Posted by Viridis on December 24, 2003, at 0:57:11
In reply to ADD med as mono therapy for depression, posted by Maxime on December 20, 2003, at 13:22:05
I take Adderall for ADD, but it has strong antidepressant properties as well. I mentioned this to my pdoc, and he said that stimulants can be great antidepressants, but prescribing them for anything other than ADD is very risky for doctors, due to their highly controlled status and close monitoring. He will occasionally prescribe Ritalin etc. for severely depressed patients briefly, while waiting for SSRIs etc. to kick in, but says he really has to be prepared to justify this.
So in a weird way, I guess I'm lucky. I haven't been able to tolerate any of the "standard" antidepressants I've tried (SSRIs, Wellbutrin etc.), and the other meds that have helped have either been marginal (Provigil) or stopped working (Strattera).
However, I can't really say I'm on stimulant monotherapy, since I also take Klonopin daily and Xanax occasionally. These are for anxiety, but since a lot of my depression stems from anxiety I consider them "antidepressants" too. In any case, the combination of Klonopin with Adderall works quite well for depression (for me), although I continue to try new things -- Lamictal probably will be next.
poster:Viridis
thread:291910
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031219/msgs/293044.html