Opinions of sertraline

[Featherfall]

Having been on setraline and now venlafaxin for a while i do want to say its felt like an actual "depression medication" and not the wishy washyness of base ssris, setraline at 200mgs felt no different than 100mgs. Venla is very different there, i can certainly say it helped me like no med so far has in staying alive and functioning. You speak off the withdrawls associated with mirta and i just wanted to add that at a dose that actually affects the norephedrine, venla could likely be worse there. I only missed a 225mg dose once so far and i dont intend to repeat it. Tapering is basically requierd, if you ask your gp for it you might be able to bridge it with the venla though and side effects are more common with it. I'd reccomend it if you know about the high side effect chances and the unbelievable physical depndance.

It supposodly helping with anxiety though was always a little weird with me, i'd have said the opposite on first impression. But i m not an anxiety patient so i dont know, but it sure is effective at whatever it does in your body.

 

[Perkins : Reborn]

AI reckons that SSRIs in general have substantial benefits for 50%-70% of people who need help with their depression or anxiety.

I think that figure is far too high, as although I'm aware that more people tend to post online about negative experiences rather than positive ones, it still seems to me that vast numbers of people find this class of meds offer them very little help, especially for anxiety. Which they are supposed to be also helpful for.

Mirtazapine does help me sleep, even years after starting it, but neither it nor the 2 other SSRIs I tried previously; paroxetine, and sertaline, made the slightest difference to my anxiety. The Drs told me that each one would help me with my anxiety. They did absolutely fuck all for me in that regard. I get the impression that the whole class of drugs are broadly similar. If one doesnt work, there's not going to be a huge difference in another. Kind of like how all benzos are broadly similar, with only relatively minor differnces between different ones, along the hypnotic and anxiolytic scales.

.I don't see any point in going through the horrors of withdrawring from a long term mirtazapine script, just to try one more SSRI that most likely wont do anything for my anxiety either. I have heard it said by many that venlefaxine helped their anxiety. If I knew that earlier, before I'd been on Mirtazapine for so long, I'd have tried it. But now that I have, I don't think it's worth it. I very highly doubt it would help in the least bit, and all the horrors of withdrawing from a long term mirtazapine script would be totally in vain.

With hindisght I now believe that my low mood was more a reaction to my life situation, with the difficulties being caused by my undiagnosed Autism and ADHD, rather than actual clinical depression. I faked a couple of the ridiculously brief 5 question "depression test" I had to answer with the GP in order to get started on the scripts. It was obvious how I needed to answer, in order to 'pass' the test. Within less then 5 minutes I was started on a long SSRI journey, with no idea of how difficult coming off these meds is. I either wish I'd never started them at all, or at least tried venlefaxine much sooner, and then if that wasnt working after a few months, I'd have just stopped using them completely.

Isn't hindsight wonderful. If I'd have known what I know now all those years ago, I would have done things very differently. I was not advised well by the GPs at all. No mention was made of the difficulties of the 'withdrawl syndromes', said by some to be even worse than the withdrawals following long term benzodiazepine use. I'm not entirely convinced about that. But at some point I may try coming off mirtazapine. I'll probably have at least a couple of months of severe insomnia to look forward to, and God knows what other symptoms besides. No mention was made of the benefits of trying something like Venlefaxine for anxiety, when the other 3 anti-depressants had failed. Either the GPs did not know about any of this, or they neglected to inform me.

There was no internet back then, with ready access to huge numbers of individual experiences, and any other information that might have been life changingly helpful.

You never know; people explore multiple SSRIs before settling on one. Though I must admit that I would never have wanted to go down this route a few years ago. You may respond differently now.

It's experimental anyhow, and if it sends me loopy or causes other adverse effects then that box is ticked. But with all the other shit I'm on, it should be okay.

I'm at the stage where I'm zapped with meds to see just what the fuck is the best balance.

 

[Bleaney]

Having been on setraline and now venlafaxin for a while i do want to say its felt like an actual "depression medication" and not the wishy washyness of base ssris, setraline at 200mgs felt no different than 100mgs. Venla is very different there, i can certainly say it helped me like no med so far has in staying alive and functioning. You speak off the withdrawls associated with mirta and i just wanted to add that at a dose that actually affects the norephedrine, venla could likely be worse there. I only missed a 225mg dose once so far and i dont intend to repeat it. Tapering is basically requierd, if you ask your gp for it you might be able to bridge it with the venla though and side effects are more common with it. I'd reccomend it if you know about the high side effect chances and the unbelievable physical depndance.

I've heard that Mirtazapine is one of the least bad anti-depressants to withdraw from, in general, and compared to the others.

It's a totally different class of anti-depressant than all the other SSRIs, as it's some kind of old school, atypical tetracyclic antidepressant, whatever the fuck that means, all I know is that it's not an SSRI and it does help me with insomnia, if nothing else.

I'm relatively stable atm on a mixture of prescribed meds and self medicated substances. I'm not needing to increase my benzo doses to keep delivering the same effects. It's an extremely common misconception that benzos stop working for anxiety within a few short weeks. This is absolutely and categorigally untrue! I'm about 15 years in, and although I've had a couple of breaks in that time, benzos are still doing the business for me, and I've not had to increase the doses very much at all.

So basically I don't think it's worth rocking the boat, and destabilising everything by withdrawing from mirtazapine, enduring weeks of insomnia, just to try venlefaxine. Which potentially will have withdrawl syndromes just as bad, or even worse than benzos anyway, even if by some slim chance it does actually work for my anxiety. The only major benefit would be not having to resort to all these dodgy black market websites to get benzos anymore, and not getting ripped off with fakes so many times. I'd be able to get legal genuine meds for next to no cost, as I'm already using a pre-payment certificate as I already have 2 other monthly ongoing prescriptions. I'd also be able to travel overseas again, which isnt something I can currently do with my benzo dependency meaning I'd need to take higher risks than I'm prepared to take, by trying to get uprescribed benzos through airport customs checks.

 

[Perkins : Reborn]

Tricyclics work well enough, but it's so easy to overdose. I think they were / are near the top spot for suicide, if you can call it that.

If you were to switch, any humane doctor would prescribe zopiclone as needed for insomnia, unless you have a massive history of benzo abuse.

EDIT: Mirtazapine is actually tetracyclic, but it seems the same warnings apply.

 

[Bleaney]

Tricyclics work well enough, but it's so easy to overdose. I think they were / are near the top spot for suicide, if you can call it that.

If you were to switch, any humane doctor would prescribe zopiclone as needed for insomnia, unless you have a massive history of benzo abuse.

Well I guess I do have at least a substantial history, but they don't know that. There's only a couple of notes on my files from more than 10 years ago, and it's all in the past as far as they know.

I've been prescribed zopiclone a couple of times, but it was very minimal, like 7-14 nights worth only, and they said that I may need to take 2 of them, as they gave me the lowest doses available.

That was a lot closer in time to my recorded benzo issues though, maybe things would be slightly better now.

Even so, I just don't think it's worth all the upheaval at this stage, for something that is far from a certainty that it would work for me anyway.

 

[BadBoy377]

Mirtazapine withdrawal is rough. Psychs always play that shit down. Easy enough to say you're in withdrawal for booze, benzos z drugs etc but when it's their drugs it's "Discontinuation Syndrome".

Took me four attempts to get off mirtazapine. I feel a lot better off it though. Venlafaxine is meant to be one of the worst withdrawals in terms of antidepressants.

 

[Featherfall]

Venlafaxine is meant to be one of the worst withdrawals in terms of antidepressants.

OH BROTHER, i can sing you a fucking song about that shit, not a WORD of warning from ANYBODY and when you look into it they go "urmmm actually, its not addictiontechnically, we prefer the term 'discontinuation syndrome' calling it addiction or dependance is not right thats yucky!" while all i can think of is the one night i missed a dose everything going NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE NIGHTMARE

pretty good antidepressant though 8/10 feels nice to be on

 

[Bleaney]

There's reports of people abusing venlafaxine on wikipedia. That's pretty rare for that class of drugs, so they must feel nice.

Although I have heard a few randomers talking about abusing mirtazapine over the years, I really cant see any appeal in that. All it does is knock you clean out, if you take more than prescribed, or chew the tablets so they hit more hard and fast. I guess lower doses might just be messy and sedating, but it all sounds like people abusing mirtazapine must be pretty desperate tbh. I cant see it being very pleasant or recreational at all.

If I hadn't been on mirtazapine for such a long time, and it had only been a few months, I'd definitely get off it, and try venlafaxine. But getting off mirtazapine is just too much of a problem and complication to deal with right now. Ive been on it for many years. So many that I wouldn't even like to know exactly how many years.

 

[4DQSAR]

Three decades ago I was gifted some venlafaxine and oh my goodness it was horrible. It seems to have become a lost detail that originally the researchers were looking for a novel analgesic. I remain unconvinced that venlafaxine looks all that similar to tramadol when the two are overlaid in their minimum-energy conformations but both are chiral and I'm pretty sure that the less active isomer of tramadol wasn't left in the product to save money or to improve activity, I think it was to deter abuse.

It does seem odd that the developers of venlafaxine haven't at least TRIED to offer the chiral compound as evergreening becomes more and more common.

But however you view them, don't forget that most body chemistry is chiral so to the body both of them represent not one but two medicines with all the same potential interactions as when two unrelated medicines are used at the same time.

I have yet to meet someone who actually liked venlafaxine and the only person silly enough to take a handful reported getting lost at the Glastonbury Festival for three whole days! Glad they survived but even more frightening was their admission that they had consumed ligands more associated with festival culture and complained that it blocked the subjective effects of those ligands!

When young I was prepared to accept a small amount of risk and felt that I might have better understand of some medicines by actually trying them but this I do not recommend. A person only has a finite but unmeasurable amount of luck and I've run out, that's for sure.