Posted by tendency on July 18, 2007, at 11:13:11
In reply to Tianeptine and SSRIs » tendency, posted by Sigismund on July 17, 2007, at 15:03:52
Here are my thoughts:
Tianeptine, so far, has been excellent at virtually eliminating by anxiety, apprehension, fear and excess worry. Almost every morning I (before stablon) would wake up with tightness in my chest, prickly fear throughout my body, feelings of worry circulating in my head and a general sinking and sense of foreboding sensation in the pit of my stomach. Within 30 minutes of my stablon dose these symptoms are probably 95% eliminated. Very impressive.
I've also found very potent anti-depressive qualities. Depression, for me, often manifests as deep feeling of grief and sadness (which are very physical in nature) coupled with a general tendency to view stimulus in a negative painful manner.
Tianeptine has greatly improved this. Here's a typical example of benefits I've noticed: Before tianeptine I would often be overcome by sadness and despair with the slightest outside event triggering an episode. On stablon, my 'resistance' to stimulus triggering an event is dramatically improved. Things that normally would really bother me barely register, and, when they do, my reactions are MUCH less strong and last for a much shorter duration. The best way I can describe this is perhaps to say that stablon appears to be an emotional stabilizer.
However, what's great about stablon, compared to SSRIs, is that I havent noticed emotional blunting. For me, SSRIs worked quite well for the above symptoms but they would leave me somewhat sedated, cognitively impaired and, worse still, deadened to both the bad AND good in life. It felt like my ability to experience pleasure, joy, excitement, awe, etc. were reduced in equal measures as my reduction in feeling 'negative' emotions. Not good.
I've not noticed this with stablon. In fact, quite the opposite. I find myself much more 'in tune' with joy, happiness, awe, wonder, contentment etc. on stablon while at the same time enjoying a quite pronounced reduction in depressive symptoms as outlined above.
So, in that regard I would say stablon is certainly 'warmer' than SSRIs. One last note, I do need to take stablon 3 times/day as it does have a very short half life. It's quite noticeable when it wears off too..like clockwork about every 4 hours I'll feel the tightness returning to my chest and see my emotional equilibrium rapidly deteriorating and I'll realize it's time for my next dose.
-M
poster:tendency
thread:769396
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070710/msgs/770334.html