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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Which medicine for anti-depressant use?

E

Elmira

Greenlighter
Joined
Dec 6, 2009
Messages
6
My doctor wrote me a list today, and told me to weigh up my options between these:

  • Tranylcypromine
  • Phenelzine
  • Bupropion
  • Bromocriptine
  • Pramipexole
  • Prazosin

Which would be the best to have? Thanks! :)
 
Hi Elmira,

The drug that would be best for you to have will depend on what criteria you use to judge them as well as what weight you assign to different factors. For example I don't suffer from depression and at the moment assign a big value to not throwing money away so i would choose none. :)

You likely have been diagnosed with depression and therefore might want to choose one, but if you also have trouble getting to sleep you might want one that has hypnotic effects or if you also suffer from anxiety you might want one that is also an anxiolytic. In other words some background on what you are trying to achieve here would be helpful.

That being said if I were you I would first read through the wikipedia article for each of these and take notes of any questions I have. Then if more research doesn't answer your questions you can come here and ask them. From there you can make a big pros (desired effects) and cons (side effects) list for each drug and narrow down your choices (with our help if you like) and finally you can make a decision together with your doctor.

It is good that you are taking an active part in your own treatment though and I wish you luck on finding something that works!
 
It is very nice of your doctor to give you a choice, my doctor just tried one at a time trial and error until we found out that nothing worked.

To be honest though, we cannot really help you make your decision as everyone will react differently to those drugs and noone can give you an answer that will definitely work for you.

Will leave this open for a while so people can give some opinions on your options but will probably close it soon as it noone can really give you a firm answer.
 
Selection of Anti-depessant medications

Hi, Elmira.

There are a great many factors to take into account when entering into anti-depressive treatment. The first question I would ask is do you have corresponding 'highs', to your 'lows'? Also, everyone being different and neurochemical receptors being so evidently in abundance, it very often takes more than one - sometimes a few - medication try-outs to suit the individual.

This is even more tiresome when you consider the fact that each med has to build up in your system over at least a week or two to determine efficacy, and having sought help, I feel this can be disheartening. I hope you have a good doctor.:\

If I were you, and it is indeed depression itself that is the only problem presenting, then I would look more towards SSRIs such as Escitalopram, maybe even Fluoxetine (Prozac) if the former fails to do the trick. Your own doctor will likely have a preferred aproach, esp. if he knows you fairly well.

If offered, I would recommend avoiding 'atypical' or '2nd generation' antipsychotics such as Olanzipine (Zyprexa) and esp. Quetiapine (Seroquel); although structurally similar to benzos in many ways, their use as anti-depressants is a bit off-label, in that it is my belief that they simply flatten emotional reponse in order that the recipient is dulled into a failure to recognise [any/I] ups or downs, esp. where there is no psychosis.

Furthermore, the drug group has recently been condemned through double-blind research as displaying increasingly similar side-effects to 'typical' or '1st generation' antipsychotics. They are also expensive.


I hope you feel better very soon.


Brandon.
-o0o-
 
Last edited:
Have you tried eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise and cutting down / stopping drug use?
 
Mugz said:
It is very nice of your doctor to give you a choice, my doctor just tried one at a time trial and error until we found out that nothing worked.

To be honest though, we cannot really help you make your decision as everyone will react differently to those drugs and noone can give you an answer that will definitely work for you.

Will leave this open for a while so people can give some opinions on your options but will probably close it soon as it noone can really give you a firm answer.
Click to expand...
Please dont close it,it is my birthday today =D
 
Fyasko. said:
well happy birthday:)

and not everyone reacts the same to certain meds.
for some people, citalopram does wonders.
but for people like me,
citalopram ruins your libido and causes weight gain and acne:p
Click to expand...

Thanks :)

Well tbh ive only been taking them a week and the side effects ive noticed so far include,fatigue,general tiredness (especially at work and i work in a manual labour job which makes it quite difficult) excessive sleepiness,i can sleep for hours at any time of the day or night,loss of libido is something i have also noticed and will be mentioning to my GP when i go for my next appointment in 2 weeks and i hope to god i dont suffer acne from Citalopram as i had a few years in my late teens where i suffered severe acne and was prescribed pretty much every cream,gel,antibiotic on the market until a 4 month course of roaccutane finally cleared it up which as many will know has plenty of its own nasty side effects.
 
pally pete said:
Thanks :)

Well tbh ive only been taking them a week and the side effects ive noticed so far include,fatigue,general tiredness (especially at work and i work in a manual labour job which makes it quite difficult) excessive sleepiness,i can sleep for hours at any time of the day or night,loss of libido is something i have also noticed and will be mentioning to my GP when i go for my next appointment in 2 weeks and i hope to god i dont suffer acne from Citalopram as i had a few years in my late teens where i suffered severe acne and was prescribed pretty much every cream,gel,antibiotic on the market until a 4 month course of roaccutane finally cleared it up which as many will know has plenty of its own nasty side effects.
Click to expand...

which medication are you on now?
does your family have a history of depression?
have you abused any drugs in the past?
 
Mugz said:
my doctor just tried one at a time trial and error until we found out that nothing worked.
Click to expand...


So what did you do then? Did you just "buck up" and decide to deal with the depression or did you find some other substance that worked?


I went from Prozac to Wellbutrin. Prozac turned me into a zombie but wellbutrin seems to be working OK.
 
SSRIs

If antidepressant meds are indicated, I see know reason to disclude SSRIs as opposed to MAOIs, SNRI, or tetra-/tricyclics. The newer SSRIs such as Escitalopram have met with a deal of success. A milder option would be Lamotrigine or maybe Carbamazepine.
 
So what did you do then? Did you just "buck up" and decide to deal with the depression or did you find some other substance that worked?
Click to expand...

Nothing really worked, I had a lot of long depressive episodes that would come and go, the last one pretty much ended about 2 years ago and I haven't really had one since.

I know that benzos really have helped though as my depression and anxiety seem to fuel each other, one being bad makes the other worse and vice versa, so having less anxiety and also being generally happy in my life over the last two years (mainly due to having a great relationship and leaving my parents house) has seemed to stop any more depressive episodes. Just hope that now the relationship seems to be over I don't end up getting sucked into another depressive episode.
 
@rickolasnice: unsurprisingly that doesn't work for everyone, esp. when you have a problem that commonly disrupts routine.
 
Fyasko. said:
which medication are you on now?
does your family have a history of depression?
have you abused any drugs in the past?
Click to expand...

Citalopram 20mg daily

My family are the sort of people to not talk about/admit to mental health issues.

Ive abused Cannabis,MDMA,have been a very ocassional LSD/Mushroom user and the past 2 years i have heavily abused Benzos and within the past year ive moderately abused Oxycontin.

Im pretty much drug free now though,weed i may have the odd toke every month or so although i gave up full time pot smoking back in 2007,MDMA is something ive done maybe 4 times in the past 3 years,although before that i used it weekly for around 5 - 6 years and the benzos ive used heavily and sporadically for the past 2 years,just at weekends,maybe every weekend for 1-4 weeks and then a break of 1-2 months.

I did explain my drug use to my GP.
 
Brandon Walker said:
@rickolasnice: unsurprisingly that doesn't work for everyone, esp. when you have a problem that commonly disrupts routine.
Click to expand...


Yup - I eat better than Richard Simmons, and I get regular exercise but I'm still plagued with depression/anxiety.

I'm positive it's genetic - both my parents suffer from major clinical depression - and I didn't find out about that until I was 35 and started asking my parents questions.
 
Ok, I know its not on the list, But Tramadols work wonders for depression. Ask your Dr. about it. You should first start out with 50mg and see what happens. I only take 50mg since there is less chance of the seizure thing No more than that.

50mg is a good dose if you want to avoid having seizures.
 
You can actually go quite a bit higher than 50mg without risk of seizure. I was going all the way up to 450mg - 500mg all in one shot a few months ago with no siezure. I was taking recreationally though. I've never heard of a low daily dose of tram for depression. Interesting...
 
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