What AD can truly help me, without staying on it forever?

[tenshu2k]

Hi,

Well I've been trying to clean up my act for a while, and I have considerably. I used to be a heavy drinker (cut down to social, maybe once a week now), and I had some MDMA abuse (clean for over a year).

I'm doing well on those fronts, but I still have a great sense of depression and anxiety that makes life difficult. I always had this to some extent, but it may have worsened or become more pronounced now. My doctors aren't all too great, since I'm limited to what my insurance covers, so their fix is pretty much automatically prescribing prozac or whatever is most common.

I've tried niacin therapy, which helped a bit, but not enough and it hasn't cleared me of my anxiety symptoms.

I also have a feeling of mental fog. Words don't flow as easily as they once did. I've been taking piracetam for this, but I'm thinking I need something better. It's hard for me remember things or get things done sometimes.

To summarize, here are my issues:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Occasional Speech Difficulty/Social Anxiety
- Subpar Memory/Sharpness
- Fatigue, Constant Tiredness, Lack of Energy

If anyone has ideas of what I could do or take to help, they would be appreciated. I plan to run some ideas by my doc, try them out, and find something suitable. I want to find a long term solution. I've heard so many stories about ADs being for life, and depression worsening due to them or when off of them.

Thanks!

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i used an ssri. prozac actually. a person's connection with reality is weak during severe depression. the drug helped me see over the wall. then after (a few years of) making some forward steps, i cut it. against the advice of my psych. he said they were going to, and symptoms did return. but not as bad as before. and it was easier to identify the symptoms and realize that they were affecting my perception of reality. things still fluctuate. but better than prozac for life.

life has ups and downs. your depression probably cannot be cured. but if you are completely despondent and do not see how life can ever be anything but despair, an ssri coupled with therapy can help show you that some sort of well-being is semi-maintainable. even if it takes ridiculous effort.

 

[tenshu2k]

i feel like i can manage with the depression...

what really is limiting me is the anxiety, tiredness/fatigue, and lack of mental acuity. those things make it difficult to move on further.

 

[Addyman]

Wellbutrin (Bupropion) is always worth a shot

DNRI Antidepressant

- Depression - MOST LIKELY WOULD FIX
- Anxiety - 50/50 ON IF IT WOULD FIX
- Occasional Speech Difficulty/Social Anxiety - 50/50 ON IF IT WOULD FIX
- Subpar Memory/Sharpness - MOST LIKELY WOULD FIX
- Fatigue, Constant Tiredness, Lack of Energy - WOULD FIX IT

If Wellbutrin (bupropion), an SSRI, and an SNRI fail to have positive effects

I would ask my doc for Adderall, it is used off-label for antidepressant-resistant depression

 

[Cane2theLeft]

^ it's not used commonly for that and few doctors that possess scruples would be willing to go that route.

I apologize for the condescension but the way you presented bupropion as inevitably being able to fix these issues is just silly.

I don't know of ANY psychotropic medication that outright fixes any mental health issue.

 

[Allein]

I've come off ADs twice over the lasty 2-3 year since a major breakdown and both times my suicideal thoughts and ideation have returneed as well as very low mood and other typical symptoms. Its taken a long time to find an AD my body will tolerate.

Now I'm on Venlafaxine and recieving CBT things are much better, I'm not concerned about being on this long term, the importnant thing for me is to be able to live my life now in a reasonable mental state, I see dealing with depresion aas a long term issue, its taken me 40 years to get this way so i guess its going to take soemtime to work things out and the AD definitly helps to stabilise mood enough for the therapy to be more effective and of course avoid an early end to life.

 

[MartinFn]

I've asked a lot of people who take anti-depressant, the most of them said that venlafaxine works better..amytriptiline is a medicine that help..but what, there isn't a fuckin wonder-medicine...wish there fuckin was..


MartinFn

 

[Mugz]

You can't expect any AD to cure any of your problems, you will need some sort of therapy to go alongside it if it is going to really have a chance of helping.

We could talk forever, mentioning all of the different antidepressants out there and giving our own personal experiences with them, but that would just be counter-productive in my opinion as there doesn't seem to be any one drug that works for everyone. I'm pretty sure that the anxiety issues could be "cured" with benzos, but that would just be a quick fix and is not something that you want to get yourself into, trust me, after 7 years on and off benzos, mainly on, they help my anxiety a hell of a lot, but I hate them and would want nothing more than to be off them and never have been introduced to them.

I'm thinking about closing this thread up now as this is just going to lead to lots and lots of subjective discussion and anecdotal reports about other peoples experiences.

If the OP or anyone else would rather that I reopen this thread because they think that this will help the OP with their problem then just PM me or one of the other BDD mods as I might not be around as much this week.

Mugz