Posted by MB on December 30, 2001, at 20:59:36
In reply to Re: GABITRIL (tiagabine) new anti-anxiety drug????? » MB, posted by Mitch on December 29, 2001, at 8:36:28
> > What about Neurontin + Adderal and just increase your Kolopin dose until the anxiety from the Adderall is tolorable? Or does increasing the Klonopin too high cause other problems? Klonopin can make you depressed, can't it?
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> You bring up something that I had thought about since that experiment. I was just taking Neurontin+Adderall (nothing for panic). It seems that everytime I try to get off a serotonergic med I start getting very, very, anxious. And that anxiety keeps me so preoccupied (OCD-like), I become somewhat socially chilly and unspontaneous. Then, that sets the stage for panic to creep back in. Everything else is just fine however. I slept excellent-not too much or little, no interrupted sleep. I was focused all day long and not drowsy, yawning, forgetting where I was at work, etc. Everything was just a bunch of little tasks to complete, one at a time-no procrastinating. Time even had this very discrete "unitized" feel about it-I did't have any *big* ideas really, just a lot of smaller task-oriented ideas-no hypomania or grandiosity. I didn't experience *any* mood cycling at all. Ordinary everyday events didn't seem *boring* any more-it was just stuff to do. That's when my pdoc was convinced I had ADHD (but still believed I was also atypical bipolar). The problem is I need some form of serotonergic med for my anxiety probs., but antidepressants trigger cycling. I wonder if Neurontin+pstim+Klonopin (mildly serotonergic) or Neurontin+pstim+Lithium would do the trick??
Yeah, Maybe the benzo/AE/pstim (Klonopin/Neurontin/Adderall) would work to fix cylcing, anxiety and attention problems...but you did mention that your anxiety was "OCD-like" for which an SSRI might do better than Klonopin (but, like you said, you risk cycling with the SSRI). Neurontin/pstim/Li? Does the lithium have an anti-anxiety effect for you? Would the weight gain issue with litium worry you?
> My mood cycling is approximately 20 days. There are people that have cycles in less than 48 hrs (ultra-rapid cyclers). As far as the situational element of it goes-you can figure that out by mood-charting (faithfully). You will see the pattern emerge. I thought a lot of my cycling was situational-but when I got the paper and pencil out and start keeping track-a very persistent pattern emerged. That is an entity that is separate from the seasonal depressions. It still happens-it is just the "baseline" drops considerably.
Journaling or charting is hard for me. First of all, focussing is hard, and then, when I *do* focus, I obsess over the perfection of the chart...as if a mistake is going to be the end of the world. For now, my poor friends can be my journal. I babble at manic length about where my mind is and what meds I'm on...then I ask them later what I said. Very inaccurate, but if they make a mistake I can get mad at them instead of myself < g > heh heh heh...
> I definitely experienced an AD+improved attentional effect from the Trileptal. That "crash" is probably the short half-life of the Trileptal (you need to take it two-three times a day to keep a fairly steady level). Go slow on the titration! It sounds like your pdoc has figured out that you are going to be a little med-sensitive-that's a good sign.
> good luck,
>
> Mitch
Yeah, I though Trileptal was screwing with my concentration, but it was the caffeine withdrawal. I ran into a stressful social situation (resulting in a 4 hr drive) so I slipped off of the coffee wagon . The concentration returned (but so did the anxiety). I start my caffeine detox again tomorrow so I can enjoy the leveling effects of trileptal without the caffeine anxiety. On the trileptal, my chronic negativity and cynicism are gone (only at 150 mg), but there is still a painful dysphoria. I guess the AD and pstim will help with that. Amphetamine still seems scary to me. Did you find Adderall addictive at therapeutic doses? I was addicted to crank as a kid. I told my doctor that (that I was scared) and he said that at therapeutic doses I wouldn't be getting "high" and would have no desire to abuse it. Do you think that is true?MB
poster:MB
thread:86944
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011222/msgs/88294.html