People who aren't depressed and taking SSRI's?

What would happen if you didn't have depression but started taking an SSRI?

I'm not planning on going to the doc' or doing this recreationally, I just wondered what it'd do.

I also mean a course not just 1 pill!

depending on the SSRI, you might get zoned out, monged out, hyper, happy, depressed, suicidal, stimulated, lethargic...anything could happen...Not worth risking brain changes, addiction and stressful emotional experiences over a crap high anyway.

Effexor (venlafaxine), On the other hand, packs quite a wallop for someone who is not depressed...

and serzone as well.. both are sort of ecstasy like for those taking them recreationally.. but it's not worth it due to the nausea they often cause in people not acclimatized to them..

The above comments are not true. Antidepressants are NOTHING like MDMA in effects.

If you aren't mentally ill and you take an SSRI, you will of course get the normal side effects, but you won't feel high. You will probably find that your mood improves (relative to your baseline mood).

^^^
Oh and I of course mean if you are taking the SSRI for weeks continuously.

hmm, i gave my medication to people who were not medicated and they did describe it as a mild, speedy e like buzz.. but maybe they were (quite likely, now that i think about it) untreated depressives..

negro kitty you have to get over that °Antidepressants can't get you high° mentality...I know it's probably dangerous to throw such statements around so liberally, but it's undeniable...
I mean, down in argentina, it's the latest fad...take venlafaxine to get high...or down a few prozacs for a week or 2 to be happy and not have a care in the world.

It's just simply not true...I've taken many of them and while when you FIRST START TAKING THEM you may feel a bit weird and fucked up, I would not call it a high.

Virtually everyone, depressed or not, feels a bit weird when they are first taking an SSRI and their body is adjusting to it.

Also, a week or two on prozac would not make you happy...it takes much longer for prozac and other SSRIs to start working. Apparently alot of people you know get placebo effects easily. Lucky them.

^^^
Negro-kitty is absolutely correct.

SSRIs don't get you high. You might start to feel strange a few days after taking them continuously, this would be due to the SERT downregulation that occurs. Once the downregulation process is complete (usually 3 to 6 weeks), you'll more than likely feel that your mood is higher than baseline (just as Negro-kitty said).

well, negro-kitty said he/she would not call it a "high".. that might be correct based on her experience.. but for a lot of people, feeling "weird" with physical symptoms is construed as a high.. effexor is a phenethylamine after all, so it's not unusual someone might feel some e/amphetamine like effects from it.. anyways, andrew weil espouses the theories that all drugs are "active" placebos.. that is, they trigger a physical reaction that gets interpreted as being the cause of a psychological state.. even though that state is completely dependent on your expectations..

Ok, well some people get high from smoking banana peels...it's called the placebo effect.

a couple of years ago i was part of a university study where zoloft was given to non-depressed people. i took the minimum dose (can't remember amount) for 28 days. it was basically to see the effects given to people who weren't depressed because docs seem to be prescribing these things without a 2nd thought. it was a blind controlled study where some people were taking a placebo, but i found out at the end i was taking the actual zoloft.

i could feel it on the first day and i know it wasn't just placebo effect, because i wasn't expecting to feel anything. it felt like a mild speedy high. i hardly slept or ate for about 3 days. towards the end most side effects wore off but i did get uncontrollable jaw clenches and often would start chatterring and wouldn't be able to stop.

in terms of happiness and wellbeing...i didn't really notice much difference, but in hindsight i didn't have any fights with my boyfriend over that period of time (we were fighting regularly).

i wouldn't recommend you go on a course of this unless you have been diagnosed as depressed. it's not really that exciting and you are likely to just suffer annoying side effects.

list said:

a couple of years ago i was part of a university study where zoloft was given to non-depressed people. i took the minimum dose (can't remember amount) for 28 days. it was basically to see the effects given to people who weren't depressed because docs seem to be prescribing these things without a 2nd thought. it was a blind controlled study where some people were taking a placebo, but i found out at the end i was taking the actual zoloft...

...in terms of happiness and wellbeing...i didn't really notice much difference, but in hindsight i didn't have any fights with my boyfriend over that period of time (we were fighting regularly).

i wouldn't recommend you go on a course of this unless you have been diagnosed as depressed. it's not really that exciting and you are likely to just suffer annoying side effects.

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It's too bad that this study was not for a 90 day period of time instead of 28. This was just long enough to reach almost full SERT downregulation without the stabilization that occurs afterwards. You only got to go through the side effect period of downregulation (which is a rather disrupting period).

Do you know off hand who funded the study? I'm interested because they may have done several other studies which would be interesting to have a look at.

Thanks :D

My friend decided to start taking Zoloft regularly for no reason. He took it for a few months. He didn't notice any difference except that he didn't have to masturbate every day. He was pretty excited about that.

meowmix said:

My friend decided to start taking Zoloft regularly for no reason. He took it for a few months. He didn't notice any difference except that he didn't have to masturbate every day. He was pretty excited about that.

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LOL :D

Do you know off hand who funded the study? I'm interested because they may have done several other studies which would be interesting to have a look at.

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http://www.psych.unimelb.edu.au/research/affective_neuro/index.html

I don't think the study i was involved in has been completed just yet. Here is an outline of the study:

Julian Simmons
I am in the early stages of a PhD investigating the role of serotonin in emotion. Psychopharmacological, psychophysiological and standard behavioural measures are employed. An initial experiment used fluoxetine (an SSRI) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled design with psychiatrically healthy subjects, and found an effect on responsiveness to pleasant and social threat pictures (IAPS, 1999) for affective startle modulation and facial EMG. This implicates serotonin in responsiveness to certain types of affective, and social stimuli, and a role in attentional regulation. Future research will employ more selective SSRI's, NARI's and tryptophan depletion techniques. The loudness dependence of the auditory evoked potential (as a measure of central serotonergic functioning), measures/designs of reward/nonreward and EEG will be integrated. Relating findings to research showing the homeostatic role of serotonin, at neuronal and information processing levels will be central to this project.


I must've taken part a little later in the study where we were paid to take sertraline (zoloft). Nothing like being paid to alter your brain

Also, a week or two on prozac would not make you happy...it takes much longer for prozac and other SSRIs to start working. Apparently alot of people you know get placebo effects easily. Lucky them

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for me this is not true.. i took Seroxat one time and after a short time i noticed the effects.. sort of a very light crappy E 'high'

but defenatly not a placebo-effect

^^^ There is just no way you got a sort of 'e high' of a single dose of Seroxat.

And to say that it was definately not a placebo effect is meaningless, because by nature of the definition of 'placebo' you believe the effects to be real!

I accept there is no point arguing this over the internet since there is no form of proof other than you attesting you did and me defending the impossibility, but I really hope that people don't go around taking these medications expecting to get high off them. It's just not feasible, and more importantly these drugs are only intended for use for those who have been prescribed them.

^^^
not feasible? What about taking benzos to get high? Feasible enough? or painkillers?

only intentended for use for those who have been prescribed them, huh? What about the vast plethora of drugs that you -CAN- get high off? Are those intended for use?

Please...saying A/Ds can't get you high is if you're not depressed is like saying benzos can't relax you unless you're an anxious person.

There is no ABSOLUTE baseline, of serotonin-dopamine-induced happiness. Such as there are people who are physically stronger than others since they are born, there can be people who are better "wired" for happiness... I have this friend who could be starving in the street, with parents who pimp him for the next dose of crack and still be happy, and a friend who has EVERYTHING going for him that is always depressed...

Please...saying A/Ds can't get you high is if you're not depressed is like saying benzos can't relax you unless you're an anxious person.

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This is just not true....it is very irresponsible of you to be spreading misinformation like this.

Does tylenol get you high? Do birth control pills? How about insulin?

Of course, NONE of the aforementioned drugs get you high, and NONE of the ADs do either. End of story.

Health mods, I would be grateful if you could edit fuji's reckless 'advice'.