Posted by JKL on April 7, 2005, at 17:37:52
In reply to Do You Feel Meds Improve Your Quality of Life?, posted by Phillipa on April 7, 2005, at 1:02:58
I feel meds can improve life quality, have no effect at all, or make things worse...all depending on how well the particular med is matched to the individual.
In my experience trying tons of different meds, there are a bunch that sort of fix some problems a bit, but create other worse problems. There are a few that truly improve things a lot. The only way to find out is trial and error. We all respond differently.
Paxil...I was on it for a year. Horrible sleep. Horrible sex. But it rescued me from a deep scary depression and allowed me to go out and get a regular job and do real well at it.
Remeron...I was on it for a year. I slept awesome. And it kept me from a deep depression, but still left me not quite right. It improved life quality, but not enough.
Nortriptyline or desiprimine...they felt great in just a few days, but the incredible side effects or dry mouth and urination problems made it impossible.
Tons of other meds...either neutral on mood or worsened mood or bad side effects.
Zyprexa...ahhh, nothing has been better for me, in combination with st johns wort. I sleep great, wake up feeling decent, I have good drive and ambition at work, good motivation. I am comfortable in a crowd, first time in my life. I can approach important people and be completely at ease about it. I'm fine. No side effects. It took a while, but this is the winning combination that was like ten times better than anything else I've every tried.
Yes meds can improve quality of life. The trick is finding the right ones. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have sampled different meds for a few weeks each instead of months and gathered a list of those that I could tolerate and that had good initial effects. Then I would have focused just on those for longer term trials. I mean, I was depressed the whole time anyway, so what would it have mattered.
poster:JKL
thread:480990
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050404/msgs/481296.html