Posted by sundog on January 26, 2001, at 7:43:16
In reply to Re: Heck, yeah!, posted by LMM on January 26, 2001, at 5:51:15
It took me about 8 weeks at 400 mg (and a month to work up to that dose) before I started feeling better. Then I had about two months of really noticeable improvement and good energy (my depression is the lethargic/atypical type). In the three months since then I seem to have plateaued at a level that is not quite satisfactory, so we've started to experiment with augmentation: first thyroid, now Celexa (at 1 week).
So, while I'm not sure WB SR has been entirely effective for me, it has been helpful, and I've had no side effects whatsoever other than a 10+ lb weight loss, which began and continued even through the times I felt too cruddy to exercise and eat right. No additional anxiety, no sexual side effects, no insomnia, no jitters. I have cut back to one cup of coffee in the morning since two started to seem like too much.
What I particularly like about WB is that I have no sensation of being medicated. The only AD I am able to compare it with is Prozac, on which I never quite felt "myself" (though I'm not sure how much of my sense of "myself" is colored by chronic depression). I responded to prozac very quickly, within a week, but also felt different in subtle ways that I found disturbing -- I think I passed through a stage of increased self-confidence into touches of recklessness and carelessness, with people but also noticeable in my driving. I found myself speeding through yellow lights, for instance, which I never (well, hardly ever) do off prozac. Also it certainly had a negative effect on my sexual response. And it seemed like after a few months the AD benefits wore off and I was left with the undesirable side effects, at which point I ditched. I went through this cycle three times over a decade before I finally took the initiative to find a really good psychiatrist.
We all respond so differently to medications, but this has been my experience, anyway. Hope it helps a little.
poster:sundog
thread:52501
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010122/msgs/52610.html