Stress Center Peer Support

Hi!
I have a long history of depression, though mostly anxiety. I have tried various meds. I started on Prozac, briefly on wellbutrin, was on Effexor for many years, then prozac for about 4 years. A year ago while on Prozac my anxiety returned 100 times worse than before, so my doc increased the dose and refered me to a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist kept increasing the dose to 60mg, and was taking buspar at the same time. My blood pressure went super high, I was shaking, twitching, and anxious all the time, so she took me off both meds pretty quickly and put me on Clonidine .1mg twice daily for anxiety and bp. My anxiety reduced gradually off the prozac, and started on lamictal. My psychiatrist left, and I was referred to another who said lamictal was probably not the best idea, and since I'd only been on it a couple weeks I should stop. He put me on Celexa, which gave me horrible muscle pains and agitation on top of my anxiety, so I told him I wanted to try to go without ADs and just use the Clonidine. Worked well for about 3 months, and now I'm worse than ever. 3 weeks ago he started me on Zoloft .25mg, increasing to .5mg after 2 weeks. I noticed some definate agitation in the first 2 weeks, but as soon as I increased the dose it got so bad I could not sit still, I was shaking constantly and my anxiety is out of control. Called and talked to the on-call doc this weekend who told me to stop the zoloft and increase my clonidine and take .5mg of xanax 3x/day over the weekend. I am now a complete zombie, and being a student who has to spend 8 hour days on campus can not stop worrying about how I'm going to make it through the day tomorrow, let alone the rest of the week. I have been working with the program, but just can seem to slow my mind down (except when I'm drugged to sleep). I'm really worried that with all these recent bad reactions to various antidepressants I won't be able to find something to work and am super scared right now. Has anyone else had so many bad reactions and found any success?!? Any advice is appreciated!

Hi

I'm sorry you are having such a hard time. For antidepressants I have tried Buspar, Celexa, Prozac, Effexor and Paxil. Paxil has worked the best for me. But I am unable to get off of it. I started taking it 12 years ago and have slowly weaned off of it a number of times but as soon as I am off of it and I have the least bit of stress the anxiety and depression come back worse than ever. Right now I am on 5 mg of Paxil and hope to get off of it completely some day with the help of Attacking Anxiety. I also took Xanax and Klonopin. The Klonopin didn't help at all. The Xanax did relax me but I felt really foggy and needed to up my dose very quickly. I did get off of that completely 12 years ago but it was very hard. I couldn't sleep for 4 days and couldn't sit still at all. It was horrible. If possible I would try to make it with out medication. But I know that is not always possible. Don't beat your self up if you need to take some. But I would talk to your doctor to find out which ones are easier to get off of. Paxil is notoriously hard to get off of. I know what it it like to be unable to sit still and to stop worrying. What I have done to help is make a list of things that make me happy. I know when you are depressed it is not always easy to think of something that makes you happy. So try to come up with the list while you are having a better day. Thinking of my dog always makes me happy. When I find that I am having a particularly bad time I go through my "happy" list and make myself think about each one. I seems to help me. One other thing that I do is force my face to make a smile and I hold it that way for a while. That also seems to help. I also use very high watt light bulbs. The bright light really helps my.

Sorry, I meant to say the bright light helps "me" not my.

I also have had that problem and it is very frustrating having to always switch medications and when you think the new one will help, you end up getting worse or having horrible side effects. I am having that problem myself currently. I tried to not take any medication at all when I first started this program in 2008 and it was terrible. I have accepted that I am one of those people who cannot live without being on medication, and that's ok. I do take xanax (1mg usually two times a day), but like you it makes me very tired and foggy. I wish I had the answer, but I just want to let you know that your not alone with this problem. It is horrible