Crazy meds!
 

So, I recently got functional health insurance (THANKS OBAMA), and with it, the financial means to deal with my very, very long-standing depression in a manner that doesn't involve ineffective OTC herbal crap, questionable internet semi-drugs that may or may not be legal, or alcohol abuse.

I've been into the local mental health center a couple of times in the past month, and both the admitting doctor and my current psychologist agree that medication would probably be very helpful for my particular case. Of course, crazy meds are tricky things to get right, as a quick search for Effexor horror stories or any search about benzodiazapene withdrawal will tell you. My only previous experience with antidepressants was about three months on Celexa a few years ago, which I dropped due to a combination of money issues and the fact that it made me pretty lazy...it did, however, improve my mood a lot and gave me the ability to actually function in social situations.

Anyways, since I would like to get this right as quickly as possible, and because getting in to see a prescribing psychiatrist is quite difficult, I would like to know if anyone here has experience with antidepressants that they could share. QUICK EDIT: I'm slightly inclined towards Cymbalta or Effexor at the moment, because while the discontinuation effects are scary, they're supposedly very good for long-term treatment, and frankly, I expect to be on something for the rest of my life; I've been dealing with various levels of depression for about 15 years now.

I dunno.. It depends.

I've been on these in the past: Prozac, Paxil, Remeron, Lexapro.

I'm on none of them now, and try to control my 'depression induced' mood swings instead. (It is not easy)

The right ones, do the job and do the job good. It's a matter of dealing with any side effects that may hinder certain aspects of your life. You'll know if a pill is not right for you when it's just making things worse instead of helping.

Hmm, SSRI's, like lexapro DO take care of the depression(it did for me at least). But SSRIs make your sex drive go cold turkey.

This is not something someone who is currently on or has used these drugs in the past can help you with; this is a question for a psychiatric doctor. If you've been dealing with these symptoms for fifteen years you can exercise the patience necessary to schedule an appointment. Further patience will be necessary during the process of going on various drugs.

Yeah, what Capo said.

Also, I've been on medication for a few years now, but therapy has been what's really been helping me out, so I hope you can give that a shot as well.

Prop for the nod to therapy, not the nod to me.

Forgot to mention that in my post. I've been on a host of medications and been in therapy for ten years. Therapy (with a good therapist) is wonderful.

I'd also recommend taking a look at Prices, Coupons and Information - GoodRx to compare the price of various medications in your area. That website's pretty great. They'll tell you if the manufacturer has a discount program, if a local store sells a particular generic cheap, or what. I have pretty good insurance, and occasionally I still find it cheaper to not use it and just go with the store's $5 generic plan instead.

Thirding Capo. Doesn't really matter what other people's experiences have been anyway, because what works well for some might be disastrous for others because of differences in your brain chemistry and your mental history. Unfortunately there's no easy way to skip to the best one for you - trial and error under the supervision of a psychiatric doctor is the only way this can play out.

Capo's right. Everyone's different so its best that you talk to your doctor candidly and upfront about your issues.

I had issues with therapists but I do well with the drugs. My issues with therapy is that I can't understand them that much since I'm hard of hearing and my expectations of them (not the therapy) tend to get more personal than it should have.

I probably should have clarified that I have appointments with both a therapist and a prescribing doctor set up already, since I think I gave the impression that I was going to order random pills from some shady online pharmacy. My weird semi-public, semi-private insurance covers mental healthcare 100% and has no co-pays on most drugs except for weird evergreened stuff like Pristiq and Nexium, so at least any treatment regimen I start on should be stable instead of some weird on-off rushed thing like my previous experience with Celexa.

Anyways, I did kind of expect that different medications would affect people differently. It is good to see that therapy helped a lot of people out, since I definitely have a lot of weird self-defeating/self-destructive thought patterns that are (relatively) easy to identify but much, much harder to actually deal with.

Therapy will help you a whole lot with those thought patterns, provided you get a good therapist that you can work well with I mean. It's a long process tho, so, good luck!

lol if you want to see a realy bad health care system come to russia

Quick update: Unfortunately, thanks to the wonderful upper Midwestern winter, my second therapist visit did get delayed for a bit until tomorrow morning. That said, I did get in to see my prescribing doctor, who put me on Celexa. Only been on it about a week, but it's already doing me quite a bit of good! Less irritability and social anxiety, and I think I'm hitting the point where my energy and mood are improving too.

Just wish the yawn would go away.

My current list of anti-depressants has Effexor and Wellbutrin, with an anti-psychotic called Seroquel, which "apparently" is for boosting the anti-depressants.

That said, they seem to be working for me. I can attest to some of the withdrawal symptoms associated with Effexor, as my shitty short-term memory has caused me to miss a couple doses. Luckily I have one of those week-labeled pill containers now, so it's so much easier to keep track.

Anyway, the only withdrawal symptom I noticed other than increased depression was intense dizziness, and what I can only describe as "brain-shakes". Like, imagine your brain is suddenly a vibrator that's turned on within your skull.
It was bad, but I'm glad I didn't get the vivid nightmares most people seem to experience.