Posted by vic80 on April 3, 2010, at 13:08:55
Rx - escitalopram 20mg (upped 2 weeks ago from 15mg)
Past 2 weeks experience with my dosage increase has been:
* A general feeling of being disconnected from the world around me.
* Mental tiredness - inability to read anything without feeling utterly tired and fatigued
* Constant songs, words, phrases repeating in my head - worse rhyming words in my head running involuntarily
* Dizzyness - especially while getting up to stand, or while making any "whole body" physical movement.
* Hypersensitivity to light and sound - sunlight seems blinding, sounds seem to be louder and in my head.
* Blurred vision - distorted vision.
* Eyes - dry and weary - like I have not slept in days - BUT I HAVE BEEN SLEEPING FOR 9-10 HOURS EVERYDAY
* Spells of mental numbness - when I feel unable to talk or participate in any social gathering.
* Sudden change in emotional state - mainly flattening out emotionally almost instantly - Example - getting bothered about something and brooding over it for a while and SUDDENLY I am in the ZOMBIE ZONE - mentally and emotionally numbed - blank.
* Feeling drugged - almost like some subtle marijuana trip.
* Physical fatigue - unable to do even sedentary work without taking rest-breaks every hour.
* Almost a delirium like state - constant flashes of old memories - deja-vu and jamais-vu
* Slow thinking - like there is a few second lags in my thoughts
* Lack of Visual/Mental imagery - Visual imagination has become lessened and vague
* Psychic anxiety - Inner restlessness and mental agitation.
* Angry with my own 'thinking process' - not just thoughts - but the way I am thinking - creates extreme distress - as though just want to numb out by sleeping constantly.
* Feeling unreal - cannot call it derealization though - just a feeling that I am in a dream/bubble.
* Sweaty palms and feet
* Increase in dysphoric mood spells.
* Increased Suicidal ideation
* Feeling mind is blank - or lack of thoughts\
* Aware of my own thoughts - depresonalization-like - but not as much a disorder
* overall feeling like one mentally/psychologically feels when down with high fever accompanied with flu (dont have any flu like symptoms or fever though) - dreamy - disconnected and spaced out.
Suicidal Ideation increase with dosage increase is something I am not well understood about - IS IT NORMAL? (I was definitely not feeling like this before the dosage increase - and I am not taking any chances and keeping myself around people all the time.)
I wonder if the REM sleep supression caused by SSRI action causes one to feel fatigued and mentally tired - which in turn causes one to feel unreal/disconnected - something like what happens when one is sleep-deprived for a few days - everything seems to be happening in a dream-like state.
Plus the cortisol levels increased due to the enhanced serotonergic activity means INCREASED STRESS - which in turn adds to the fatigue and perhaps causes more anxiety and perhaps even inner restlessness and agitation.The gloom-doom is over - but these side effects are as though causing a secondary depression in me.
Is all this just side-effects of dosage increase - I did not feel much of these symptoms before the dose was increased.
Help!
poster:vic80
thread:941992
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100328/msgs/941992.html