Posted by crabwalk on May 2, 2006, at 14:32:14
In reply to Re: first wk on EMSAM - increased depression?!, posted by crabwalk on May 2, 2006, at 10:09:41
Ok, so I've had a rough history in terms of medication that started about 2 years ago. I was given paxil by my pdoc for anxiety that caused severe insomnia, which I still have. I did paxil for two months, no help in sleep and side effects, so I switched to prozac for 6 months. No help in sleep, gave me restless leg eventually, also extremely severe sexual side effects, so I decided to quit that over a year ago.
The severe sexual side effects never went away, and this has more or less ruined my life, caused me to lose my girlfriend with whom I was in love. To give an idea of the severity, I have numb genitals/genital shrinkage, no pleasurable sensitivity anywhere on my body, no pleasure from orgasm, and little/no attraction/arousal to girls. Before ssris, I was very horny, very sensual, and in my humble opinion a very good lover. Also, ssris made me feel 'numb' in general (i.e. anhedonic) and this lack of ability to feel much, especially pleasure, is directly related to the sexual side effects in my opinion.
Anyway, over the past year I've tried several things to remedy this, but the only rx meds I've tried have been buspar and tianeptine (which actually isn't prescribable here in the US). Buspar helped a little but I quit for awhile, then when I tried it again it gave me akathisia and a tremor in my hands which never fully went away either. A few months later I tried tianeptine, had a horrible reaction to a dose increase, but was able to take a very small dose as it helped out with anxiety. I quit this about a week before starting emsam, took it for about a month total. I don't think what I'm going through now has much to do with withdrawal from tianeptine since I was such a small dose (10mg a day vs. normal dose of 37.5).
I am pretty determined to stick it out on emsam for at least a month-6 weeks. But right now, man I have never felt depression like this. I have been in rough shape generally, but this is like putting a wet blanket on everything. I am actually dizzy much of the time. I was expecting that emsam would be too activating for me since I have anxiety, but I never expected it to make me depressed. Hopefully I just have to hold out a few more weeks.
By the way, this story was partly meant to dissuade people from extrapolating anything from my experience. I am a weird case and my depression has a definite root in the seemingly permanent sexual/emotional damage that ssris caused me. If that does not clear up, I don't think I will ever really be happy. Emsam seems to be helping a lot of people, the only way to find out if it'll work is to try it. Good luck.
poster:crabwalk
thread:638959
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060429/msgs/639259.html