Posted by Quintal on February 1, 2007, at 17:50:59
In reply to Re: Do you have to get a lot worse before better?, posted by blueberry1 on February 1, 2007, at 16:42:35
Blueberry, I'm sorry if it seems I've been unsupportive by advising you to persevere with Cymbalta, that was not my intention. I was doing nothing more than giving my personal opinion to the question posed on the title of this thread.
>With any drugs that ever helped me, this did not happen. On the contrary, they showed tolerable side effects and quick hints of goodness that continued to improve slowly with time.
This doesn't mean the only drugs that could ever help you are the ones that make you feel good initially, all you're seeing there is the result of your refusal to persevere with drugs that make your depression worse initially. No drug that exacerbates your depression in the beginning could ever be a success for you because you quit taking them before waiting the recommended time of 4-6 weeks. It seems the only drugs that have helped long-term were the ones that made you feel good initially, and it seems to me that is because the ones that worsened your depression were aborted early in the trial so never got the chance to help you long-term. Therefore you can't fairly say these drugs would not have helped if you had taken them for the same length of time as you took Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil.
I do not mean to be argumentative or diminish your suffering in any way. I respect your point of view. However, I still maintain that it's 'normal' and common for symptoms of the original condition to deteriorate early in SSRI/SNRI therapy. This is written in most patient information leaflets and doctors usually tell patients to persevere if and when this happens because the end result is worth it. My GP did not believe me when I told her I felt a positive (hypomanic) response to Cipralex after three days - she claimed this doesn't happen. It was my psychiatric nurse that informed me that a subset of patients do sometimes respond in this way and they are usually the ones who have bipolar II. Seriously, have you considered taking Zoloft or Prozac with a mood stabilizer such as lithium or Lamictal? Perhaps Zyprexa was acting as a mood stabilizer all along?
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:728186
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070201/msgs/728827.html