Posted by lalala on February 7, 2004, at 20:06:20
hi everyone.
i'm new to this board. actually, this is the first time i've signed up for a support group type thing.
i'm not here for pity or anything like that. i'm just hoping that maybe someone can give me some useful advice.
ok. so this is my experience so far:
about 5 years ago, i had a suicidal problem. i was taken to a psychiatrist who perscribed me prozac and trazodone (to help me sleep better). i then was moved to a therapist. i only went to see her one time, although i'm not sure why. then, at my worst, i was moved to a psycho-therapist i believe? i honestly don't know the exact differences behind these titles, just trying to state the facts. i didn't like the effects of trazodone. it would knock me out, but if i had to be up earlier than it wanted me to be, i woke up with an awful taste in my mouth, a groggy feeling, and just... not good. so i stopped taking that. prozac, i had no protest to, but it just didn't do anything for me. some stuff went down and basically they wanted to throw me into the loony bin. we had insurance problems so it didn't happen. thank goodness. because i really don't think that would have solved anything.
somehow or another, i pulled out of it for a while.
during january 2003, it got bad again. bad enough for me to tell my dad how i was feeling, and that i would try seeing a psych again. this is a big step for me, considering i don't like the idea of medication. but, depression is a disease, and of course i am willing to treat it in any way that may help me. when i went to the psych, he immediately put me on effexor xr. i did my research; it seemed promising. i was put on 85mg as an initial test to make sure i didn't come up with any bad side effects. after 3 weeks, he upped me to 150mg. to make a long story short, i'm up to 450mg. at first, that had a huge effect on me. i guess because that's a little over than what i had hoped to be on. i read up on it a little more, the highest they recommend is 225, the highest they tested on is 300 i believe? anyway, the numbers were much lower than what i am on. i read up on some groups where people had gone even higher than that. but i was still willing to give it a shot. let's clear something up: my depression was obviously not treated right the first time. each time he upped the dosage - i would -think- that things were better, that is, until i started feeling really bad again. never bad enough to contemplate death; i truly want to get through this.
but each time, i seem to start feeling bad again... i'm starting to feel really discouraged. i really feel like i've tried everything--whether it goes with my morals or not. it's not an issue of resisting help or anything like that.
i guess what i'm getting to is... have any of you heard of any medications that might work for me? is there anything else i can try to do?
i think the depression has just been replaced by emptiness. my feelings just seem to be numbed over.
i know this sounds so desparate and probably dumb. but if anyone can shed some light, i'd be really grateful.
thanks.
poster:lalala
thread:310706
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040204/msgs/310706.html