Posted by UgottaHaveHope on January 15, 2007, at 0:16:04
This post is probably long and boring if you don't take Emsam. But if you do, or are thinking about taking it, you'll probably read every word, just like I do with other posts on Emsam.
Here's my story: Been on Emsam for 11 days. During the first five days, I had major sleeping problems. I tried to combat this by taking 200-400mg of Seroquel, 1-2 mg of Klonopin and two tablets of Benadryl, and I would sleep three hours, and then have choppy sleep for a few more hours. It really affected me, because I don't know about you, but if I don't get my sleep, that gets the day started off on the wrong foot and makes it hard to recover.
Finally on the fifth day, I took off the patch just before bed (after wearing for 12 hours), took 200mg of Seroquel and slept like a champ. I told the pdoc about this the next day, because he was about to prescibe something else, and he just said to continue taking off the patch, which I have and had a return to satisfactory sleeping patterns. I know common sense would say that this drug does not leave your system immediately, so how could it have any effect on your sleep by taking it off? You know, I don't know why or how any of these meds work. But this has worked for me so far.
Emsam reminded me of Seroquel in one regard: You feel it immediately. With Seroquel, when you first take it, you fall asleep before you can count to 1,000. With Emsam, I felt a boost of energy within hours of putting on the patch. I don't know if that is a good thing for me because I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder or "free-floating fear" and the last thing I thought I needed was extra energy. However in days 7-10, I have felt some relief from the anxiety. I don't know if that is due to coming to terms with my anxiety of taking a MAOI, the lasting blunting effect from Seroquel from the night, or Emsam reaching a theraputic level. My pdoc told me people can really start feeling the effects as early as 9 days and as late 6 weeks. I hope I am on the front of the scale.
Here is my background: I'm 36 year-old male and have been challenged by anxiety for 10 years. I wake up and just have this rush of overwhelming nervous energy out of nowhere, can't explain it. It's like walking through a haunted house and knowing you are going to get scared, but not know where or when. Or it's like a fire alarm is going off in my brain and my mind is scanning everything to figure out what is wrong. And when the fire alarm is quieted, my mind is scanning everything to figure out why it is no longer going off. I worry about worry. I fear fear. In the beginning I would think this fear was coming from some physical symptom, such as tightness in my chest or scalp soreness, but that is just the way anxiety manifests itself in my body. It is me vs. the anxiety.
Where did this anxiety come from? In recent weeks, I have thought long and hard about this and I think it is from my childhood. My biological father abandoned me, made promises but gave up visitation in exchange for not having to pay child supports. My stepfather was emotionally abusive. For reasons he can only explain, he viewed me as a rival for my mom's love. He was a ticking time bomb and anything and everything could set him off. I don't know why my mom hung in there when she saw all of this happening, but she says she was too scared to be divorced again with two children. Part of me wants to say she was completely selfish and cowardly to let her kids be exposed to this evil, while the other wants to forgive and understand her because she was scared to death of having to support her kids on her own. What do you think?
Back to Emsam: I didn't like taking meds in the beginning because I felt that was "weak." But then my Sunday school teacher who was chief surgeon at a local hospital said that "God gives doctors the knowledge to make meds to help people" and I've been taking them ever since.
I have tried around 15 over the last 10 years, most notably Serzone, Paxil, and Adderall, and none of them had any effect. In August I finally found the first med that really hit that racing energy and it was Seroquel. It made me sleepy and groggy, but it was worth it to take away some of that unrelenting fear. I felt like I was on the road to recovering for the ensuing four months, but then I had some other nagging sickness (dry cough) that put me on the edge. What was wild is that I had worked myself all the way down from 400mg of Seroquel to 12.5 (and still felt just tired) over the months. And when my mind started cranking up again over the cough, 500mg of Seroquel would not faze me.
OK, that leads me to seeing a new pdoc who works at a research hospital. At first he said take 400mg of Seroquel and go to intense CBT therapy. I started the therapy, but as you know, it is hard for any therapy to have any effect if your mind is racing out of control. So then he gave me samples of the Emsam patch and told me "One of my other patients told me today that it saved his life."
I had always wanted to try a MAOI because of the results I have read about on this board and other places. The dietary restrictions concerned me, but hey what's the fun in eating lobster tails if you feel terrible. Fortunately there is the Emsam patch which does not have any food restrictions at 6mg. I eat everything but cough drops without any hesitations.
The only thing annoying about the patch is that it is a patch. Sometimes I wish for a pill that you could just take and forget about it. This patch you feel throughout the day when you move. It doesn't hurt unless you put it in the same place within 3-4 days.
poster:UgottaHaveHope
thread:722410
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070113/msgs/722410.html