Posted by King Vultan on June 7, 2004, at 8:14:23
In reply to Effexor XR user for a year + and still depressed, posted by oneamradio on June 6, 2004, at 3:40:05
There is a school of thought that people who suffer from long term severe depression may be helped more by drugs that focus on norepinephrine rather than serotonin. Effexor is a very effective AD that certainly has some effect on norepinephrine, especially at the dosage you are on, but its powerful blockade of serotonin reuptake still dominates the overall character of the drug. I think your non-response to Prozac, which basically only works on serotonin, is telling, and I would suggest considering a drug from another class. I am in complete agreement with Panda's suggestion of a TCA or MAOI.
Certain aspects of your story remind me of some of my own experiences, and I really do sympathize with you. Inspite of the frustrations you've suffered so far, you might want to consider that you are at least somewhat fortunate in that you have already obtained psychiatric care at a rather young age. I also suffered from depression in my teen years but was never treated for it, and this turned into severe anxiety in my 20's, and then an even more debilitating depression. I never saw a psychiatrist until I was 30, and by then, my life had suffered a great deal of damage. It's taken another 10 years and about 10 different meds to find something that works relatively well for me, which in my case is an MAOI (I also find TCAs to be somewhat effective). I used to abhor the idea of taking a med also, but that feeling has long since passed, since it's become abundantly clear that I can't get by without one. There is also much less of a stigma about taking antidepressants now than there was even ten years ago, with untold millions of people taking them, and my opinion is that most of them are not as depressed as you are.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:354204
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040602/msgs/354456.html