Posted by Racer on October 11, 2007, at 11:33:29
In reply to lexapro allergic reaction, posted by jeens on October 11, 2007, at 10:26:56
It does sound as though there's a mix going on for you. My guess is that you really did have an allergic reaction to the Lexapro, which could have been caused by the medication itself -- or by the binders in the pill. I've had allergic reactions to medications based on the binders, rather than the active compound, in which case another formulation can fix it. Lexapro, I think, isn't available as a generic, so that wouldn't apply.
As for Effexor, there's a chance you could also have an allergic reaction to it -- but it's the same sort of chance that if you're allergic to, say, peanuts, you might also be allergic to rabbits. There's no real connection, is what I'm trying to say. Although both are antidepressants, and they're both serotinergic, there's really no other relationship. Kinda like a Ferrari and my Corolla are related in that they're both four wheeled automobiles with manual transmissions...
It's still hard to start a new antidepressant, especially if you have anxiety about reactions. The best advice I can offer is to anticipate that anxiety and plan ahead for it. Starting one medication, a friend of mine called me every single day to tease me out of my anxiety. He'd tease me about it, and remind me that I wasn't being poisoned, and that the only way any medication could help me was for me to swallow that pill and give it a chance to work. If you have a friend you trust, that might help you. Otherwise, maybe keeping a drug diary, where you write down all your adjustment phase effects, with severity, or keep a calendar where you can check off each day towards when the drug might start working.
The other important thing to keep in mind is that many of the effects you feel in the first days go away. These are the start up effects, and they can be unpleasant -- I usually get GI effects in the first weeks of a serotinergic medication, for example, which is pretty common with some of them -- but they go away. Really and truly -- it usually takes two or three weeks for them to go away for me. If you can get through those three or four weeks as your body adjusts, you may just find that the medication helps you enough that it's been worth it.
I hope that isn't as incoherent as I'm afraid it might be. I'm a little off my game today.
Good luck to you!
poster:Racer
thread:788460
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071009/msgs/788469.html