Posted by invisibleman15010 on August 5, 2006, at 13:20:02
Hi Group,
It has been a few months since I have posted. I hope everyone has had more luck with treatment and meds. than I have. I have been struggling with severe depression for about 7 years and severe socail anxiety for my whole adult life. My career, family, life is pretty much all down the river. Rebuilding has been a struggle. I have been through counseling and drug combo's over the past years. It seems I get a little help, then they poop out all together or I have severe reactions, like I did with Paxil. I am well into the "poop out" stage now and neither I nor my Dr's know where to turn. Depression symptons are building to a peak and the rebuilding of my life begins to seem pointless again. I have been on just about everyone of the newer antidepressants or a combination. My current cocktail is 20 mg Lexapro, 300 mg Wellbutrin XL, 30 mg of Remeron, 15 mg of Restoril for sleep and Klonopin to help with the anxiety. I have tried increasing the Remeron to 45, but I sleep with bizarre dreams and wake up with a hangover without the pleasure of a drink. Recently they tried to increase Wellbutrin XL to 450 mg and I was ready to crawl out of my skin. Same reaction I had to regular Wellbutrin. The only med. that I did not give a long term try is Cymbalta, I started then had to switch Dr's. and after being on it for three weeks they felt I was receiving no benefit. So I was onto Effexor. Effexor seem to be of some help with the depression for about 10 months.I have never received any crossover benefit for the anxiety from any of the new antidepressants. Only the benzo's seem to help me in that area and at this point, who cares about the addiction factor.
My current Doctor has been trying to talk me into ECT or even VNS. The VNS, I would not ever consider. Everyone that I have talked to about ECT, says that it is a temporary fix for those ready to whack themselves and there is short term and long term memory loss. My Dr. talks about like it is a Hip hollywood thing to do. Actually that is what he said. What can I say, he is Russian. I really think he is a plant for the KGB.
So gang, any suggestions on med changes? Anyone had positive experiance with switching to Cymbalta, ECT or switching from Klonopin to Xanax XR?
Sorry for writing so much, but I am really starting to struggle here.
Thanks!
E
poster:invisibleman15010
thread:674021
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060802/msgs/674021.html