Posted by JohnL on June 5, 2000, at 5:12:39
In reply to Side affects associated with Prozac, posted by DRE on June 4, 2000, at 12:29:47
> Recently I began to taper off Paxil 40mg daily treating my anger/anxiety moods as well as depression, in order to switch meds to Prozac 40 mg daily. (A suggestion by my Dr. after my complaints of weight gain). I am experiencing horrific dreams - to the point that I woke up and called 911! I wake up with these dreams now in panics and can't distinguish if what happened was real or not because I become so disoriented. Could these disoriented feelings of reality be due to the change in medication? Other meds that I am taking are Ambien to sleep and Clonazepam .5mg every 6 hours when needed.
One of Prozac's more common side effects is sleep disturbance. I don't know if that's related or not, but it wouldn't surprise me. It also is notorious for increasing plasma levels of other meds you are taking, so that could be a factor to consider too.
In your shoes I would approach Prozac more gently. For example, empty a 20mg capsule into juice, stir, and drink half of it, put the rest in the fridge. Skip a day, then stir and drink the other half the next day. Then take 20mg doses every other day instead of daily. Work up to 20mg a day. I wouldn't go up to 40mg until after giving 20mg a fair chance. More often than not, if 20mg doesn't work, higher doses won't either. More often than not, you'll get more side effects but no more therapy. Of course, there are some anecdotal cases suggesting doses as high as 160mg to 200mg are needed for some people, and there is one controlled study that showed 60mg was better than trying to augment 20mg with a second add-on medication. But generally speaking, if 20mg doesn't do the trick then higher doses aren't that often any better.
I question the whole approach with Prozac too. It has a reputation for activation, anxiety, and agitation. If you look it up in literature, you'll see these are the more common side effects with it. It doesn't mean they'll happen, but they are more common. I can't understand why someone with anger/anxiety would be prescribed Prozac. That doesn't make sense to me. I would think it would just make things worse, not better.
But we're all different. No way to predict. Keep us updated. Let us know how it's going.
JohnL
poster:JohnL
thread:35975
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000603/msgs/36073.html