meds

[oceanlove]

hi evreyone
I have finally decided to try again an anti depressant , i m going to my doctors on wednesday! I ve tried paxil had horrible side effects so i m very worried! But i m so sick of livng with constant anxiety, panic attacks and OCD. I wanted to know if you are taking meds, which one? has it helped ?and how bad where side effects?
I really hope there is something for me out there I v used up all my coping mechanisms...!

[olschesky]

i take prozac......it really helps me.....i don't obsess nearly as much when i don't feel well......it also helps with that "agoraphobic" feeling i tend to get. i've never had any side effects from it..........and it doesn't make me feel "drugged".........takes abouot 10 days for it to start working.......but helps me tremendously.......

good luck

[xxglitterxx]

I've tried 3, citalopram/celexa, prozac and sertraline/zoloft.

The citalopram helped so much to start with.
I had about 3 months of real life. I went to Spain with my friends, and yeah I got nervous when they were eating seafood, but it didn't dominate my life by any means.
The social anxiety was helped massively, I was able to go out to clubs and bars, I even got myself a job, got through the interviews and the anxiety of starting out and not knowing anyone! (something I doubt I could do now)

And I had very few, run away and lock myself in a cupboard, moments.


But of course like all things, it began to end, I had more suicidal ideational thoughts, not that they'd totally gone away, and the obsessions, around emet slightly, but mainly around the social anxiety and some other things became stronger again.

They upped my dose but I never really got back that same feeling of normality I'd had before. I think it was those months on the celexa that I realised that I had been unwell, I didn't realise how I'd been before wasn't "normal" until then.


Anyway, loooong story short, it culminated about a month after they upped the dose when I attempted suicide (very feeble attempt but hey ho) and for some reason they just didn't give me it at the hospital, and so when I came out I had the attitude "well if it was working I wouldn't have ended up in hospital!!" and so they switched me to the prozac.

Which I tried for about 3 months. Nothing. At all.


So finally I started the Zoloft about 6 weeks ago, so far not much, I did have one really good day, so that was a good start, but to be honest I'm not all that hopeful.


What I am happy about though, is that the celexa worked, that means that anti-depressants can help me. And that the other two didn't, at least that means it's less likely to have been a placebo affect!



On the side effects side, when starting the celexa I had a bit of n* and headache on the second day, and a weird thing, where I felt odd if I moved my eyed to the corners of my vision, if that makes sense. I was also non-stop yawning for about 6 weeks!


The other 2 I had no side effects except the standard that gets me with all of them. The vivid dreaming. It sounds stupid and like it would be irrelevant, but it really does get to me sometimes. I can have nights where I have such realistic dreams where it's basically real life and I'm depressed and panicky in my dreams, as well as in real life when I wake up, and it feels like even sleep, which used to be my safe haven, has been corrupted!!


They've all been okay with withdrawal too, the celexa I felt that weird eye thing. Prozac nothing. And I've been off the zoloft for a few days at a time before and felt nothing.



All in all, they affect everyone differently, and there's hundreds of them, so if one fails theres always more!


Sorry for the essay! Good luck and keep us posted

[oceanlove]

thanks for the feeback!! it always interesting to hear different stories and experiences. I think my doctor wants to put me on zoloft! I m just worried about side effects! I really do hope there is something for all of us out there! I see her wednesday so i ll keep you updated on how it goes!!
thanks so much

[catlobster]

Drugs are interesting...everyone is so different when it comes to them. You'll probably try several different types, and in a variety of doses. I started out with celexa/lexipro (virtually the same), then went to wellbutrin due to the rapid weight gain and zero libido. Ended up getting worse again on Wellbutrin, then went through a 4 month period of musical pills...before going back on celexa. Happily, after several years, I have just been successfully weaned off the pills, and am now 3 months "drug free"...still emetophobia, but I have learned to manage my fear most of the time.

[icicledreamz]

Im on 15mg lexapro for about a year now i just uped from 10 to 15 2 days ago n feel quite fine. The lexapro has really given me my life back. Im so thankful for it. I feel so much more stable and can handle panic alot better then i used to. It never really gave me any terrible side effects, I managed to bypass that by starting off very slowly and weaning myself onto it. Symptom wise i had a bit of dizzyness, headache, tiredness.

The symptoms i have now; night sweats, and very vivid, real dreams that sometimes are pretty frightning. but it is all definatly worth it to me.

[oceanlove]

hi!!
the doc finally prescribed me some prozac 10mg for a week than 20 if i tolerate it! keeping my fingers crossed i need my life back!!! thanks for all the input evreyone!!
hope you all have a great day

[ejb199]

prozac has helped me so much the last 4 mths on it. i take 20mg. no side effects. well it may have impacted my sleep a bit after 6 weeks or so but def no nausea or yucky feelings when first started taking it. im pretty sure you will easily tolerate 10mg. good luck. let us know how your feeling once it gets working.

[abbi]

i'm on citalopram 60mg, never had any side effects. good luck!

[hopefulmonster]

I've been prescribed a few different things, but I don't ever actually take any of them. In my defense, every time I ask my GP "will this make me feel sick" he answers "probably"

[sage]

Your GP's answer is either a mindless thing he says to everyone, or else he means that everything makes you feel sick anyway. Ignore his comment! While the drug may indeed make you feel "funny" for the first week or two the payoff will be worth it in the end. I've never heard of anyone who is afraid of vomiting, i.e., emetophobic who actually got sick from an anti-depressant.
Good luck!

[ann32]

i have tried celexa and zoloft and felt so awful at first that I couldnt even make it past the 2 weeks. I am now on fluoximine, most people have never heard of it...i never have either...I have been on it for 3 days and feel fine...good luck. its just trial and error.

[Suzie B]

I've been prescribed a few different things, but I don't ever actually take any of them. In my defense, every time I ask my GP "will this make me feel sick" he answers "probably"

That's exactly what I get from my Doc so i never take anything. Had this horrible phobia for 11 years now and feel like I'm running out of ways to cope with it. I want to take something but even the slightest possibility that it might make me feel ill frightens me so much that I can't take it.

[ejb199]

trying to get off of effexor made me retch and made me feel terribly nauseas. for that reason, i wont take anything but prozac now (i know it doesnt give me any nausea side effects from taking it when i was a lot yougner and knew nothing about side effects and stuff) i think half the time we can make the side effects worse just by thinking we will start feeling sick. i know i do anyway.

[xxcassiexbooxx]

i have emetophobia for 7 years. and i have been on all diffrent types of medicene. prosac/buspar/celexa/zoloft the whole deal. what my doctor gives me is buspar on top of zoloft. and it really helps me a lot. the only side effect for me is loss of appitiet/weight loss. When i get anxious or start to have a severe panic attack, i take klodopen. i dont know if i spelt that right. but you should ask your doctor about it, it really makes you calm down and just relax. i hope i helped. good luck.

[katielou1005]

I started on lexapro and it did nothing. then dr switched me to pristiq and it did nothing. now i'm on zoloft 200mg and adavan 3 times a day. It helps but I'm still afraid.

[barbiegirl]

I tried Wellbutrin (150mg XL) which was a total disaster for me. It didn't agree with my system at all and I was taken off of it after 4 days. I have a prescription for BuSpar 5mg tid but have yet to take it because I am so scared from my awful Wellbutrin experience (the drug supposedly with the lowest incidence with n* and v*).