Posted by Emme on October 22, 2003, at 23:38:31
In reply to Worried About the Future with Antidepressants etc, posted by nickm on October 22, 2003, at 19:02:39
I appreciate your concern over multiple meds and side effects. I'd rather be on less myself. I'm someone who gets lots of side effects and often needs pediatric doses. I don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but I'm currently on a 5 med mix (scary) without much in the way of side effects. We've somehow hit upon several drugs I can use, none of which gives me difficult side effects. Lamictal inteferes with sleep, but not to a troublesome degree.
Are they working? Partly. My moods are cycling less and my therapist definitely perceives that I'm more consistent and responsive. Anxiety seems to be pretty controllable. We're working on improving the depression which has been pretty hideously severe lately, but may be budging slightly (I won't feel secure unless it continues to change for the better for a while).
I also wonder about going the alternative route with the amino acids, St. John's wort, etc. I wonder if they'd completely do the job, but I don't know what kinds of interactions there would be with my prescription stuff and I don't want to risk getting off of what's helping in order to find out. I may go ask on Alternative. My pdoc does have me take L-phenylalanine with the selegiline, though I may ask her about tyrosine. She's been having me take chromium picolinate. On my own, I take some Zn, Se, Mg, and B-50 complex. The fish oil didn't do much for me. I've been told by docs that St. John's wort is effective for mild to moderate depression, but that I needed bigger guns for my severe depression. But I don't know what the current state of knowledge is on St. John's wort.
Emme
poster:Emme
thread:272034
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031021/msgs/272141.html