Posted by gpznos on January 26, 2013, at 17:16:05
In reply to Re: Hospital over, but med. advice seriously needed » gpznos, posted by ChicagoKat on January 26, 2013, at 15:21:20
> Hi gpznos,
>
> What other meds have you tried? Have you been on SSRIs or SNRIs or MAOIs? It does sound like the Nortriptyline is not doing anything for you. Maybe a different TCA would help, but in my personal experience, I failed one TCA and then none of the others worked either. But again, that's just my personal experience. How about Wellbutrin? Many people are successful on that.
>
> It would really help us all to know what other, if any, meds you have tried.
>
> And this is just an fyi, and it probably has nothing to do with how you are feeling, but I had ECT too, and afterwards, I felt really weird and kind of numb the way you described. It was a very unpleasant feeling. Like I said, probably not related at all, but I just thought I'd throw it out there. The good news is the weird feeling went away after a few weeks.
>
> Post back and share with us your med history, it will really help to know it. And there are lots of really smart people here who will be able to offer good advice. :)
> KatKat and all others, thanks for replying, here is my medicine history:
2008: started out on 50-60 mg Mirtazapin alone,
later that year Lexapro 10-15 mg was added. My mood was not stable at all and towards the end of the year Nort was added and I finally was at 15 mg Mirt, 15 mg Lex and 85 mg Nort, things were going okay at this time2009: after some time, I got tired of the way Lexapro made me feel so during the first 7 weeks I tapered the Lex completely and then gradually raised the Nort to 120 mg. But after a few weeks I decided to start on the Lex again, this time to 10 mg. Year ended with Mirt 10 mg, Lex 10 mg and Nort 110 mg (to reach serum level)
2010: I continued with the same formula until week 20 where I started a slowly taper until week 48. At this time I sadly ran into a new full scale depression and was forced to start all over again during December.
2011: I only slowly raised the dosages, hoping I could do well on only a minimum of meds. By week14 I was at 100 mg Nort, 50 mg Valdoxan and 3,75 mg Mirt. The Valdoxan was supposed to do a better job than the Lex did - it gave me this numbing feeling of being unable to be real happy.
However I am very doubtful in terms of the Valdoxan doing any good (but costing a lot) - it has very few SE but is there any effect at all?
At week 36 Lamictal was added as augmentor. In total this year was worse than 2009 and 2010.2012: Start of year 110 mg Nort, 37,5 Valdoxan, 7,5 Mirt and 50 mg Lamictal. The Lamictal did not do any real difference, so at week 25 it was removed. Instead I tried a small dose Abilify 2,5 mg (after reading about it here) and at first it seemed to work and the period week 32-44 actually was some of the most stable and normal weeks during the last 5 years. But the positive effect went away and I ran into a bad period, therefore I was afraid to continue the Abilify.
And one week later I crashed for reasons I do not know and ended in the hospital.Nort - being the backbone of my regime - has been doing something good for me but not enough. When reading through my notes I can tell that I was maybe more stable when the SSRI Lexapro was present. This drug was later replaced by Valdoxan which I do not know was/is working.
Wellbutrin I do not know, what is it?
I am glad to hear that this ECT-feeling probably will go away. But I am also suspecting the 750 mg Lithium to do bad things...
poster:gpznos
thread:1036514
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130124/msgs/1036536.html