Posted by hansi555 on March 27, 2009, at 7:26:34
After more than 13 months of treatment w. ADs of unipolar stress-released depression, I am trying to make some kind of status on my situation.
I have had no permanent relief with ADs, only some weeks feeling normal here and there and other weeks of depressed feeling, no lust no joy, not happy etc. etc.
I have been through remeron, remeron + lexapro and now nortriptyline, (I will possibly combine nort w. lexapro later as this could be the best for me.)
In the beginning more than a year ago, I had a lot of psysical symptoms when feeling down; could not eat very much, vomitting, very poor sleep, nausea.
These symptoms continued until late 2008; around this time I started taking small dose Nortriptyline and almost all the psyscical symptoms went away. And they went away earlier than the Nort went into action, this is worth remebering.
So when I have my down periods now it is more or less only a mood thing meaning I can eat, sleep, f*ck, work normal (I have been working part time since febr. 2008, now almost back on full time).
And my down periods now are more like not being able to get normal happy, my normal me. As if the medicine is working too much or maybe not working.
After a period of not being able to be my own self me, not real happy, it gets too much and I crack and have a crying spell over it.
Before, when only on remeron or remeron/lexapro I could feel absolutely normal for 2-3 weeks, then things turned and was mixed, ups and downs for a couple of weeks, then I was good again etc.
I asked my psychologist (not my PD) if my depression with ADs had been any different to other patients of hers w. depression not taking ADs. She said that she couldnt really see any difference meaning i was struggling as hard as patients NOT on ADs...
She wants me to quit the ADs sometimes soon.
She claims that serotonine can not be produced in the brain when taking ADs as these "take over", is this really so...?So I am thinking that in the beginning of my treatment, the remeron had no AD effect, so when the good/normal periods came, these would have happended anyway - when the down periods came, remeron was no real help. I have later on learned
that remeron really aint worth much as an AD.
Things did not really improve when Lexapro was added, just a lot of SE, still ups and downs.The last 4 months w. Nortriptyline I have been more stable and I have more or less no psysical symptoms.
But is this really just because of the Nortriptyline or is this just because I am generally feeling better?Ever since I started the Nortrip at a dosage of 85 mg and above (now doing 125 mg) I can see from my dairy that my main problem is that I cannot get real happy, it is a struggle, I feel grey, not real sad and not real normal/happy, sometimes I feel I am in a "fog". This feeling is so frustrating because when I was on these less effective ADs, the good periods were really good.
So I am thinking if I am generally better now (the psysical symptoms are gone) and the Nort is not really helping me but instead keeping me away from recovering?
poster:hansi555
thread:887227
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090322/msgs/887227.html