Medication options

[Apatheticfool]

I am taking vortioxetine. But at the highest dosage I was experiencing significant and persistent, constant, intrusive suicidal thoughts.

Have come down to half that dose. Now I mainly have apathy. I feel nothing about anything, no emotional reactions. Apart from fear, that’s still there in certain situations. So actually, it’s not even treating what it’s there for. But, I just feel like nothing at all matters.

I’m looking for medication options which I can ask for which are not SSRIs. I have tried loads of them and none have done anything apart from make me apathetic and give me side effects.

I’ve tried a small dose of quetiapine, which basically did nothing at all.

I’m also on propranolol. That is very helpful.

Is there something else I can request?

 

[Sideways]

If SSRIs aren’t working, the next class of drugs to try would probably be an SNRI. Some folks get relief for depression in particular from MAOIs, although they’re old school so a lot of pdocs don’t think to go there. There’s some atypical SSRIs floating around that are newer.

I was (am still, working on it) quetiapine for a long time. Got up to 1200mg a day plus PRN, but I’m down below 100mg/day now. The higher doses numbed me out, which was what I needed (ie. complete zombie). The lower doses helped me sleep, and took the edge of my emotions, dissociative symptoms and anxiety. I took it as extended release, so that I could take higher doses, because it was helpful for me, but the side effects of instant release were prohibitive. There are other atypical antipsychotics, newer ones, that may be more helpful for those symptom clusters.

There’s also treatments for depression which aren’t pill-based. Like TMS, or ketamine therapy, which are more widely available these days.

The medication lottery can be a nightmare. There’s genetic testing you can have done now which can give you the heads up, in advance, which ones would likely cause you a lot of side effects. I’d tried around 30 different psychotropic meds by the time I got that. Wish it had been more widely available when I started the recovery journey!

 

[Apatheticfool]

Thank you @Sideways

It’s not really for depression. I feel like it’s given me depression. It was for PTSD symptoms, anxiety ones mainly and flashbacks.

But now, i think I’ve become depressed whilst taking them, maybe because of them.

Maybe just coming off them would help. Will look at SNRIs. I was prescribed venlafaxine previously, but don’t think I ended up taking it.

I don’t want to find it hard to come off them, and I don’t think I’m depressed. Just working things through.

I do get sudden feelings of extreme depression sometimes, but they go with time and the meds haven’t made any difference to that anyway, so presumably that’s not depression. It’s usually triggered by fear, from some trauma trigger.

I was wondering about ADHD meds. Don’t have ADHD diagnosis, but haven’t been assessed. Psychiatrist won’t prescribe as he thinks it’s all PTSD.

I read some people take ADHD meds for PTSD symptoms though.

 

[Apatheticfool]

I can’t really do anything that involves going into hospital, so couldn’t do TMS or ketamine therapy.

I am doing EMDR, maybe I just need more of that.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

Last year my Psyche NP did Genetic Testing on me because I had been on so many over 40 years. It helped her choose the right medications will be likely to help.
Recently she added another medication after looking at my results. It works on Dopamine. It has lifted the darkness…