Posted by john1022 on October 15, 2003, at 16:33:58
Hello. I am just looking for any more suggestions or ideas of what is happening to me...
I had just a mild depression along with tinnitus, and my sleep was absolutely not triggering. This all came out of no where almost over night and has happened before (both times fixed by Effexor which I got off of and had no problems) The first two times I did not have the tinnitus (which seems to be a major part of what is happening to me now)
My pdoc was going to try Trazadone 4 weeks ago when this happened again, but then said "let's try Amitriptyline to see if it cures the tinnitus" which I guess it has been known to do (it has also been known to make it worse which I learned after the fact, along with most AD's)
Well it made the tinnitus worse, also caused extreme pressure in my ears, my jaws were cracking because of it causing EXTREME anxiety in me (which isn't part of my depression). It gave me ear aches like I had an ear infection and hypercausis (extreme sensitivity to hearing) where I was hearing and am still hearing buzzing in tv's and computers and even people's voices are too loud to listen too.
Which I guess can happen with almost all SSRI's if you have tinnitus to begin with (it is listed as side effects of a lot of SSRI's on the RXlist website which lists more side affects experienced by users, that the companies themselves don't share.)
It sent me from having mild depression into SEVERE, non-functional depression and giving me serious suicidal thoughts when I have NEVER had these before. The 2 weeks I was on it I thought about it A LOT, which has subsided though as the medication is leaving my system and I am thinking "what was I thinking?"
It gave me extreme anxiety and made sleeping much worse (it is supposed to be sedating) and harder to fall asleep with waking up every few hours. (I have always slept like a baby) It gave me horrible,violent nightmares EVERY night and multiple extremely weird, vivid dreams that I have never had before.
It also has completely screwed up my cognitive process for the last four weeks (stopped taking it two weeks ago). I couldn't concentrate whatsoever on anything and the worst part was I kept having different songs playing in my head 24/7 all day long and could not control them. I would wake up to a song blarring in my head in the morning and in the middle of the night.
The songs would continue all day long. Couldn't even sit down to watch tv or read a book my mind was so out of it with absolutely no concentration. I cannot imagine having to deal with that the rest of my life. (I don't think other people are hearing the songs, so probably not schitzophrenia)
Almost 3 weeks later I seem to be getting better by the day and the songs in the head have slowly stopped since 2 days ago. It also made one of my pupils extremely dilated when I was on Effexor and Elavil and traces of it still in my system still seem to be kicking back in after I exercise or take a walk. Yesterday I took a walk and had extreme blurry vision (which is a side effect)
It is a drug that stays in your system (long half-life) for 2-3 weeks so I am still feeling the affects of it. Obviously I am a very rare case, but the last 2 weeks have freaked me out. Effexor caused some of the problems mentioned above but lucky I stopped it quickly and it had a short half-life and after a week most of the side affects went away.
I have no idea why I am reacting this way to these meds. I seem to think it has something to do with the SSRI action as St. John's Wort made me feel much worse (but not to this degree) and Wellbutrin didn't do anything.
I took a couple of pills of 5HTP when I was feeling the worst after a week of taking Elavil and felt a significant decrease in anxiety and depression hours after taking it. Stopped taking them and felt horrible again the next day, took them again and felt much better.
It seems to counteract all the bad feelings the Elavil made me have, but I am still feeling terrible and much worse than I was before starting any meds. I seriously went from just having a very mild depression to almost being hospitalized (I had to quit my job) with extreme depression and horrible anxiety in a matter of one week after starting Elavil. It has been 18 days, and although I am feeling slightly better by the day, I still feel it in my system.
I have no idea where to go from here. I am affraid to try another SSRI and have it do the same thing that Effexor and Elavil did to me for the past month. But obviously I have to keep trying something because I can't sleep and can't rely on a sleeping pill the rest of my life or benzos.
Thankfully my doctor has taken mercy on me and has given me some Ativan for the next few weeks which puts me to sleep. He says he wants to wait a while and see what happens before putting me on something else.
I am affraid as can be that these meds will give me some kind of permanent damage with my hearing (permanent sensitive hearing would be TERRIBLE) or permanent cogitive damage of having the songs constantly in my head which would be unbearable to deal with.
The funny thing is Effexor worked wonders for me twice in the past with this same depression with none of the mentioned side effects. It corrected whatever balance I had and I was able to sleep normally within weeks of taking it in the past.
I would get off and on ear screeing though on Effexor in the past, but not constant ringing which I have now. I can feel the minute my depression hits and this time it happened at the exact same hour as the ringing in my ears, so I know the ringing has to do with the depression and not hearing damage.
I am very scared because I just feel that most of these anti-depressants will cause the same reactions in me now for some reason. And that for some reason my brain chemistry is completely different than what it used to be and I cannot use them any more.
Do MAOI's selectivly block the re-uptake of serotonin or work by a different manorism? I am just worried that the seretonin blocking action of these differnt AD's are causing the problems (as weird and paradoxal as it sounds) Wellbutrin caused none of these side effects when I tried it.
Should I have an EEG done? Are there any other suggestions or tests I should have done? I have already had blood work and am going for an MRI next week.
I am very scared. I just want to find something that works and get back to life. Depression is a terrible thing to deal with and my heart goes out to all that suffer from it.
Any suggestions would be great. Thanks for listening
poster:john1022
thread:269735
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031015/msgs/269735.html