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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by jeens on October 11, 2007, at 10:26:56
I had been feeling so tired for quite a while and went to my doctor several times about it. I was so tired, I believe I became depressed, in fact so depressed I was willing to try whatever to get my energy back. My doctor prescribed lexapro. On the first day, I took it around 11pm and went to bed. Around 1am, I woke up and my heart was beating so fast that I thought I was going to die. I live alone and of course I panicked, which cause my heart to pound even faster. I called 911 and on the way to the hospital, the EMT told me that my heart rate had gotten up to 190 beats a minute. The doctor in the ER told me that I had had an allergic reaction to the lexapro. Needless to say, I have been having panic attacks since then, most of them I bring on for fear of having another. I have tried lexapro two more times, even down to just 5mg and I have the same reaction which I am not sure if I'm causing them or is it truly an allergic reaction. My doctor has now prescribed Effexor XR, 37.5mg to start, but I am afraid I will have another panic attack, anxiety attack or what ever is going on. Has anyone experienced this or can maybe give me a little insight on getting started on an antidepressant?
Posted by Racer on October 11, 2007, at 11:33:29
In reply to lexapro allergic reaction, posted by jeens on October 11, 2007, at 10:26:56
It does sound as though there's a mix going on for you. My guess is that you really did have an allergic reaction to the Lexapro, which could have been caused by the medication itself -- or by the binders in the pill. I've had allergic reactions to medications based on the binders, rather than the active compound, in which case another formulation can fix it. Lexapro, I think, isn't available as a generic, so that wouldn't apply.
As for Effexor, there's a chance you could also have an allergic reaction to it -- but it's the same sort of chance that if you're allergic to, say, peanuts, you might also be allergic to rabbits. There's no real connection, is what I'm trying to say. Although both are antidepressants, and they're both serotinergic, there's really no other relationship. Kinda like a Ferrari and my Corolla are related in that they're both four wheeled automobiles with manual transmissions...
It's still hard to start a new antidepressant, especially if you have anxiety about reactions. The best advice I can offer is to anticipate that anxiety and plan ahead for it. Starting one medication, a friend of mine called me every single day to tease me out of my anxiety. He'd tease me about it, and remind me that I wasn't being poisoned, and that the only way any medication could help me was for me to swallow that pill and give it a chance to work. If you have a friend you trust, that might help you. Otherwise, maybe keeping a drug diary, where you write down all your adjustment phase effects, with severity, or keep a calendar where you can check off each day towards when the drug might start working.
The other important thing to keep in mind is that many of the effects you feel in the first days go away. These are the start up effects, and they can be unpleasant -- I usually get GI effects in the first weeks of a serotinergic medication, for example, which is pretty common with some of them -- but they go away. Really and truly -- it usually takes two or three weeks for them to go away for me. If you can get through those three or four weeks as your body adjusts, you may just find that the medication helps you enough that it's been worth it.
I hope that isn't as incoherent as I'm afraid it might be. I'm a little off my game today.
Good luck to you!
Posted by Phillipa on October 11, 2007, at 12:02:52
In reply to Re: lexapro allergic reaction » jeens, posted by Racer on October 11, 2007, at 11:33:29
Jeens how terrible and scarey for you. I too am going through the tiredness new to me as usually wound up. Would it be possible for you to take the first pill in a controlled enviornment like the pdoc's office or the hospital not as a patient but with the understanding that you would like to be in an enviornment where if the same thing happens there is immediate help avaiable. Maybe your pdoc could arrange it. Guess there are no studies for allergies to SSRI's? Phillipa ps know the fear of a med
Posted by bleauberry on October 11, 2007, at 21:17:22
In reply to lexapro allergic reaction, posted by jeens on October 11, 2007, at 10:26:56
It does not sound like an allergic reaction to me. It sounds like too high of a dose. Some people are very sensitive to changing anything in their brain chemistry. Me for example, I had the same reactions as you to lexapro. I had to start with 1.25mg, which was a 5mg tab cut into quarters. I took just one quarter. Even that was a bit stimulating, but not bad. After about 2 weeks I had worked my way up to 5mg. Eventually got to 10mg. You have to give the brain time to adjust to the massive amounts of serotonin being subjected to the receptors that are not accustomed to it.
That being said, you are exquisitely sensitive to this drug. I could be wrong, but you might be to effexor as well. If it were me, I would not start at 37.5mg. I would dump the contents out of the capsule and take maybe 1/4th of them (they are beads). And feel it out from there. When people discontinue effexor they do the same thing, in reverse, by counting out how many beads they do.
It is my doctor's view that when someone is super sensitive to tiny doses of drugs, they are usually have too much of a heavy metal in them. Usually either lead or mercury. Drug sensitivity is a powerful clue to toxicity.
Do you have amalgam fillings? Have you ever had any?
Small amounts of lead or mercury can be devastating in terms of psychiatry for some people, while others can handle large quantities of metals with no symptoms at all. It is genetic and has to do with how well your body excretes normal everyday exposure to our toxic world. Some people excrete well, others do not. With them, the metals accumulate over the years, primarily in the brain, nervous system, and glands, causing hundreds of different so-called diseases, or symptoms that look like diseases, mostly psychiatric or neuromuscular or digestive or allergic, that aren't really diseases at all. Just metals wreaking havoc on the body's mechanisms.
Depending on the lab, you can get a hair sample test for $70 to $120. It will show the amount of essential metals and common heavy metals you have. You can order them yourself on the net.
Don't bother asking your doctor about this. They are not educated whatsoever on toxicity. They just brush your reaction off as an allergic reaction or the wrong drug choice. Kind of naive to say that when they really have no clue or effort to back that up with facts, especially when you can actually identify an allergic reaction with various lab tests. Specific antibodies in your blood will be elevated. Amazing they say you are allergic and yet don't verify medically for you.
Metals cause the very symptoms you are trying to treat.
The common assumption (not fact) is that depression and anxiety are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Usually serotonin. But we never ask, and doctors don't, WHY the chemical imbalance happened. It wasn't always imbalanced. What happened to unbalance it?
In any case, just stuff to ponder.
When in doubt, go slow and low. You can open a capsule of effexor and make your own custom sized dose. You could retry lexapro in microdoses also. But again, super-sensitivy is a powerful clue to something else going on.
Posted by jeens on October 12, 2007, at 0:37:31
In reply to Re: lexapro allergic reaction, posted by Phillipa on October 11, 2007, at 12:02:52
Thanks everyone so much for the responses to my post. Just about everything that I have read has crossed my mind, but I am beginning to feel like a nut case, visiting my doctors so much. I have had so many tests, everything from lupus for my skin, to 3 endoscopies for my stomach and even a heart catherization, which ruled out heart problems but I am now on digoxin and 12mg of atenolol to regulate my heart beats which I feel is a waste of time since my palpitations are supposed to be caused by anxiety. I have had fillings done at the dentist twice in my life; once back in the 70's and again maybe 3 or 4 years ago. I am not sure of what type of filling that was used but I will look into that tomorrow. I am sensitive, very sensitive to so many things and I have never been able to figure out why. I will do what I have to to feel better and it feels so good to not feel like I am losing it. Again, thanks everyone for your responses.
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