Posted by Rahilka on October 19, 2013, at 23:58:21
Hey everyone!
As of five days ago, I am on fluvoxamine (sorry if that is spelled incorrectly, I just took a sleeping tablet and feel pretty loopy,) for depression, GAD, OCD, and SAD. I started off on a very low 25 milligrams for two days before moving up to 50 milligrams for the past three days. From my understanding, the lowest effective dose should be 100 milligrams and I requested my doctor to raise me up more quickly but he denied my request since I have a tendency to be very reactive (physically and emotionally,) to side effects. I can usually tell how an SSRI is going to affect me within a week of starting one since I have now officially tried all of the SSRIs (yay me!) and so far on the Luvox I am feeling very listless, highly apathetic, there has been no help with my lethargy (if anything it's made my lethargy worse,) and a disturbing lack of motivation. I don't think that I an attribute all of these symptoms to my depression - they did exist to some extent (except for the motivation and apathy) prior to commencing Luvox but have since intensified 10x. I know that SSRIs are generally known for causing some apathy, and I think in some ways that is beneficial FOR ME since I tend to care way too much about unimportant things and am very neurotic by nature. So yay for decreasing a lot of my anxiety! However, THIS particular feeling of apathy is so strong it is hard to get out of bed in the morning and not because I am feeling depressed. Not to mention I am experiencing some pretty hardcore drowsiness and I am not even on a therapeutic dose yet!
ANYWAY, I can't judge the efficacy of the medication yet obviously, but if these side effects stick around I plan on augmenting my SSRI with another med to help with motivation, pleasure, drive, interest, and energy.
I have seen people augment SSRIs with Wellbutrin - the NDRI which supposedly has a much, much higher affinity for NE than dopamine (is this true?) However, I was wanting to look up some other possible strategies. Does anyone have any suggestions? If you name a suggestion, will you tell me why? Not only for my own medication's sake but also because ever since I have jumped onto the "med-go-round" I have become FASCINATED by psychopharmacology! I am in my early 20s and was thinking of maybe down the road doing something in psychiatry once I got myself straightened out. Of course I don't think this will ever happen but it's nice to just entertain the thought.
Thanks everyone.
poster:Rahilka
thread:1052613
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130930/msgs/1052613.html