which has shown that some of the older antipsychotics can cause diabetes. This is of particular concern to me as I am pre-diabetic. Did I make that up or is there actual research someone knows about?
The perphenazine even at the lowest dose is making me kind of groggy and out of it throughout the day. I'm needing a lot of naps and I am not getting any of the good moods/motivation that I had with the geodon. Yet I know one of my shrink's concerns is that she wanted to keep things more on the sedating side because of my sleep issues and my anxiety issues. So is there another anti-psychotic perhaps someone may be aware of that has similar properties to geodon and also shares a low side effect profile?
Sorry this got long guys, thanks for reading.
All the best,
Cat
poster:Catling
thread:1040193
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130308/msgs/1040193.html