• The Dark Side 💕 Welcome Guest 💕
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Notable Threads Urgent Hotlines
    Bereavement Mindfulness
    Suicide Support Anger Management
  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | Eligiu | deficiT

Mental Health Your experiences with your depression symptoms and different antidepressants

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Network

The Network

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 7, 2010
Messages
1,970
To those of you that have/had depression, what symptoms did you have and what drugs have you tried, and in turn what drugs have seemed to help which symptoms the most? Licit substances (preferably prescription substances) only please.

life story below, you can stop reading here if you just want to share your experience.

I'm getting tired of cycling between my life seeming good and then extremely poor and feeling hopeless, though I doubt it's bipolar because I'm never particularly manic. I'd like to get an idea of what to talk to a psychiatrist/doctor about before I go. My main problems are that I become extremely bored with things very fast, even things that I was ecstatic about to begin with. I can't be happy doing the same thing even for a couple months, like I couldn't imagine having the same job for more than 6 months. Also most days I feel unmotivated to just do anything at all other than sit here on my computer or sleep most of the day in bed. I've never had anything remotely resembling suicidal thoughts or felt particularly hopeless, just that there's no joy to be had in life. I also have anxiety sometimes but that's gone away slowly and is now generally pretty mild. I think an antidepressant script could help, but I'd like to narrow down my first choices rather than bounce around from script to script for years until I find a good one.
 
All anti-depressants ruin your sex life and make you gain weight, among a host of other massively impairing symptoms like derealization, depersonalization, and nullling of your emotions.

You have ADHD, and the meds may include straterra or stimulants. You are depressed because of your boredom. Simple solution. You are anxious because you don't have anything to treat your ADHD.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had ADHD, and I know what it's like. This is not only ADHD. People with ADHD are about 3 times more likely to have depression than anyone else.
 
I have been on antidepressants since I was 13 and my emotions are really dulled but I am almost the same as you but I also have a mental and emotional disability
 
I'm possibly one of the lucky ones in this regard. I engaged with a doc who worked with me to try different AD options before we struck gold with duloxetine. We upped that dose to max therapeutic for the depression and then started working on other areas.

ive tried many of the SSRIs and found em to be of little benefit whatsoever. Some of the SNRIs had an effect but came with too much baggage, but dulox time I suffer no ill effects and I don't feel up or down, I just feel more like myself.

i also have trazodone and amitriptyline, mainly to help with post trauma anxiety and sleep, so not the highest doses, but it works for me. I think the best we can hope for is to find a medical professional who we can build a working relationship with in order to mbe be forward, one little step at a time. I lucked out, he was only the third GP I met. It may take a while but it's worth it.
 
I've got BPD but previously we were just looking at meds for anxiety not depresssion. That being said, I've still always had depression, it just comes and goes. Pregabalin (Lyrica) helped with anxiety but not depression and it was the only one without absolutely terrible side effects.
 
I've tried paxil, wellbutrin, amiltryptaline, citalopram and venlafaxine. My depression symptoms are tiredness, sleeping in, eating too much, not being able to feel joy or interest, being disinterested even in my hobbies, being hopeless.

All but paxil helped, but I'm on venlafaxine now and it works the best of all of them. it should be noted i can't get hard anymore, but that's the only side effect. still, it's worth it for me.
 
I?m about to turn 33 and have been on antidepressants on and off since age 15, including but not limited to:
Zoloft
Paxil
Wellbutrin
Effexor
Mirtazapine (currently)
I have also had ignorant, irresponsible doctors prescribe me Zyprexa, Seroquel and Lamictal. I am neither bipolar nor suffer from any type of psychosis.

The only one of these medications that did not come with horrible side effects has been mirtazapine, which I tried to discontinue recently only to experience absolutely wretched anxiety, depersonalization and dizziness. I got some benefit from this medication, and Wellbutrin, but after only a few months they stopped working.

I generally experience major depression without any kind of mood swings, leading to total lack of motivation and ability to enjoy everyday activities. Been this way as long as I can remember. I have also suffered from GAD for as long as I can remember (for which I took benzos for the better part of 14 years), which I believe to be ? in my case ? the precursor to the depression.

I?ve been given various other medications here and there, including gabapentin, originally to get off benzos, but after the fact to treat anxiety/depression.

The ONLY thing that has worked for me, and stayed working, is kratom.
 
PsychedelicWizard said:
All anti-depressants ruin your sex life and make you gain weight, among a host of other massively impairing symptoms like derealization, depersonalization, and nullling of your emotions.

You have ADHD, and the meds may include straterra or stimulants. You are depressed because of your boredom. Simple solution. You are anxious because you don't have anything to treat your ADHD.
Click to expand...

This doesn't have to be true, I maintained my wait for years on Prozac, everyone responds to every drug differently. I also don't feel like my personality has been dulled and there's no depersonalization or derealization. I feel much better than I did before medication. I cried easily, got unreasonably upset or angry, felt like staying in bed all day.
I also have ADHD and only taking meds for that would not be helpful especially as most of them have a bit of a come down.
 
Oh but the antidepressant that has worked consistently has been Prozac. But now I'm on a mix of meds because I was later diagnosed bipolar and needed to add mood stabilizers.
 
SSRIs felt like poison, kind of an evil hyper-dysphoric bizarro ecstasy. Not at all surprised people go ballistic on them.

Wellbutrin was ok.

If I lift weights, spend time with family and friends and keep busy so I don't think too much I don't get depressed.

My depression was not chemical imbalance, I'm guessing most is not, it's your body telling you your life sucks, do something about it.
 
treezy, I think that you have a good attitude. It's true that there's still a large gap in knowledge when it comes to psych meds vs. insulin, as the typical analogy goes.

I think that if you do well without meds, then that's dandy. You sound like you have the willpower and knowledge to take care of yourself. Exercise and socialization are some of the most healthy of human activities. :)

But I would chance to ask you to be a bit more sensitive to those of us whom need something extra in order to function. I by no means think that medication by itself fixes people, as the ads clearly imply, falsely. But I am not lazy, and nor are hordes of other people who rely on medication to function. I am doing something about it. You are right that getting well and staying well involves cultivating healthy habits.


OldMacDonald, MAOIs used to dominate the antidepressant market. There used to be many, I would guess close to ten. Some were found to have intrinsic unhealthy effects. They were take off the market because people died, they had hypertensive crises and strokes, and died. A few have been re-released. They are quite rarely prescribed. I've known a couple people on them. They didn't find themselves having to abide by a diet, eating soy sauce and the like. The issue is that there will be a resulting nightmare of legal activity if one does die while on them.

EMSAM, at least at 6mg, is a patch that apparently doesn't carry nearly so much of a risk.

So, yes, they are far from first-choice medications. Current literature on the risks, seems to conclude, by my reading, that their danger was overstated.
 
Wellbutrin is the only thing that has worked for me w/o awful side effects. I'm bipolar 2 (so they say, im not convinced) and my docs like to throw pills at me. Everything else ive tired, seroquel, depakote, lithium, celexa, prozac, the list goes on has not only not worked but depakote for example made me put on 30lbs and lose my drive, lithium actually made my depression much worse till the point i felt suicidal. My docs solution, to double my dose.. made me worse obv. Listen to your own body and not the docs, they aren't in your skin and honestly don't seem to give a shit, just take these pills and see what happens, no good? take these pills.. on and on and on. Welllbutrin 300mg 3x a day.edit: wellbutrin takes a good month to 6 weeks to work so you have to give it some time
 
Celexa was a godsend for me. I was first prescribed it during medical detox several years ago. I resisted it at first telling the doctor I wasn't depressed, but he convinced me to at least try it. I felt a lot better about myself and life in general and was able to stay sober for over a year. I say it was a godsend because for years I had been searching for medications that would be effective against alcohol use disorder and none of them except for acamprosate (Campral) were remotely effective. Naltrexone made me sick like I was in opiate withdrawal all over again and baclofen just did nothing.

After I relapsed for several months and came out the other side, I told my psychiatrist that I just didn't have any interest in the hobbies that used to keep me preoccupied and he doubled my dose of Celexa. It seems to be working so far. I also take mirtazapine and doxepin at night, mirtazapine to fall asleep and doxepin to stay asleep, though I don't take the doxepin unless I can sleep in.
 
I have been taking antidepressant for almost 13 years now and I definitely have a hard time staying motivated to do things so I completely understand where you are coming from
 
@PsychedelicWizard,
There's a high probability I might have ADHD so thanks for your comment, I think I'll explore this further!
 
@truenamebrand I had a psychiatrist try prescribe me Seroquel swell when I'm not bipolar :/. And when I asked her why she was like it might help with your mood fluctuations and to help you sleep better.... Safe to say she was an absolutely terrible psychiatrist and am in the process of writing a complaint about her :/
 
I don't see a whole lot of value in this thread. A few anecdotes, or even 50 or 100, won't really mean much. Please ask your doctor about what has been found about various applicable medications by clinical trials and studies.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top