Anti depressants

[piedwagtail91]

I have been on them for ten years now, i hate them. They hav e totally ruined everything, all brands and different levels over the years, currently just 60mg fluorexetine...the worst were effexor sl venlafaxine and paxil paroxetine.
They hav etaken years out of my memory and are in my opinion highly addicitive....but the docs wont say so 'cos they are all on a pill sales target

the doc tried to put me on that stuff a couple of weeks ago. what a waste of £7. i couldn't even walk two miles without stopping or throwing up.after a week of it i binned them.
they're whinging a bit because they dont like me taking the tricyclics (dosulepin).
they're whinging even more now when i said i was sick of taking any of them after 20 odd years and i want to try therapy instead.

 

[velocidad]

also suffer with M.E. though doing really well at the moment.
depression set in soon after. venlafaxine first, which made me potty! spent all my day ordering things from the internet that i'd lost interest in by the time they arrived. would get chuffed when amazon etc would say "welcome back andrew, we have recomendations for you"...it wasn't until i came off them that i realised this was not normal. and coming off them was a terrible experience, at one point i was not sure who i was.
started seeing a psychiatrist and then a CPN, neither of whom had any clue how to help me. citalapram was the last one i was on, which may have helped a little, but slowed my thinking, couple that with the 'brain fog' common with M.E. and you can imagine i wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed personally i wouldn't want to take them again, as overall i think they just increased the symptoms i already had, and gave me a few new ones to boot!
i have no real answers as it's different for everybody. getting a motor for my bike in the early days of the M.E and depression made a massive difference to me. recently had a good think about how the life i lead facilitates my problems. this prompted some family circumstance changes which allows me to have the odd off day and avoids some of the things i know lead to my stress levels going through the roof
i wish you all the best BFTB.

cheers, velocidad

 

[piedwagtail91]

I'm in worse shape than i thought, I've just realised this thread is twelve months old.
the cpn has just gone, only seen him twice but don't think it'll do much good. sitting around for 50 minutes talking about metallica and Marilyn Manson isn't getting my problems sorted out.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

also suffer with M.E. though doing really well at the moment.
depression set in soon after. venlafaxine first, which made me potty! spent all my day ordering things from the internet that i'd lost interest in by the time they arrived. would get chuffed when amazon etc would say "welcome back andrew, we have recomendations for you"...it wasn't until i came off them that i realised this was not normal. and coming off them was a terrible experience, at one point i was not sure who i was.
started seeing a psychiatrist and then a CPN, neither of whom had any clue how to help me. citalapram was the last one i was on, which may have helped a little, but slowed my thinking, couple that with the 'brain fog' common with M.E. and you can imagine i wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed personally i wouldn't want to take them again, as overall i think they just increased the symptoms i already had, and gave me a few new ones to boot!
i have no real answers as it's different for everybody. getting a motor for my bike in the early days of the M.E and depression made a massive difference to me. recently had a good think about how the life i lead facilitates my problems. this prompted some family circumstance changes which allows me to have the odd off day and avoids some of the things i know lead to my stress levels going through the roof

I can relate to all of this. The brain fog/confusion and memory loss drives me crazy (erm...er?)...and as for the compulsive thing...yep...check out 18,000+ posts on a music forum!!!WTF....I cant remember 90% of what was said

I think I am pretty much over the ME totally now...I have the odd bad day but I am over it, hey I can ride a bike FFS..when the ME was at its worst I couldnt even get out of bed, or walk downstairs....I mean it literally stopped me from doing anything physical. As it improoved I found that a 'good day' would be followed by 2-3 BAD days ....the fatigue was crippleling, but I didnt really care much 'cos I was so out of it on the pills. I had a course of ME counselling and pacing exercises etc which did help me get off my arse.
The depression is a seperate but linked thing as I understand it... cycling is good for depression so th edocs say...lots of fresh air exercise and time to think..or in my case...NOT think

The thing about all this is that the pills seem to fix things outwardly, so people around you see changes (good & BAD)...but inside, in my case they dont do wot they say on the tin....erm...box.

Stress is th ething to avoid...it is a killer in more ways than one.

 

[simoncc]

Have you tried Citalopram? They work for me. That's why I'm so cheerful all the time!!!

Acupuncture can be really effective also. PM me if you want more info.

A Manchester City season ticket works for me.

 

[Evilcat]

The thing about all this is that the pills seem to fix things outwardly, so people around you see changes (good & BAD)...but inside, in my case they dont do wot they say on the tin....erm...box.

Unfortunately many GPs continue to prescribe anti-depressants (particularly SSRIs, so fluoxetine, paroxetine, et. al.) far too quickly and then fail to monitor the results adequately. It was a while back now, but I was prescribed Seroxat (paroxetine) with pretty much no aftercare and ended up not sleeping for month and having a fairly distressing set of manic psychotic episodes. Came off the pills and things returned to the previous state -- which wasn't great but at least I had a better chance of surviving.

There is plenty of clinical and anecdotal evidence that exercise is beneficial for depression. I'm bipolar (eventually diagnosed last year) so on manic days my TT times are pretty good.

EC

 

[piedwagtail91]

I can relate to all of this. The brain fog/confusion and memory loss drives me crazy (erm...er?)...and as for the compulsive thing...yep...check out 18,000+ posts on a music forum!!!WTF....I cant remember 90% of what was said

I think I am pretty much over the ME totally now...I have the odd bad day but I am over it, hey I can ride a bike FFS..when the ME was at its worst I couldnt even get out of bed, or walk downstairs....I mean it literally stopped me from doing anything physical. As it improoved I found that a 'good day' would be followed by 2-3 BAD days ....the fatigue was crippleling, but I didnt really care much 'cos I was so out of it on the pills. I had a course of ME counselling and pacing exercises etc which did help me get off my arse.
The depression is a seperate but linked thing as I understand it... cycling is good for depression so th edocs say...lots of fresh air exercise and time to think..or in my case...NOT think

The thing about all this is that the pills seem to fix things outwardly, so people around you see changes (good & BAD)...but inside, in my case they dont do wot they say on the tin....erm...box.

Stress is th ething to avoid...it is a killer in more ways than one.

i think what you've done since you came on the forum is pretty impressive, the weight loss ,the riding and tours, it's been great reading. hope you have a good tour.

 

[Danny]

The thing about all this is that the pills seem to fix things outwardly, so people around you see changes (good & BAD)...but inside, in my case they dont do wot they say on the tin....erm...box.

Stress is th ething to avoid...it is a killer in more ways than one.

Have you talked to your doctor about this. Different people react differently to each type of anti-depressant so it might help if your doctor tried you on a different type.

Are you seeing a counsellor at the moment? You have clearly thought a lot about your situation, but maybe you regularly need to speak to someone who can help you organise your thoughts and possibly help you deal with stressful situations better.

Many of the people I know who suffer from depression just sit in front of the telly all the time doing bugger all. The fact that you are doing so much cycling, and are one of the leading lights of this forum, already puts you streets ahead of them.

I am a bit worried about the 18,000 posts on a music forum though

 

[punkypossum]

I was given some Escitalopram a couple of years back - didn't make me feel any better and the side effects just weren't worth it, so I came off it...

However, antidepressants work for a lot of people and can be very useful to just get you out of that black hole where you can't get better by yourself and often are not even in a fit state to benefit from counselling, etc.

 

[trio25]

I'm on Citalopram and I can honestly say it has made a big difference. I started off on a low dose which helped a bit, meant I actually remembered going to see the dr, it was eventually upped and that made the biggest difference. I got back out on my bike and was probably able to access counselling. Before that there would have been no point. My GP didn't prescribe me AD's straight away as I was determined that I didn't want them but I'm glad I took his advice in the end. I've never just been given a script and left to get on with it though, I see him once every two weeks. Now though he is thinking of referring me to someone else. Things seemed to have stablished but are not improving, he doesn't want to up my AD's as they have lowered my max HR and he doesn't think it'd help my cycling lowering it further. I think that you need to find a GP that listens I guess.

 

[piedwagtail91]

I'm on Citalopram and I can honestly say it has made a big difference. I started off on a low dose which helped a bit, meant I actually remembered going to see the dr, it was eventually upped and that made the biggest difference. I got back out on my bike and was probably able to access counselling. Before that there would have been no point. My GP didn't prescribe me AD's straight away as I was determined that I didn't want them but I'm glad I took his advice in the end. I've never just been given a script and left to get on with it though, I see him once every two weeks. Now though he is thinking of referring me to someone else. Things seemed to have stablished but are not improving, he doesn't want to up my AD's as they have lowered my max HR and he doesn't think it'd help my cycling lowering it further. I think that you need to find a GP that listens I guess.

hell i wish my docs had been that good.I've been on this stuff tor 25 years and they've left me to do what i thought best most of the time.which looking back over bits i can remember was probably not a good idea.
I've had two psychiatrists and a psychologist and all have been a bit laid back.
now things have taken a nose dive I've managed to a get a cpn who i felt was trying to blame me for the mess. but I've got a therapist who is more in tune with what i want to do which is get off the ad's and see what real life is like.trouble is i only see her for 12 sessions.I'll see how it goes.

 

[medals]

It goes to show by the size of this thread and the amount of contributors, that mental illness is so common and yet it still has a taboo in today's society. Hopefully that's changing now. The human mind has not yet evolved to cope with the world in which we live and that is so sad really.

I've suffered quietly with anxiety and OCD for 30 odd years. This came to a head last year, nearly to the day and since I've had the courage to get help, things have got better, but it's a lifelong journey I think.

I've never wanted to go on ADs and my depression/anxiety is mild compared to others. I have found two things which have helped me enormously. Relaxation exercises and mindfulness meditation.
Relaxation has helped the anxiety, it's such simple thing to do but hardly any of us really take time to RELAX properly and it's hard at first when your nerves are on a knife-edge.
Mindfulness meditation has virtually killed off my OCD. Using this, I'm managing to re-wire my brain to identify the obsessive thoughts before they become feelings and to just not get involved with them. It is fascinating and you don't have to be a Buddha or any of that stuff.

 

[craigwend]

Interesting article

http://www.pavpub.com/pavpub/mentalhealthtoday/sample.pdf

 

[barq]

It goes to show by the size of this thread and the amount of contributors, that mental illness is so common and yet it still has a taboo in today's society. Hopefully that's changing now.

I think the other thing this thread shows is how variable the quality of care can be. We really have heard the very best and the very worst.

 

[bagpuss]

I have not been on this forum since last year.However recommended reading for all fellow black dog sufferers .The Gentle Mind ,by Pro Paul Gilbert.Link here;
http://www.fncfcs.com/cab-conference/img/Compassion_Group_Therapy_Paper-1.pdf