Posted by circusboy on November 13, 2007, at 15:34:42
In reply to you have a point, but I think it's not so bad. » Questionmark, posted by rgb on November 6, 2007, at 12:25:44
> I've been on sertraline for half a year and it's still working fine. Though I agree that the beginning was the best (I had some really nice feelings starting on day 3, but as you say, not the stimulant-kind euphoria, actually it slightly reminded me of 5-HT2A agonists :) A major advantage over dopamine euphoria is that there is zero desire to redose.).
>
> Maybe the apathy will slowly creep up on me, but for now I will stick with the sertraline and see how it affects me /personally/.
>After swearing off SSRIs forever for the reasons above, I've started another trial of Zoloft. It was the very first antidepressant I tried (10 years ago now), and, nostalgia aside, I think it was the most effective.
Two concerns: I was very depressed then, and didn't respond until we'd gone up to 200 mg and added Li. My depression is closer to dysthimia now (with the fun recent addition of obsessive thoughts), so hopefully this time I can stay at a low dose and avoid the lithium. Also, the sexual side effects were terrible. Again, I'm hoping I can cope with them at a low dose (25 - 50 mg).
Way back then when my pdoc switched me from Zoloft to Prozac (after a brief and ill-advised stop in Serzone land), my mood was dimmer and flatter. Prozac was better than Serzone and the sexual side effects were minimal, so I kept coming back to it when depression would descend on me again and the other drugs proved unsatisfactory. I still thought of Zoloft as the best... but those sexual side effects!
I -- like you -- am hoping that Zoloft's affinity for the DA transporter will at least partially counter the DA dampening effect of long-term SSRI use. If I have to take Ritalin too, so be it.
But I think -- and again, hope -- that sertraline may be the only drug in the class that can prevent or stave off SSRI apathy. We'll see.
-cb
poster:circusboy
thread:793535
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071104/msgs/794873.html