Posted by SLS on April 9, 2023, at 21:32:27
In reply to Re: Does anyone still take aripiprazole (Abilify)? » undopaminergic, posted by SLS on April 8, 2023, at 11:53:51
Sorry. I lost my train of thought.
Like I said, someone can have opposite reactions to the same drug depending on the one that preceded it.
Effexor always produced a mild improvement for me, but nothing close to satisfactory. Still, I felt better on it than off of it.
Three years ago, I tried vortioxetine for at least four weeks. It produced intolerable brain-fog and a sense of detachment from my surroundings. I stopped taking it. Having no better ideas at the time, I asked to go back on Effexor until something new came along.
When I reintroduced Effexor, I experienced a torturous and painful brain-fog. Not only did my depression not improve, it became significantly worse. This was not the Effexor that I knew.
Wash-out periods are not just to allow a drug to clear the bloodstream. It also allows the brain time to reregulate itself back to a baseline similar to what had existed before drug exposure.
Think about how neuroscientists gather information by exposing a rat to one compound to see how it affects its reaction to a second compound. This is called "pre-treatment". One experiment might be to see how pre-treating a rat with a 5-HT7 antagonist (vortioxetine) changes the way the rat reacts to Effexor. If vortioxetine upregulates 5-HT7 receptors after prolonged exposure, will introducing Effexor afterwards produce more anxiety or less anxiety compared to Effexor alone?
Perhaps we should pay more attention to this when evaluating the therapeutic worth of a drug.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
poster:SLS
thread:1121982
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20230117/msgs/1122004.html