Posted by ronaldo on December 1, 2006, at 8:39:37
In reply to Re: Hello blueberry.... » ronaldo, posted by blueberry on November 30, 2006, at 20:10:49
> Hi ronaldo.
>
> Yeah, I started adrafinil 4 days ago. 150mg the 1st day, 300mg 2nd and 3rd, 450mg 4th day. I got a nice mood lift the first day. Since then I have had good energy and good concentration, no good mood, and a headache. Insomnia the first night, but fine after that. It is strange but adrafinil along with its stimulation also seems to be mildly anti-anxiety at the same time. Weird. Anyway, in my past experience it really didn't start to kick in until week 3, so I have quite a ways to go.
>
> I will probably stay at 300mg which is the dose I took for several years. I might increase it but I have other things to consider. For example, I am on day 10 of withdrawing from 10mg prozac. I am on day 3 of reducing zyprexa from 2.5mg to 1.25mg. I am on day 10 of St Johns Wort, starting at 150mg and yesterday hit 450mg. So there is a lot of stuff going on. I'm kind of in a hurry but also trying to be careful and not change any one thing too dramatically all at once.
>
> Overall I feel uneasy, not well, headachey, disconnected, spacey and a bit nervous, on top of the depression. The withdrawals of prozac and zyprexa combined with starting sjw and adrafinil makes for a very weird feeling. I would have liked to completely withdraw from old meds first, but I know from experience that if I did that I would crash and burn badly.Hi blueberry,
You sure seem to be very busy with all your meds - starting here, decreasing there, etc etc... I think it is impossible to trace any of your side effects to Adrafinil except on the basis of what happened last time. I hope you emerge unscathed from all these changes. I wish you good luck. I hope you don't crash and burn badly or any other way. Take care. I need your advice for when I start on the Adrafinil experiment.
I might just decide to decrease my Zyprexa only as far as the 5mg, I don't know. It has been a long-held ambition of mine to come off the Zyprexa. It is now a question of honour whether I make it to Zero Zyprexa or not. I don't believe I am psychotic and I don't believe I really need the Zyp. It was originally prescribed for me to get some sleep at night. Several changes of pdocs down the line and I got stuck with one pdoc who latched on to the idea that the Zyp was good for maintaining mood stability. I can imagine his satisfaction when I failed to get off the Zyp last time and what is more I had to restart it at 10mg whereas before I was always steady on 5mg. I got a change of pdoc since then. I haven't quite managed to make my new pdoc out. He is a recent immigrant from South Africa. I don't know if he is any good yet. He tried to get me onto Seroquel but it wouldn't work for me, possibly because I came off the Zyp too quickly. I only get to see him once every three or four months.
Anyway I am down to 5mg now. I reduced from 7.5mg to 5mg on Wednesday night so I am not yet stable on 5mg. I've got 4 weeks supply of both 5mg and 2.5mg. I was really surprized to learn that it costs about £2,000 to keep me in Zyp for a year. Lithium by contrast is only about £40 for a year.
I worry a bit about you juggling so many meds at once. Be careful. I wonder how you can tell which side effect belongs to which drug. Experience I guess. Although I have been on psychiatric drugs for thirty odd years I have never bothered to take an interest in how they work and what they do and what the side effects are. That only changed when I joined psychobabble. I can't even remember how I found out about psychobabble. I guess I should delve into the archives and see if I can find out.
I am sorry to hear you have not been feeling well. Take care, don't crash, don't burn, play it safe...
....alan
poster:ronaldo
thread:706990
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061129/msgs/709285.html