Anti-Depressants and their side effects
 

Hi

I've recently started anti-depressants... I was literally unable to sleep last night and I'm experiencing extreme nausea, I've reduced my dosage, but I'm in such a great deal of pain from the nausea and the stress and I'm losing my mind... I really have no idea where to turn anymore...
Can someone please help me?

...

Shouldn't you be talking to a doctor about this?

It was Sunday and the emergency staff refused to give me his number.
Like I said, I reduced my dosage... I just need someone to be there for me because I feel very alone at this point... before the anti-depressants I didn't feel like anything, but now I can think more clearly and I realize how much pain I'm in and I really just need someone to pat me on the back and tell me everything will be okay.

So you went to a Goth forum on the Internet, where you have like, six posts?

I'm not looking for medical advice... just to see if anyone has experienced the same thing and maybe what they did to get through it...

Well, as anti-depressants don't usually work the way you're describing, I'm 90% certain you're a troll.

On the offchance that you're not, Gnet is not really the best place to come for a sympathetic shoulder, nor should it be.

There are tons of medical forums dedicated to anti-depressants and their side-effects on the internet. I'd recommend checking them out. People there will be more receptive to your questions, and far better able to answer them.

If you aren't a troll, you don't want to be talking to a bunch of anonymous goths about stuff. You want to be talking to real people that you know, or a community more specialized to your specific question.

I assure you I'm not a troll, I know how anti-depressants work, I did much research and I sat down with the doctor and he explained to me the influence it has over and my serotonin count and what that allows me to be able to do.

Yeah like every girl I date is on them, none of them can sleep. You need more meds for that but they'll ruin your appetite so you'll need more etc, honestly people should just chill the fuck out and use nice safe illegal drugs.

Anti-depressants shouldn't be affecting you like that, at least not an SSRI, you're either having a bad reaction or you're on something else. Either way you are having a medical problem and need to talk to a doctor and no emergency staff should be refusing you medical attention. Also you should never just randomly change your dosage without consulting a doctor (did you split the pills or something cuz it isn't like you take more than one at a time), if you had a reaction like that you should have asked the emergency staff to see if it was okay to stop taking it all together.

Agreed. Most of the meds I take now are either for pain or sleep. And I just got a dosage upped because I can't sleep. I'm with Ely as far as the nice safe illegal drugs.

I agree with Solumina, if anything the anti-depressants I used to take made me sleepier as a side effect, which was a good counter to the fact that like most autistics, I have sleeping problems.

Anti-depressants made me depressed. This world is depressing enough. They aren't proven to be very effective over-all even when you're depressed. But I dont have depression so I can't say what it's like. I used to have it, I think I stopped feeling depressed.

Why were you on them if you weren't already depressed? The only things that they are approved to be used for are mood disorders and anxiety disorders.

Bwa? They certainly have been proven quite effective, they just work best when used along with therapy. Unless you are talking about off label uses like treating fibromyalgia, but that has nothing to do with how effective they are for their intended purpose.

What do you mean you stopped feeling depressed?

I have heard of antidepressants being used for things like obsessive compulsive disorder or fibromyalgia, and have experienced a really bad reaction that included worsening of symptoms and vomiting.

I was taking two medications (not a contraindication, I'd been directed to take both at the same time), and when they made me sick I just went off them cold turkey. By the way, this is NOT recommended - do NOT do this as it can make things worse. I only chose that option because I was feeling so ill that I was unable to even keep water down. I think this is very rare though.

I also found that I didn't feel any happier on the ones I tried, just sort of flat and zombied out.


Seconded on Gnet not being a great place to vent.
First of all, while some goths may genuinely have depression - most of the strong 'Goth/depression' association comes from people playing on stereotypes... secondly this place doesn't really do hand-holding very well. (A better bet would have been a forum for sufferers of depression.)


But anyway, someone has had the same experience as you and I hope you're travelling much better now. I'd recommend talking to your prescribing doctor often, with frequent review of medication. Therapy also helps.

Well the possibility is that I wasn't depressed, but experiencing apathy either from an anti-psychotic or schizoaffective disorder. But I started taking Strattera--which is for adhd, and it gets rid of my negative symptoms such as flat affect and fatigue. I guess it's hard not to be critical, but it's also hard to stay on top of it and continue to take medications to treat a disorder sooo misunderstood. My teachers come up to me and say they don't think I have schizophrenia or schizoaffective but Bipolar. My psychiatrist says schizoaffective is less severe than full blown Bipolar or full blown schizophrenia, but I don't know for sure. I haven't been back to the hospital in six years. I take something that's also used for Autism, and I'm starting to think it was Aspergers...but parents don't think the label itself matters and my psychiatrist disagrees based on history. She said I was hospitalized many many many times, quote...but I have only been hospitalized 3 times, in the same period about. Once when I was 15 and then 17 at 17 it was for breaking a cup, and my mom lied and my dad lied to get me support so they exaggerated everything.

I talked to an M.D. who also thought schizophrenia mant multiple personalities. I don't get depressed, I get apathetic because of side effects.

Nausea was a side effect for me. Most times it was sudden, which was really inconvenient.

Well unless you're a bulimic model, I doubt nausea could ever be convenient.

Lol, well actually it does come in handy when I'm in a bad mood. Kind of mellows things, ya know?

Nice123456

Talk to your psychiatrist please, NOT a hospital or private practice doctor. I should rephrase that... they're ALL doctors but make sure you're seeing a psychiatrist for mental/emotional illness medications.

My psychiatrist put me on this one crap, prozac or something, and that completely destroyed my sex life. I felt like a fucking zombie, it was horrible. But then he put me on something that also helps my ADD and - so far - doesn't seem to conflict with my hormones. So far things have been real good! My anti-depressants CAN cause sleep deprivation, apparently, but I haven't really experienced that aside from my bad habits of staying up really late. I usually take them in the morning... so ya.

Anyway, if the doctor isn't a Psychiatrist, a specialized psychiatric M.D., don't bother getting prescribed psych meds from them. They may think they know what works for you and what doesn't? But they really don't. Some psychiatrists are actually really bad at their jobs, when it concerns medications, so don't stick with one psychiatrist if you don't think their treatment is working.

Sounds like Celexa which I've heard makes some people sick; it gave me bad nausea for about an hour or more after the two times I tried it, which is why I didn't take it after that.

Talk to your doctor. It sounds like whatever anti=depressant they have you on is not the right one. I tried Zoloft when recovering from hypothyroidism and it just made me slightly irritated at everyone and they lowered the dosage. I took it awhile longer, but I did fine without it. Probably without it.

Effexor and Zoloft both stopped me sleeping. I became so tense it was impossible.
As for effectiveness, nearly all anti depressants are known for increasing suicidal tenancies in those under 25. And they are playing around with chemical balances when they don't know what the imbalance is. Google gives me 25 TYPES of anti depressants (not brand names, different drug). Taking the wrong kind will, best case scenario, have no effect, but more likely, make things worse. You have to stick with a certain med for about 6-8 weeks to get over the initial side effects (so it can get worse even if it is the right drug) before a doctor can really judge anything. From personal experience and that of others I know, if the initial dosage does not help, they usually up it before trying something else.

So, you have a 1/25 chance of finding the correct chemical imbalance first try (assuming that is the cause and it is not entirely situational depression). In the event you get the wrong choice, you will have 6-8 weeks of hellish side effects,, another 6-8 of increasing dosages, before 6-8 of gradual weaning off before trying something new. During this, you are probably going to need other meds to get through the side effects. Personally, I had vallium to sleep, maxalon for the nausea, and still wasn't functional.




So to who ever said anti depressants are very effective, maybe only in clinical trials. On the general population, they aren't worth the hell.
I live in a country where I pay $2 for my prescriptions, I don't know why those in a certain other country would try.

Erm no, that isn't how it should work at all. If things are made worse by the drugs you should tell your doctor and they should immediately do something about it, either changing your dosage or switching to a different drug. Also, while it does take 4 to 8 weeks to see a drug's full effectiveness, you would only play with the dosage if it seems to be working and very few antidepressants would require you to be weaned off of them, plus if something doesn't work at all then there are a limited number of different drugs to try, yes there are dozens of different drugs but not all that many different drug types, if something kind of works then you try a different drug that works on the same neurotransmitter(s), if it doesn't then you try one that works on a different one. It really sounds like you are being treated by a GP and not a specialist who really knows what they are doing, which is unfortunately quite common, not just with depression but pretty much all of the "common" psychological disorders.

That sounds about right. It felt like a couple weeks, but it was about six months before realizing it was no good. At the lowest dosage there was nothing to ween.