Posted by jrbecker on March 14, 2003, at 13:23:53
In reply to severe depression from Lexapro - any suggestions?, posted by okpolosi on March 14, 2003, at 6:46:57
many people are not finding relief from Lexapro and are finding that an increase in anxiety, nausea, and fatigue are making their symptoms worse. I spent a few months on Lexapro and believe that it is not an improvement on Celexa in terms of mood effect. I have since moved back to Celexa and have confirmed my belief that it has superior mood-lifting properties.
I would suggest you explore a couple of options:
1) Ask your doc to maybe prescribe Remeron as an adjunct. Remeron is a completely different AD and would seemingly play a perfect complimentary role to Lex. It antagonizes 5HT2 and 5HT3 receptors as well as alpha-2 antagonism (NE). A lot of the effects that you are feeling (e.g., nausea, fatigue, agitation) are caused by the Lexapro itself. Remeron has a great AD effect as a monotherapeutic agent and even better as an adjunct. If you decide at first to take it, you might have issues with somnolescence, and increased appetite [a good thing for Lex takers] but these effects are mostly transient. The majority of people report more energy on it after a couple of weeks because of its effects on NE, especially the higher the dosage you take.
2) The second option might be to try Effexor or Celexa if you haven't tried them. I am convinced that each has a better mood effect for most people than that of Lexapro. However, there might be more side effects as well.
JRB
poster:jrbecker
thread:209005
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030314/msgs/209096.html