Posted by bournemouth on July 8, 2007, at 12:38:40
Hi,
I'm 21 years old and since the age of about 14 I would say I have been suffering some kind of mental health issues, its extremely cloudy trying to remember back all that time but I do remember feeling amazingly tired and sleeping all day off school for days. At the same kind of time I remember I really wasn't happy at school and was bullied and therefore probably quite anxious. I have also really never got on with my dad at home and I assume it was sometime around the age of 14 or before that I realised that I was gay and so that was another thing that I had to hide from my parents and kids at school. I was also quite isolated and spend most of my time alone.
Anyway my current symptoms which I believe are the same as I have pretty much for all this time without much variation are; I'm always quite tired and when I wake after a good nights sleep I still feel tired. I can sometimes end up sleeping for maybe 10 or 11 hours but usually its about 8. As I said I feel in a dream-like state, like I'm looking at the world through a bubble or a cloud I'm here and now but somehow removed from the world - derealisation. Terrible lack of concentration, and motivation, terrible memory. I'm also quite anxious and find it very hard to socialise and relax in social situations, I do avoid them and feel quite anxious just being around other people although my symptoms I guess are quite mental - I feel trapped, become panicked, I also get some physical symptoms.
Over the past several years I have tried Fluoxetine, Lustral, (I think I may of tried other SSRIs after this possibly Paroxetine) I don't feel any of these made any difference to how I felt and definitely didn't help with the derealisation symptoms.
Then more recently I attended the Depersonalisation clinic in London and was prescribed a course of Escitalopram with Lamotrigine after that failed to work it was followed by Escitalopram with Clonazepam which also didn't work. I'm not sure if it was one or both of these treatments but I felt incredibly groggy and wasn't able to function and after giving them a fair trial in the Doctors opinion treatment was discontinued.
Within the past few months I saw a Psychiatrist locally and was recently diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I tried Liothryonine for a several weeks which had no effect and am currently on Phenelzine. I was started on 45MG and strangely when I said I was feeling crap and actually feeling more drowsy, groggy with less energy, not leaving home at all, just wanted to sleep until it was gone the dose was upped to 60MG a day which unsurprisingly didn't help. After being on this dose for another week I decided to half the dose to 30MG and try and stop this medication and thats where I am now. I am not particularly happy taking antidepressants and feel that most of them seem to try and numb the situation where I really want the opposite! Admittedly I have only been on the MAOI for approximately 5 to 6 weeks at the 45MG dose but I really couldn't handle feeling that bad.
I wondered about trying some kind of stimulant or possibly amphetamine based medication I know this will obviously not help with the anxiety side of things but right now I have just had no motivation and been failing to attend uni or feel I could do anything really would this be a sensible thing to look into? Can you suggest anything else?
Thankyou for reading all this and I hope someone can help!
poster:bournemouth
thread:768434
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070630/msgs/768434.html