Posted by Christ_empowered on December 19, 2011, at 20:59:20
In reply to Geodon lowered Serotonin?, posted by sheilac on December 19, 2011, at 11:44:12
hey. I'm no expert, but in my experience, any antipsychotic can cause depression. Usually its more of a lethargic, sleepy depression ("neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome" is one term I've read used to describe it), but since Geodon is kind of activating over the long haul, it might be some kind of drug-induced activation. Honestly, I don't know. You also have to deal with the fact that human beings miss nights of sleep and go through depressions on or off meds, so there's often no way to point at a medication and say "yup, that's what's doing it," because, hey, who knows?
I wouldn't add an SSRI. To me, that's asking for trouble. You're already on a good dose of Klonopin. You could switch out the Geodon for seroquel or seroquel xr (the xr is really only worth it if you have a problem with 2x daily dosing). You could raise the Geodon dose at night. You could try a night time dose of a more sedating benzo, such as restoril or valium, either on top of your ongoing Klonopin, or reduce the Klonopin a bit (say, to 2-2.5mgs/day) and then add in the sedative. The second approach would reduce your total sedative intake, which is a good goal.
I don't know what else to do, since I'm not a doctor. Are you restless? When I was on a benzo and tried zyprexa, I had low-grade akathisia that caused some of the problems you described. The benzo suppressed it for a while, until it broke through once the zyprexa dose was slightly increased. Maybe its some kind of low-grade akathisia? Again: not a doc, just throwing stuff out there as it comes out of my brain.
Good luck.
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:1005228
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20111208/msgs/1005259.html