Posted by Noa on May 31, 2004, at 9:12:00
In reply to Re: SERZONE/NEFAZODONE ISSUE PLEASE READ IMPORTANT, posted by flmm on May 30, 2004, at 22:14:58
flmm, you can express you opinion, but when you say that we should be able to just go off Serzone and take something else and if not we are just giving in to fear, it makes me feel that you are presuming to understand my situaion when you do not.
I do take another med--Effexor. But I also take Serzone. I tried a lot of medications before being able to settle on the combination I'm on now. I had a lot of problems with other medications--either they didn't work well enough, or I could not tolerate the severe side effects, or they pooped out after a while.
Effexor has worked on my depression, but I can't tolerate the dose that would be sufficient because of severe side effects. By adding Serzone, and then increasing serzone and lowering the Effexor, I have been able to find this combo of meds that still does produce some annoying but tolerable side effects, but none like the ones when I was on a single med at higher doses. The Serzone adds AD effect but it also counteracts the SEs of the Effexor. I have been on this combo for about 5 years and for the last 4 years I have not had a recurrence of a major depressive episode!
Being in remission on a stable medication combination after years of severe depressive illness and the pursuit of medications that would work, I am loathe to destablize myself by having to go through a med change.
AND, there is nothing else like Serzone. I cannot take another SSRI--that would just duplicate the kinds of negative effects from Effexor that I eliminated by combining Effexor with Serzone and being able to lower the Effexor dose. Serzone is different chemically. Its only relative is Trazadone which is not a very effective AD and has more SE's anyway.
I am glad you have had such good luck with ADs and being able to transfer smoothly from one to another. But I am not that lucky and there are others like me who are also not that lucky.
Please, please don't make light of our situation.
poster:Noa
thread:351569
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040527/msgs/352330.html