Posted by bleauberry on May 10, 2012, at 5:13:07
In reply to Did patience pay off for your AD to work?, posted by SS Ohdee on May 9, 2012, at 18:16:32
This is just my opinion, but I think the longer a med takes to work, the more off target it is. The more on target a med is, the faster it works.
My first med was paxil. It took probably 8 weeks to feel any benefit from that, and then it was a full 3 months before I could say it was definitely working. It was also about that time I first encountered the emotional numbness thing.....depression was gone but I had become numb....the only thing on my depression score that did not improve and actually got worse was the topic of "interest in hobbies and activities".
Anyway, yeah, meds can take a long time to get brain chemistry to adjust. In Savella trials some of the people didn't see their best benefits until 6 months or 9 months, at which time major benefits showed up. Had they not been in clinical trials those patients probably never would have gone that long and never would have reached the benefits.
Watching people post on Nardil over the years, most of the people who did well on that med had a fairly long lag time.
But of course long trials also fail a lot. So you kind of have to make personal judgements and decisions along the way.
I think remission is rather rare with any med, my best guess is maybe 10%-15% of patients? But I think it is important to put things in perspective.....we're dealing with a chronic illness of unknown origin and unknown future.....ANY improvement in quality of life should be welcomed and appreciated. The best we can do in a whole lot of chronic illnesses is help the patient's quality of life improve.
Remission should always be the goal, in my opinion. But along the way, any improvement should be praised, welcomed, and thanked with open arms.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1017537
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120508/msgs/1017605.html