Hi! This is my baby's first thread and I'm a little nervous. Some basic background: I'm a 19 year old female college student, and I've had issues with depression, anxiety and general emotional regulation since at least middle school. High school was rough, but college is where a lot of shit really hit the fan. I spent a good chunk of the last semester wanting to die, and a good chunk of this summer thinking I would die. I almost took a semester off, but I don't have the funds to live somewhere else and I can't stay with my family (rocky relationship with my mom, and I don't like living with her boyfriend. I also really don't like the town we live in). I'm trying to start antidepressants, but so far I've only gotten through two weeks of Lexapro before I quit. It made me sleepy and hungry, and fatigue and disordered eating are already problems I have! I was really worried about gaining weight. It was nice to get a break from my anxiety and depression, but I started finding it difficult to relate to or care about the people around me, to a greater degree than when I'm depressed. So, if people could give me some of their experiences with specific antidepressants, that would be great! I know that not everyone reacts the same, but I'd like to hear anyway. I plan on trying Wellbutrin next, and maybe a Wellbutrin/Lexapro combo if it spikes my anxiety. I went without meds for a really long time, but my mental unhealth has started affecting how I treat people around me, and that's unacceptable. I'd also like to point out that I have the luxury of moderate depression and anxiety. It makes my life difficult and I'm prone to suicidal ideation, but I'm not likely to off myself in the near future, and I'm not too scared of going off meds if they don't work for me.
Okay, hi. I'm also taking Lexapro (well, the cheap-ass generic version of it), and it works for me pretty ok, and it works ok for two other people I know, but I know that the same meds don't work the same for everybody. However, I don't know if anyone told you this before, but your body takes some time to get used to meds - the soonest you can tell if your psych meds really work is a month or two. And you really should have been warned that the first two weeks tend to be weird! Especially if you're not getting on the meds in very small half-dose increments but all at the same time. I've been told to expect two weeks of strong side effects, which then gradually subside into much milder side effects - which did happen for me. My sleep, eating and emotional affect were ?!?!?! for the first two weeks, then they all evened out pretty soon - it might happen for you too, it might not, idk. The period of getting on meds is pretty harsh, because at first the side effects hit you way harder than the actual effects, so if a med is just unpleasant as opposed to scary or painful, I suggest giving it some time to see if it settles. Anyone got experience with Wellbutrin?
hi! i take 450 mg of wellbutrin along w/ some other stuff and some of the side effects i noticed were nausea, mild weight loss, and sweating- i had some headaches too but i have migraines so like??? grain of salt. it can be a rlly good med for some people and the side effects aren't too terribly bad -i'd suggest checking out crazymeds' page on bupropion if you're worried- so if you just stick w/ it for a bit you might get some good effects! it helped me w/ my energy level p decently 8)
Hello! I take 20 mg citalopram (generic for Celexa), which is similar to Lexapro but is a mixture of the two stereoisomers rather than just the S one. I remember having worse side effects shortly after starting (LOTS of yawning, some weird emotional stuff, restlessness, irritability), but they subsided relatively quickly for me. I wish I had a better memory of it, but it's been roughly a decade since I started taking citalopram, so my recollection is a bit vague. It's likely that the transition period between usual brain state -> sudden increase in available serotonin is going to have the most intense side effects. Generally doctors advise trying the meds for ~6 weeks before adjusting/switching/etc.
hi! I take 300 mg Wellbutrin (well, actually it's the generic, so bupropion) and it seems to have worked pretty well for me? problem is I went on it at about the same time as I went on a shit ton of other stuff, so it's difficult for me to pinpoint what medicine is having what effect, exactly. like tA, the amount I sweat has gone waaaay up, although my doc says that's probably attributable to both the bupropion and Focalin, which I also take. I have been nauseated, but I also have somatic anxiety out the wazoo and quite the history of issues with nausea because of that, so again, it's hard to tell what's a side effect and what's my body fucking me over. anyway, at the time I went on the bupropion, my mood and my executive functioning got way better, and it's probable that at least some of that is attributable to the bupropion specifically. recently I noticed a dip in mood, though, so my doctor added lamotrigine (the generic of Lamictal) as something in the way of augmentation. (lamortrigine is strictly speaking used to treat bipolar, not unipolar depression, but my mother and my brother have had positive effects from it, so he figured it was worth a try.) I'm still easing up to the target dose, but so far, zero side effects, and although I'm not the greatest at tracking changes in mood, I can say with reasonable certainty that it hasn't gotten worse since I started lamotrigine. I also take Zoloft currently—mostly for anxiety, but it is also an antidepressant. again, I started it around the time I started a bunch of other stuff, but I'm certainly feeling better both mood- and anxiety-wise than I did before I started taking it, so make of that what you will. I've had no appreciable side effects from it, either. past antidepressants I've taken include Brintellix, Prozac, nefazodone, and Abilify. (Abilify was meant to provide augmentation as opposed to being a primary antidepressant; it did fuckall, as far as I can tell, and my doctor took me off it when my parents expressed concern to him about how many medications I was taking.) of the other three, none worked and all had unpleasant side effects; I took them in the order they're listed above. the nausea problems I mentioned earlier started with Brintellix, peaked during Prozac, and continued through nefazodone; basically I was prone to random puking and bouts of nausea, as well as a general aversion to food and an extremely heightened gag reflex. while I was on Prozac, I had so much trouble eating that I almost fainted several times, and I had to go to the infirmary because my blood sugar was too low. I went off of that pretty fast, but nefazodone didn't completely alleviate the nausea, and it made me super fatigued. all I wanted to do was sleep, and I had trouble thinking straight. so yeah, no luck with any of those, and I sure have been around in terms of trying antidepressants! sometimes it can take quite a while to find one that works, but for your sake I hope your trial-and-error process is reasonably brief. now that I'm on meds that work I can definitely say that going through the process was worth it for the end result.
I take prozac. Agreeing with everyone else in the thread that the adjustment period is different from what things will be like once you're adjusted. For me, prozac does make me sleepy and hungry. I get around the sleepy by taking it in the evening, and the hungry isn't actually a problem because my default is to forget to eat and end up underweight. I'd say it's definitely worth getting an antidepressant to work for you. Raising my emotional baseline has done so much for my ability to do other kinds of selfcare and mental health management. Also, it's just really cool to not have perpetual anhedonia. Highly recommended, definitely makes academic stuff easier, because I don't get so buried I lose sight of why I'm doing it anymore.
I take Prozac seasonally. Makes winter a hell of a lot less shitty for me and everyone around me, because my flavor of SAD is 0 Spoons + 0 Chill TURBO BITCH MODE. They have me start it in September, even though my SAD doesn't tend to hit until the end of October, so I have time to adjust to it.
I take lamictal, which makes me dizzy and nauseous faster, so standing up quickly, spinning, and blood drawing suddenly became a problem for me, but my dosage is pretty high so take that as you will. I did experience a delay in effect, where it didn't really show a change for several months, but the side effects weren't particularly bad those months either. Caveat: lamictal is a mood stabilizer. I take it for depression, but that won't work for everyone.