Posted by Onestone on January 16, 2009, at 15:42:55
Hi, everybody, and happy new year!
First of all, sorry I never got back to all the people who commented on my last thread. I've not been feeling that brilliant.
The saga so far: decades long anhedonia; crippling lethargy; new psychiatrist open to creative thinking in December.
In December I asked her about dopamine drugs, and she replied she'd have to find out about that, "but in the mean time, why don't you try this stuff (venlafaxine)". I said yes. It can't do any harm, surely?
WRONG!!! After 17 days on 37.5 mg/day (actually, three of those were on 75mg/day), it's been unbroken misery - impotence, difficulty getting to sleep, increased lethargy, inability to practice my musical instrument (I'm another anhedonistic (amateur) musician), worsened lethargy, ....
On this drug, I've lost much of my connection with other people and much of my grip on reality. I'm only just able to look after myself in no more. It's effect is a sedative one, which is exactly what I don't need. I need one which will stimulate, motivate, and above all, relieve the anhedonia at least a little. It feels much like the Citalopram I tried a decade ago.
The psychiatrist assured me in December that "there shouldn't be any ramping up problems" with venlafaxine. Does that mean I'm peculiarly sensitive to this drug in some way?
I had another appointment with her yesterday. Her view was that "there's no point chopping and changing between drugs, and first I should press on with the venlafaxine, building up to a working dose (150 mg/day), so as to give it a good try out. "If" that doesn't work, then we could try xxxxxxx, a dopamine/noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor". In essence, it was a blazing row, but because we're both soft-spoken "reasonable" people, the outward form was of a polite, reasonable, but firm discussion. She won.
She didn't appear to have any particular expectation it would work, no big ideas. But she wasn't going to back down. Why should this drug work? It's a serotonin/noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor. Neither of the two components separately were any good, so why a combination. Hey, it might work - why shouldn't it? So I'm going to lose another two months of my life on the faint chance that venlafaxine might, just might, relieve my anhedonia.
I don't think I can stand this drug, even if it does settle down in another two weeks or so. I can't even work at my computer at the moment, I don't have the intellectual capacity. Surfing the internet and posting on forums is about my limit.
How did I get myself into this? I feel duped, manipulated, conned. I don't yet think or believe I've been duped, but it feels like it. I desperately want to try out a dopamine drug. Even if it ends up not working, at least it would be something different, a genuine attempt, a radically new point from which to triangulate my intractable problem. It can't do any harm, at least no more harm than any other antidepressant. Why are psychiatrists so reluctant to try dopamine thingies?
poster:Onestone
thread:874363
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/874363.html