Posted by jrbecker on October 12, 2004, at 15:26:26
In reply to Re: cymbalta - how does it effect excercise? » jrbecker, posted by utopizen on October 11, 2004, at 21:26:18
> > About seven weeks ago, I switched to Cymbalta. It has DEFINITELY been an improvement on Effexor in terms of an antidepressant and the ability to stay motivated to exercise (as well as exercise performance). I have kept on a low dose though -30mg daily.
> >
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> I'm glad to see that it's help you be motivated enough to exercise! This past summer, with my Zoloft not working, I would just wake myself up at 8 and immediately get out of bed and put my bike garb on and run out the door with my bike, because it was my only shot at fighting off the depression-induced negative thought cycle "oh, let me sleep in" or "oh, what's one more hour of not doing anything" lathargia.
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> With enough routine, it sort of became programmed into me and helped a lot.
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> But I think you should talk about uping the dose of Cymbalta with your doc to 60mg or more. Exercise is great, and you should continue with it regardless, but my only concern is if you're relying on it just to keep away the creepy thoughts of depression like I used it for.
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> That's no way to live... I hope to try Cymbalta shortly, and hopefully it'll let me feel like waking up in the morning has a purpose again. I haven't felt that way for two years now. I don't know how it got like this, but all I can do lately is wish I lived in the past again as a happy sophmore college student and not a lonely depressed senior who feels meaningless. I want my life back. I want it back. I sort of feared getting depressed when I was younger, thinking I'd never get out. I've tried every AD now. Lexapro 20mg right now. Cymbalta. Hope.Hi U-
actually, I'm fairly sensitive to meds, so 30 mg is actually a pretty robust dose for me. I'm an atypical depressive, and so my concern about increasing any medication is that it might make me feel too tired and anergic -- which is definitely the possibility considering the profile of cymbalta. Right now, my functionality in terms of energy level, work performance, and ability to be fairly self-sufficient is good. In the past, many of the meds I tried proved to be good antidepressants, but only at the expense of this functionality.
As for the antidpressant response that I receive from cymbalta, I'm currently doing very well. Hopefully that won't change too much. We all have our peaks and valleys though.
Hopefully Lexapro will do the trick for you. I faired rather poorly on it myself. But we're just all so different to our responses to each of these meds.
If you don't end up having a good response, perhaps you should add cymbalta to the list of options once you and your doc discuss an alternative strategy.good luck,
JB
poster:jrbecker
thread:399380
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041012/msgs/402215.html