Posted by Racer on February 7, 2008, at 21:35:57
In reply to Re: ssri's and anxiety » Maxime, posted by johnj on February 7, 2008, at 20:28:48
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> I am med sensitive and the ocd makes me so fearful. I know rationally I should try new meds but it is so hard.Believe me, I understand that one. I've had to deal with that a lot myself, so maybe what I have to say will help -- or not, but I'll give it a try. ;-)
First of all, as far as the fear that there's nothing else to try goes, there are a number of things that crossed my mind right away -- Cymbalta, EMSAM, desipramine, Buspar, Risperdal, etc. Those are just the first few that struck me. So, if you try something now, and it doesn't work, there are still a lot of other options that might help.
Now, the hardest part of the Medication Go Round is that it takes some time to know if something will help or not. For many of these medications, the adjustment phase is when the worst of the side effects happen -- which is sort of like a sick cosmic joke on us, since that means we get side effects without benefits during the time we have to figure out whether the medication is going to help us in the end. It's too bad they can't just do a blood test to figure out if it's going to help or not, but they can't, so we have to find ways to cope with the start up ickies.
Here are some of the ways I have dealt with the start up problems:
Discuss it all with my therapist every week until I'm sick of the subject.
Arrange weekly or biweekly check in emails with my psychopharmacologist.
When I started Cymbalta for the first time, a friend of mine called me every day to remind me that it wasn't going to poison me.
I make deals with myself: "Stick it out for this time period, and if it's still a problem, you can stop it." I remind myself frequently that if I don't give it a fair try, I'll never know if it would have helped, and might miss out on the medication that works best for me. I might miss out on relief from my psychiatric disorders *because* of my psychiatric disorders! That's the hardest part, though, because at the same time I'm saying that to myself, another little internal voice is saying, "but it's going to be terrible, it's worse than the disorder it's supposed to treat, etc." Countering that voice is the hardest part for me.
SSRIs do cause a fair number of problems in the first few weeks. Most of those problems go away after anywhere from four to eight weeks, after which they're often quite good for anxiety. It might be worth your while to give Lexapro a good, solid try.
Also, sometimes one drug is good, and helps fix the problem you're taking it for, but it causes another problem. Like EMSAM, which is supposed to be very good for depression and anxiety, but causes insomnia. In those cases, if the medication is working well for whatever you're taking it for, it's often worthwhile to continue it, and add something to fix the problem. In the case of sleep, have you tried Rozerem? It's supposed to improve sleep quality over time, which might be more helpful to you than the alternatives.
Good luck.
poster:Racer
thread:811306
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080207/msgs/811425.html