Scared to take meds

[Robby]

Ugh I just hate nausea. I am prone to it unfortunately. I remember with Trazodone I had cut it in half so I took 25mg , and I remember I chewed it thinking it would get me to sleep faster. That might have been part of the problem, maybe it's not meant to be chewed. Surely 5mg of Lexapro wouldn't hurt me, right? Even if I am sensitive to seratonin.

Honestly I don't feel therapy does a bit of good. I just can't get past the concept of talking about my problems to a stranger who's being paid to listen.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I don't blame you for being cautious with drugs that affect your head. They don't have a purely bad track record though. I've got a few friends and relatives that had to take anti-depressants or some kind of mood levelers and were very happy with them. Never complained of nasty side effects.

What I'd recommend is to take it slow and easy. If you do decide to go on medication, ask for a small dose to see how your body reacts to it. It might not hurt to look into a less chatty form of therapy, like gardening or grooming animals.

As for me, I like to use plain ol' stubbornness to get through anxiety. Probably not a very healthy approach, but true to my stubborn nature. I was teetering on the edge of shutdown the other day because my anxiety was going through the roof and I did NOT want to go do what I needed to go do. Even though logic and past experience with this particular thing dictated there was nothing to worry about, it didn't change the biological and emotional reactions. Got through it in one piece and it did go a ways to fix some of the anxiety. I figure in time I'll be fairly relaxed doing this particular activity, but I'll likely have to start all over again if I have to move it to a new location. Bleh!

 

[Robby]

I do take Xanax, a very low dose, and it helps. I tolerate it very well. No side effects. Doesn't keep my anxiety down for long though. I guess I can try the 5mg of Lexapro, that's such a low dose it cant hurt right.

I do like animals, not always possible to be around them, but when I am, I usually like it. And I like going on walks but that's not always possible either where I live. I like enjoying a good cigar too. I agree with the stubborness, I'm a very stubborn, set in my ways person. I don't like the idea of popping tons of pills and being a zombie. Some anxiety is healthy I think. But what's mainly concerning me is the depression. So I really have no choice but to take meds because it's out of control. The depression that is.

My anxiety used to be much worse than what it is now. It's gotten better with beta blockers and xanax. But the depression is still very crippling. Some days I can't even leave the house. Avoidance is still a problem for me too. Maybe Lexapro can cure that.

 

[wyverary]

Actually the thought of an allergy to seratonin never crossed my mind until just now. I just put down my reactions to Paxil and Trazodone as just typical (although pretty nasty) initial reactions that can occur with starting an anti-depressant. Never really considered maybe an allergy. I'll have to ask him about it. I've never tried Lamictal or Depakote, but leery of them because I had a pretty bad reaction to Lithium when I was misdiagnosed bipolar. Mainly it gave me pretty severe palpitations. But isn't Lamictal an anti-seizure med? I'd be a bit scared of that. How about Seroquel, I hear good things about it.

I had a terrible time on Lithium and had to stop, and it took me years to find out that a combination of Lamictal and Seroquel is as perfect as can be FOR MYSELF. I am also speaking as somebody who cannot take traditional antidepressants because I quickly become hyper-aggressive and actively suicidal. I'm not saying Lamictal and/or Seroquel is right for you; I'm simply saying that it has worked in my particular situation. I cannot reiterate enough: MEDS ARE A CRAP SHOOT and it can take a VERY long time to find the right combination. But there is bound to be something out there that will work for you; you just have to be patient. I can't remember...did you mention you were in therapy?

 

[AsheSkyler]

I do take Xanax, a very low dose, and it helps. I tolerate it very well. No side effects. Doesn't keep my anxiety down for long though. I guess I can try the 5mg of Lexapro, that's such a low dose it cant hurt right.

I do like animals, not always possible to be around them, but when I am, I usually like it. And I like going on walks but that's not always possible either where I live. I like enjoying a good cigar too. I agree with the stubborness, I'm a very stubborn, set in my ways person. I don't like the idea of popping tons of pills and being a zombie. Some anxiety is healthy I think. But what's mainly concerning me is the depression. So I really have no choice but to take meds because it's out of control. The depression that is.

My anxiety used to be much worse than what it is now. It's gotten better with beta blockers and xanax. But the depression is still very crippling. Some days I can't even leave the house. Avoidance is still a problem for me too. Maybe Lexapro can cure that.

Beta blockers work on anxiety? Interesting... Makes sense in a way, since they slow the heart down and I think I read once they reduce adrenaline activity. That's the part I can't stand about emotional baggage. The emotions are enough to deal with without the weird effects on the innards and it's rather distracting. All emotions are healthy in proper doses, although many magazines seem to act if you're anything but happy all the time then something is wrong with you. I suspect modern magazines were written by chronic stoners.

Would it be possible to open a window and sit in the sunshine for a few minutes while you enjoy a quiet hobby like reading or watching TV? Drink lots of water or herbal teas too? Nothing is a cure all, but it might pick you up a bit until you can talk to your physician about Lexapro and hopefully do a trial run on it.

 

[Robby]

Beta blockers do work. I take a beta blocker because I have tachycardia sometimes and an added bonus is they get rid of most physical symptoms of anxiety. They can make you somewhat sleepy. They get rid of those sweats and voice cracks related to anxiety. But of course only take them with a doctor's supervision. However, and this is the big caveat, they do NOT reduce depression at all nor do they remove the anxious thoughts. The anxious thoughts are still with me, just maybe a bit less pronounced. And they do nothing to solve avoidance. A lot of times when it comes to a job interview or something, I get so anxious that I just psych myself out and don't go. Avoidance is a big problem for me.

What I'm struggling with now is mainly depression, hopelessness, and debilitating self-doubt. Physical activity and distracting myself helps somewhat, but doesn't help to address my underlying depression and self doubt. Hopefully Lexapro if I can get the courage to take it, will help that. The depression has been so bad I can't leave my house for the last several days.

 

[On the Inside]

I did have side effects tat were bothersome, but were not by any means debilitating, and they did not change me beyond recognition. I was also scared to take meds, before having to treat my anxiety and an erroneous diagnosis of ADHD, I wouldn't even take Ibuprofen unless I was in serious pain.

I realized that I just needed to relax, stop overthinking everything and give some things a try. Some I quit after a couple of weeks, one med I tried for a year and a half even though the side effects were uncomfortable and er, at times inconvenient.

 

[Robby]

Yea but how do you make that first step of actually taking the pill. That's terrifying.

 

[BIMOG]

Yea but how do you make that first step of actually taking the pill. That's terrifying.

You put your trust in the fact that your doctor has undergone years of training and knows what he's doing. You take the first pill and hope for the best. You may be lucky and it might do precisely what your doctor has told you, in which case you carry on taking the medication and stop feeling depressed. However if you are unlucky and you do suffer unwanted side effects you stop taking the pills, inform your doctor what happened and ask him to prescribe an alternative.

 

[On the Inside]

One pill is not going to have that much effect, usually you'll start out at a small dose and ramp it up from there. I would be surprised if you felt much different from your first one, maybe not even until after your first week.

Keep reading what Bimog said, that is all you need to think about.

 

[ZackSkylar101]

Yeah, from my knowledge on drug stuff, here is a list of things which I hope are helpful in some way:
- Serotonin allergy, as far as I'm aware, is not a thing (I've done a quick database search, and nothing related to it is coming up, instead it's linking to the theory I explain a bit later in this paragraph). As serotonin is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter in the body, it most likely wouldn't be able to elicit an allergic effect or intolerance effect as far as we currently understand these elements. What is a hypothesis, which is debatable and generally not accepted by the medical community, is the 'leaky gut hypothesis' (have a read about it, as I haven't done too much on it, but I believe that is one explanation to say that the dose of the drug that may enter an autistic person's system is significantly higher than intended and so causes more side effects - as I stated, there isn't much evidence for it and so is generally not accepted by the medical community).
- Beta-blockers are a treatment for the symptoms of an anxiety disorder, and through treating the physical effects can help you to relax mentally, which is really good (propranolol is the only medication I take any more for anxiety when I am getting a bit panic-attacky and it does help distract me from it and help me to calm down a bit).
- The serotonin theory is just one theory around depression, and it is the one with more evidence, but as rightly stated, it is not completely proven. But that is kinda like a lot of things in science, we work with what we think is right at the time and see what happens and SSRIs do work for some people, but also they don't work for some people.
- Citalopram (ie. Lexapro) has a fairly long half life, and works by building up a cumulative dose over time. The general guidance for antidepressants is that it takes between 4 and 6 weeks to start to see an effect, and in the meantime you can have the side effects of worsening depression and anxiety, which can suck a lot. But if you get through to the 6 week period then it starts to get better. From my experience it was more like 8 weeks before I started having a proper effect, and that is not uncommon.

Yeah, medication for neurotransmitter levels is currently not at a stage to work wonderfully, as our neurotransmitter release is so fine tuned to get the brain to work properly normally, that adding in an SSRI is to some extend like hitting a circuit board with a hammer, and so starting with a lower dose and slowly building up may be a good way to go. But if you are feeling really desperate then it may be a good idea, as others are suggesting. There is the key thing though that medication alone will not help. When I was on an SSRI I saw it as a blocker to stop me from wrapping myself up in more thoughts and so I had the time to deal with the thoughts I was having and reach some sort of a solution, that may not be perfect, but at least when I then went off of the medication I was more able to stop thoughts after that and control what was happening. But just taking an SSRI will not make things feel really better so to say from my experience (as the reason I went off it was similar to other people here, I felt like there was something weird happening and messing around with my neurobiology and I did not like it so I told my GP and withdrew myself). They will make things feel better in some ways, but I didn't like it ultimately so stopped. But it does have different effects with different things.