Posted by Peddidle on December 3, 2004, at 23:29:08
I stopped the strattera completely earlier this week and I am now on Concerta, but I can't shake the feeling that maybe I made a mistake. After six weeks of gradually increasing the strattera, I was definitely starting to feel its benefits (i.e. motivation, attention, etc.), but at almost the exact same, I was also feeling really bad side effects: I had really bad crying spells (or moments when I thought I would burst into tears at any moment for absolutely no reason, I was tired all the time, and I would get unbelievably nauseous unless I took the pills with a full meal. This past Sunday, I took half my normal dose in the morning, with the intention of taking the other half that night when I got back to school, but after having another depressing crying spell, I called home and decided that I would just stop taking it all together.
Now I can't stop thinking that maybe I should have waited longer to see if the benefits would out-weigh the side-effects, or to see if what I was experiencing was even related to the strattera. In all fairness, I do suffer from adjustment disorder and dysthymia (or so I'm told), and I had just gone home for the holiday at the same time I increased from 75mg to 80mg, so I'm sure that was a factor in it, but the crying spells really scared me because I had never experienced anything that extreme before-- wanting to cry for no apparent reason. I guess I'm mostly upset because strattera is the kind of drug that needs to be gradually increased over however many weeks before the target dose is reached, and also because it took about six weeks for me to begin to feel any benefit from it. Because of this, I'm worried that I screwed-up because if I ever want to go back on it, I'll have to go through that same tedious process again. I'm wondering if I made the right choice to stop it, or if I should have waited longer, because I definitely loved having that feeling of motivation that the strattera gave me.
Sorry for the ridiculously long post, but I would really appreciate advice.
Thanx!
poster:Peddidle
thread:424204
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041201/msgs/424204.html