Posted by BLPBart on August 26, 2002, at 1:24:13
In reply to Re: stims and mood problems » BLPBart, posted by may-b on August 23, 2002, at 10:15:06
> Hi BLPBart
>
>
> > I've been under treatment for major depression for a few years and have tried a number of anti-depressants. Most of the trial and error being due to intolerable side effects. During all of this my doc and I started to believe that ADD might be part of my problem so he started me on 10 mg/day of dexedrine with the use it for a week, up it to 20 if you don't feel anything routine...I am now solely on dexedrine which appears to be working very well for both the ADD and the depression.
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> I am interested in your experiences with dexedrine to treat both depression and ADD.
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> May I ask what are the features of your depression? i.e., atypical, etc.?
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> How long have you been managing on just dexedrine?
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> Thanks for your input,
>
> may-b
>
>I'm happy to share my depression experience with you. I'm not sure what catagory mine fits in exactly because my doctor has never said anything to me other than major depression. However, based on what I've read, I think it might be the atypical kind. I base this on the fact that when I get depressed, I get extremely lethargic. I don't ever want to get out of bed and just getting up and doing the simplest things can require a tremendous amount of energy.
One of the hard parts about trying to evaluate how effective the ADs have been for me is that I have the lethargy already with the depression. Then, when I was taking prozac which can often cause lethargy, it was difficult to determine if it was the drug or the original depression causing the problem.
For me, I have found that even when I was using the wellbutrin alone, which is supposed to be stimulating, I didn't feel depressed, but I felt extremely tired all of the time and just dragging around. On the dexedrine, I also don't feel depressed, but I don't feel tired. The nice part is, I don't feel wired or euphoric, just normal. I can wake up, have a cup of coffee, and go to work and function all day without feeling like falling asleep at my desk. I can then come home and be alert enough to manage to make dinner, cleanup the dishes, do some bills, whatever, and then go to bed at a reasonable hour. I haven't suffered any insomnia either.
I haven't felt like any of the depression is coming back right now, although it's only been about a month since I went completely off of the wellbutrin. I'm fairly optimistic, however, since this has been a particularly tough time for me. A lot of my depression revolves around some difficult, unresolved issues that my husband and I have and I have been seeing a counselor for a while and just in the last few months have been really getting to the meat of the problems. In some ways it's been good and made me feel better to recognize what some of them area, but it's also been very difficult to start recognizing some of the problems and get them out in the open - sort of like reopening old wounds. I've been feeling that if I can get through this without losing it, then I'll probably be on the path to some type of remission from the depression. Now, as far as ADD, obviously there's no remission for that so I'll stay on the dexedrine as long as my doc will write me prescriptions.
Hope that was informative. I'm happy to keep you posted.
poster:BLPBart
thread:116715
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020821/msgs/117763.html