Posted by kribensis on March 26, 2014, at 14:57:27
Hi all.
I have been reading this site for quite some time now (amazing, helpful posts!). This might be long and I appreciate all of you who manage to read this whole thing.My history: I am a 44 year old woman. History of anxiety/depression in my family. I have a background in natural health/healing and I eat well, exercise and do everything I can to manage my depression but natural things haven't been enough. I get lethargic, gain weight, turn to food for comfort, avoid people, lack confidence, etc.
I recall talking to our family dr about how I felt in my late teens, early 20's. She basically did not want to put me on meds but gave me no other suggestions either. I suffered for a long time before going to a walk in clinic one day and having a dr give me a prescription for an anti-depressant when I was about 24 years old. I had to try a few before I found one that works. It seems like the SSRI's do nothing or make me worse. The one that worked was Effexor. It seriously changed my life and that is not an exaggeration. I felt like I was normal for the first time EVER. I think I ever knew something was wrong with me during childhood but it wasn't until my teens that thing really went sideways.
Anyway, I was on Effexor for a few years and did really well with it. Very few side effects for me, my sex drive and ability to orgasm weren't affected. I had more trouble sleeping but as I sleep too much or just lie in bed when depressed, that was manageable.
It started to poop out and I would need higher and higher doses. I then got pregnant, stopped it during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. I was so afraid of the meds affecting my child that I struggled through it (in hindsight perhaps not the best choice but the one I made at that time). I nursed my child for 2.5 years (hard to get her to stop) but finally stopped because I knew I was really struggling and needed to get back on Effexor.
Again it worked well for me. I was on it for a few years, increasing the dosage as needed. It was starting to poop out on me, my dr tried adding in wellbutrin, had a negative reaction (more depressed). Went and saw a traditional chinese medicine dr who gave me a supplement for "energy", that was used with people with CFS. According to the label, it was a few herbs, nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. The herbal supplement was amazing. I actually weaned off Effexor and was just on the herbal supplement. I felt better on it than I did on effexor. I was on it for a couple of years before it was pulled by Health Canada because it was found to have traces of sibutramine and sildenafil.
I felt terrible after stopping, think I went through withdrawals. At that point though I still didn't know those ingredients were in the supplements, just knew that I couldn't get it anymore. Went through a couple of years of trying everything natural again and just sunk deeper into the depression.
That takes me to where I am now. Dr wanted me to try just wellbutrin on it's own again as he felt there would be less side effects. Didn't work for me. Weird nerve stuff happens to me, I felt about 30 minutes per day of a perk up, then just feel more irritable and have trouble sleeping.
Went back to good old Effexor, just for a week as when I was in getting the rx, dr mentioned Manerix to me. Had never heard about it but said he used to use it a lot with good success.
I started on Effexor regardless (said I would look into Maxerix) as I was really struggling and felt desperate. Effexor works really fast for me but this time I lost the ability to orgasm. Ugh. So I read about Manxerix and am going to try that instead and if that doesn't work, will go back to Effexor. Not being able to orgasm totally sucks but feeling depressed is even worse for me.
I have been off Effexor (that I only took for 5 days, 3 days at 37.5, 2 days 75) for 4 days now. My dr says it is okay right now to start Manerix based on the short time I was on effexor but from reading online, I think I need to wait longer.
Questions: Do I need to wait longer to start? Am struggling and would like to start the Manerix asap.
-From my story above and how well that herbal combo worked for me that had sibutramine and sildenafil, is there a different anti-depressant med that might work for me if Manerix doesn't?
I appreciate any feedback. I wish something natural would but have tried most things out there and nothing seems to help much or for very long. I also think I need a med that acts on norepinephrine as anything that just acts on serotonin (even effexor at lower doses) doesn't seem to do much. I tend to need something that is a bit more activating.
poster:kribensis
thread:1063268
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140307/msgs/1063268.html