![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Keeta Orenda on July 11, 2005, at 0:40:07
Hi folks! :-)
I've been reading posts for a couple of weeks & have finally signed up to post myself. My name is Keeta & I'm a 40ish woman from the USA.
I've suffered from depression all my life. I have Depression & ADD-Inattentive. I've been on Disability due to the depression for 3 years. I've been on several medications & am currently searching for the right one. Prozac, Paxil & all those are terrible for me! They make me worse. Pamelor (or Nortryptiline) worked very well several years ago but for a very short time. At the end, it zonked me out pretty bad! Wellbutrin didn't do much for me at all.... numbed me out & then ended up causing a rash before getting off it. The one that worked the best & the longest was Effexor, but, I think it also is responsible for me losing my job & getting me on disability. Sleeping problems were pretty bad on it....I felt totally controlled by the sleep! I repeatedly was late to work cause I just couldn't wake up! The problem just kept getting worse & worse. But, I didn't realize it was the Effexor for the longest time! I blamed my bad diet, lack of exercise, & fat body for my worsening sleeping problems. I got on Disability & then my mental condition just got worse as I lost all hope of being a contributing productive human being again. While still on the Effexor, I woke up daily, or sometimes every other day, with a severe "hangover". In other words, there were many days I slept for 20 hours or so.
Anyhow, I finally quit Effexor cold turkey a week before Thanksgiving 2004. I also haven't had a full-time psych doctor for a few years now. I had someone who was semi retired & would just mail me prescriptions as I needed them & I would see him in person about once a year.
I've been on Adderall for several years, probably since about 1998. As I have doctors & then don't have doctors throughout the years, I've not always had Adderall available to me as that requires a paper prescription & can't be called-in or refilled, here in the US anyhow. I love Adderall! I works very well for me & also helps tremendously with energy levels. My old doctor would prescription 20mg of Adderall XR 4x a day....I wouldn't actually take that much but it helped to stretch out a single prescription beyond a month as he was the doc I rarely saw & it often took several calls/messages to get his assistant to mail out the prescriptions.
Anyhow, I've begun seeing a new doctor that is more available. He's only willing to prescribe 30mg Adderall XR once a day. I don't think it works as well, I mean, not even as well as 10mg less of the XR! Not sure what's up about that. Anyhow, this doctor has tried me on Lexapro....immediately felt irritable with that & didn't continue it. I've just tried Cymbalta. I had such high hopes for it! But, I quit it a week ago. I see my doc in the morning & will tell him then. I started out at 30mg for a week then went up to 60mg for the next 2 weeks. I never felt like it was working but had read in these forums that it might take awhile for me to feel the good effects from it. I progressively wanted to stay home & miss appointments. I could tell things were getting worse instead of better. And then last weekend, I stayed in bed all weekend practically but not really asleep....just kinda stared & didn't want to think or do anything. I think I was Lethargy personified last weekend!
Anyhow, so I decided then to quit it. I've not felt bad withdrawal like with Effexor at all. I only took a partial pill once & that's been it. Was actually quite surprised....I expected the withdrawal heck I went through with Effexor!
Anyhow, anybody got any ideas of what else I should try? I suspect that Serotonin is NOT one of my problems!! Maybe, I need a drug that works mostly on Noreprinephrine & Dopamine? *sigh* I don't really know much about these things. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks! :-)
Keeta
Posted by cherylann on July 11, 2005, at 10:04:48
In reply to Newbie Psycho Here! :-), posted by Keeta Orenda on July 11, 2005, at 0:40:07
I'm sorry I don't have much advice, as I'm in the same boat as you (as are many of us). But there are also lots of people here who are pretty darned smart.
Take care,
cherylann
Posted by ed_uk on July 11, 2005, at 13:31:57
In reply to Newbie Psycho Here! :-), posted by Keeta Orenda on July 11, 2005, at 0:40:07
Hi,
Have you ever tried desipramine? It's similar in many ways to nortriptyline but it's less sedating.
~Ed
Posted by Phillipa on July 11, 2005, at 20:47:31
In reply to Re: Newbie Psycho Here! :-) » Keeta Orenda, posted by ed_uk on July 11, 2005, at 13:31:57
Sounds a lot like me. When I went on disability it was great for a while. Then everything started to get worse. I feel the same as you do about not being worthy, etc. I'm going to try and go back to work. Baby steps. I feel this depression thing has a lot more to do with not feeling good about myself than with medication. Fondly, Phillipa
Posted by Keeta Orenda on July 12, 2005, at 6:31:15
In reply to Re: Newbie Psycho Here! :-) » Keeta Orenda, posted by ed_uk on July 11, 2005, at 13:31:57
> Hi,
>
> Have you ever tried desipramine? It's similar in many ways to nortriptyline but it's less sedating.
>
> ~EdNo, I sure haven't! I'll remember this when I see the doc. I had to reschedule for this Thursday. The interesting thing about Nortriptyline is that they were able to do bloodwork & could tell that I had HALF of the MINIMUM of the therapeutic dose for this in my body! So, why can't they do this test for all drugs??
Thanks everybody :-)
--Keeta
Posted by ed_uk on July 12, 2005, at 13:59:56
In reply to Re: Newbie Psycho Here! :-), posted by Keeta Orenda on July 12, 2005, at 6:31:15
Hi!
>So, why can't they do this test for all drugs??
Because the therapeutic range hasn't been studied well enough :-(
~Ed
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Medication | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.