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.
I would not recommend Venlafaxine (Effexor)!
I have been on it for several months, it has helped me significantly with my particular issues and symptoms. *However, there are so many negative risk factors that come with this medication that I decided it wasn’t even worth it to continue, for me. I did not do the deep dive that I should have before taking the medication, so I wasn’t aware of those factors until after I’d already been on it for a few months. Not to mention coming off of that medication causes extreme withdrawals, or at the least minor withdrawal symptoms, even with tapering down (which I did and am currently experiencing horrible withdrawals and symptoms: Agitation, Perfuse Cold Sweats, Nausea, (seemingly random) Vomiting, Severe Headaches, Emotionally just a wreck, and some other minor symptoms. Overall just awful.) The withdrawal symptoms can last anywhere from about 3 weeks to several months according to my doctor and my own research…
Bupropion (Wellbutrin) — prescribed and took for about a year, which worked well for me for a good while, until it didn’t. I started experiencing extreme depression.
They raised my dose, but same result: worked for a while, until it didn’t.
It did help temporarily, but eventually I had to switch medications.
Citalopram (Celexa) — prescribed and took for about 2 years. This stuff worked like magic, for me. I took for about 3 months and felt “too happy” like unnaturally overjoyed about everything, to the point where it kind of scared me and made me question if I had ever been truly happy before taking that medication... after the initial few months I started experiencing extreme emotional highs (in situations in which I’d normally be upset, I would be devastated. Instead of getting mad about something , I would furious. Instead of bummed out, I was depressed. Instead of just happy, I would be obnoxiously overjoyed. Etc.) and with these extreme emotions I started experiencing my heart racing so fast at times to the point I was scared my heart was going to explode. When I told the doctor this info, it was determined that the dose they gave me first was too low (Which confused me. This was 10 years ago for me, so I don’t remember all the details. I’m sure a medical professional could explain dosing and all that.)
Doc doubled my dose and I didn’t have any of those problems any more. After the dose correction the medication worked wonderfully for me. — I only stopped taking it because I got really into being completely “natural” and didn’t want any pills or man made substances in my body, during that time in my life.
Obviously now, I’m a little over that due to some new trauma that I went through a few years ago and am back on meds.
I wish I could remember some of the others that I had negative experiences with, but I can’t remember the names. I know I took something that started with an “M” before the citalopram that completely numbed me out too. Made me not care about anything at all, felt like a zombie. I had to stop that because my son was 1 at the time and I wouldn’t even react to him crying :/ I just didn’t care. Thankfully I had enough sense to recognize that was not good, even though I had no emotion about it at the time and had the doctor switch my meds.
