Posted by Scott L. Schofield on February 9, 2000, at 7:22:51
In reply to Re: How Do Prozac & Serzone Work Different?, posted by JohnL on February 9, 2000, at 4:34:45
> Prozac and Serzone both inhibit reuptake of serotonin. Serzone also has some norepinephrine reuptake inhibition as well. And Serzone blocks certain receptors, which theoretically aids sleep and sexual function as well as serotonin stimulation. Prozac doesn't do that. Sounds good in theory. But if it doesn't address the underlying problem, or influences something that isn't a problem to begin with, there will be negative results.
> I too got worse on Serzone. It's just my own theory, and my doc chuckled at it, but I think maybe in some people blocking those receptors is not a good idea. And in some people, increased norepinephrine will make things worse. Those are my own far fetched theories of why Serzone makes some people worse. Wild guesses. I guess it all depends on how a particular person's brain is wired. And what chemical imbalance exists. All that really matters though, I think, is accepting when something works or doesn't work, whether we understand why or not. So often we find that what works in theory doesn't actually work in reality for each person. And often a drug from a different psychiatric class works wonderfully, when more appropriate drugs didn't work at all. Only through medication reactions can we find the best fit and find a clue as to what the underlying chemical imbalance/failure/instability is.
I don't think you're ideas are far-fetched at all. Although your description is a bit simplistic, probably for the sake of keeping your explanation brief, they make more sense than anything else I've seen recently.
I know that Serzone is not as potent a serotonin reuptake inhibitor as are the SSRIs, but I'm not sure as to what order of magnitude they may differ. Prozac is a bit of a weird one. It appears to differ more from the other SSRIs as the others differ from themselves. It definitely has some properties that modulate noradrenergic activity. It probably has effects both pre-synaptically and post-synaptically at NE sites. It even seems to cause an increase in levels of dopamine in prefrontal cortex.
I thought that it might be a good idea to combine Serzone with an SSRI so as to potentiate the exertion of antidepressant effects. The only thing is, I worry about the occurrence of serotonin syndrome.
Any thoughts?
- Scott
poster:Scott L. Schofield
thread:20849
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000209/msgs/20890.html