Posted by bozeman on February 18, 2003, at 0:00:39
In reply to LEX: AN ENERGY ZAPPER OR not working?, posted by Dysfunk on February 17, 2003, at 13:09:48
> Interesting Bozeman. I think people who are athletes or work out regularly can find the energy and utilize it. For the average person, it is more difficult.
>Unfortunately I haven't made it back to being able to work out regularly . . . have been very ill plus depressed for several years, and "giving up" several hours of my day (to sleep) still has me feeling time pressured . . . though I must surely use time better than I did, it still feels like not enough. I agree it can be *very* difficult at times. And don't get me wrong, "feeling" better doesn't always equal "doing" better, in the physical sense of doing. Logistics, indecision, procrastination, and non-motivation can still be huge obstacles for me. At least now I have enough energy to *move*, when I can get past the (psychological) obstacles. Which I couldn't for a long time.
>
> The bottom line is that we all want to feel better. How long do we have to feel bad with side effects before we call it quits? How do we know if this is what the medicine is doing to us or this is how we are unmedicated? It is all so frustrating!
>Dysfunk, I really do appreciate your frustration at not being able to find something to help you feel like yourself. I have run the gamut of doctors and therapists, and at one time had given up on ever seeing a medical practitioner again, since at that time it seemed no one wanted to believe my medical problems were real -- they just wanted to label me "crazy". I just wanted to feel *human* again, as I'm sure, do you. Sadly, though, it is often not the first or third or even fifth medication, or the tenth doctor, who ends up helping us. It took me over fifteen years to find real, useful help. Supportive therapists I could find, but someone to understand and treat the biological side took much longer.
For what it's worth, my own road was actually made easier by my relative ignorance on some topics. I knew very little about SSRI's until a not-very-sympathetic doctor tried to prescribe me Paxil for a sleeping problem (that later turned out to caused by an airway blockage.) I looked it up in the PDR because I had never heard of it. The list of negative side effects was as long as my arm!! When I questioned him about it, he got angry, and we had rather loud words about his trying to treat a symptom and not the patient. Needless to say, I switched doctors. Fast-forward about five years. I'm with a much better doctor, who has done a tremendous job treating my medical problems, but she says to me one day, "You know, I think you're still not as good as you could be. Stuff still stresses you out that, based on your personality, really shouldn't, and then it hits you physically and threatens to undo the progress we've done. There's this new medication, it's an antidepressant of the SSRI type, has a very low side effect profile, if you want to try it we can. I think it might make you feel stronger, more like your old self." The "old self" she spoke of was prior to the accident that caused the chain reaction of medical problems.
I trust her judgement so I said, "Sure." I filled the prescription and took it home. But I waited a week to take it so I could do some reading. From what I could find, it takes six to eight weeks for an SSRI's effect to be fully felt, and sure enough, Lexapro has the most favorable side effect profile. Actually they kind of just skimmed over the side effects entirely, with a minor mention of sexual side effects, in the material I found. But since I had never taken an SSRI and didn't have any context for the side effects, I expected six to eight weeks to feel any positive effect, and never really contemplated negative ones. I guess this is one of those rare, weird situations where ignorance really is bliss. Because, in my ignorance, I didn't recognize the side effects as what they were. They started on the first day I took Lexapro but I didn't have a clue they were related. I naively treated each side effect as an unrelated occurrence, not as part of an (overwhelming) picture. (That's why it took me so long to figure out about needing more sleep while on Lexapro. I had no idea it was actually related to the medicine.)
I had hideous diarhhea for the first week, but attributed it to my "touchy" bowels (kind of like irritable bowel syndrome, but not quite the same - sometimes they get in a fit and don't know when to stop.) I took one large dose of psyllium and that stopped it within 12 hours. It didn't return. I dealt with the loss of appetite, the exhaustion, and the "lexapro insomnia", etc. the same way -- ignorantly and innocently, one symptom at a time, one day at a time, until I slowly disarmed each negative side effect that I encountered. I hadn't discovered PB yet, so I didn't have any idea that these symptoms were medication related -- I thought they were just "yet another" weird manifestation of my post-accident physiology, another "medical anomaly" for my me to solve. I guess I'm just used to fighting my weird medical history. My doctor laughs and tells me I'm the strangest patient she's ever had -- and means it as a compliment, because I stretch her knowledge on every visit with my weird problems. That does *not* mean that others will be able to, or should have to, do this side-effect compensation on their own.
I'm not saying that ignorance is a good thing, or that my approach would work for you. I'm reinforcing your statement that it's soooo frustrating that the medications work so differently for people, and that there's no sure-fire way to tell what's the right treatment for anyone. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer for your particular situation. I wish I did, because I'd love to be able to help you. All I can offer is, it seems that many of us do find some relief eventually (but I know that doesn't help when you're waiting for it.)
One thing I had to watch (for me, anyway) was to not be intimidated by other people's experiences. I had enough to worry about on my own. What I'm trying to say is, while PB is a wonderful source for support and some information, it can at times, for me, almost be counter-productive, too, in that reading all the posts of people having trouble with their meds would make me more anxious, if I hadn't already dealt with my negative effects. And since the people that tend to start threads (not always, but very often) are looking for support or assistance with a problem, the threads often seem slanted toward the negative, when just as many positive experiences likely exist -- just aren't being posted as new threads, if that makes any sense. So I have to guard against not getting anxious over other people's bad experiences with Lexapro, even having the "bugs" ironed out for my own treatment and the medication working well for me.
Best of luck to you, Dysfunk. You are absolutely right in that Lexapro may not be the med for you. But it does take a while. It was two to three months before I really felt anywhere close to *right*, again. I hope you find what will benefit you most.
bozeman
poster:bozeman
thread:140744
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030214/msgs/201343.html