Posted by tenuous on December 4, 2000, at 18:51:02
In reply to Re: jumping out of my skin on effexor, posted by Noa on December 4, 2000, at 17:33:45
I agree with Noa about contacting your doctor about this. ADs can trigger a full-blown mania, and it's not a pleasant experience. The manic symptoms can be controlled with the use of mood stabilizing drugs such as lithium, or the newer anti-convulsants (All should be renamed anti-manics). At a minimum you can get help sleeping by adding in 50-100mg Trazadone, which is a non-addicting anti-depressant that has a side-effect of making you really sleepy for about 4 hours; no druggy feeling the next day either.
I had worse insomnia than you described, but I didn't have serious concentration problems or any more jitters than usual. However, I have always had bouncing legs, fidgeting, distractibility, and forgetfulness so maybe I'm just used to it! The insomnia got better around the fifth week, but I continue to cycle through hypo-manic phases about every 6-8 days. I apparently have bipolar II, but I choose not to treat the hypo-mania because it is not currently interferring with my life and in the past, mood stablizers have triggered life-threatening depression.
poster:tenuous
thread:49908
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001130/msgs/49917.html