4 replies to this topic

[phillyfan24]

Hello everyone...just found this fantastic site which has given me some hope. I will try to make this quick...

 

On lexapro for ~5years for depression and social anxiety, doctor reduced to 15mg due to excess fatigue - had some minor DPDR, so he tapered me off - 10mg first week, 5mg second, 0mg after...immediate intense DPDR, memory loss, fatigue. One week later, went back on 20mg and held for 2 and a half months. NO relief from DPDR or significant fatigue. Doc added wellbutrin, only took for week and noticed nothing so stopped taking it. He then switched me to celexa, which I am now on 17.5mg for ~2 months, with still no relief of DPDR and significant fatigue. 

 

So it has been over a year that I have been tapering down slowly and having constant dPDR and fatigue, memory loss, etc. Have seen countless docs, one said i have lyme (tests were negative), other said depression coming back, others just want to add harder medications. The only other thing that occured around the time I began my taper was two weekends in a row of heavy drinking and blacking out. It should be noted I sleep 10 hours a day and am immensely tired throughout my day...

 

I am starting CBT next month, I eat very healthy, i exercise 4-5days/week. I have stopped alcohol/weed. I have been thinking over the past year that this is a result of the fast taper off AD, but i am beginning to question things. 

 

I am desperate for any advice...should I try another AD? Is this even AD related? Is it relapse depression (I never had DPDR prior to the SSRI or while on it)? Could it be a side effect of the AD and I should taper off quickly? Any nootropics to try? just keep coming back to the fact that I was 100% fine until my doc llowered my dosage, at which point I began the DPDR. I even went back to my initial dosage of 20mg for 2 and a half months, with no relief whatsoever.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated..I have a doctors appt at some point next month and would like to figure out the best option...

 

[MichaelFocus22]

1. Hmm, DPDR is an interesting acronymn, I've a friend who has this and does seem rather out of it but she eventually went off all medication including zoloft because of Post-Serotonin syndrome, which basically means your body isn't producing serotonin anymore and many individuals have reported, that they haven't felt like themselves for years. I experienced, some DPDR when I was like 18 but it eventually went away and lasted only a few days, I remember it felt super weird? I eventually just stopped worrying about it and it seemed to resolve itself on it's own. Sounds, like you are doing everything that you can. My reccomendation would be to adopt a pure organic diet, exercise 6 days a week and one light cardio days and then obviously do CBT like you were doing. Then tag in an intense meditation where you meditate consistently for months on end and let go of the expectation of a result for when it will go away.   I would just work on genuinely perpetually self-improving all aspects of my life and everything else will naturally follow. Often times, we DPDR ourselves, because we want to detatch ourselves from our problems and hide,  yet this is a cop-out from the responsibility of growing. Sure, you can go the chemical route but it will only be band-aid, since all neuro-chemicals are subject to the Yerkes-Dodson Curve.  Keep doing what you are doing and DO it for a LONG TIME and then see where you are, it's cliche but things take time. Don't believe me? I came here looking to cure my ADHD and I'm still here years later with no answer and alot of drugging...You want a sustainable long-term solution not a band-aid. Any drug you take you must pay a price for, what comes up must COME DOWN. I hope you don't ignore this. Otherwise, just add a little more self-improvement and come-back in a while and see where your at. If it's any consolation, I would suck it up, I have GAD and ADHD-PI and OCD symptoms and I'm in fucking pain everyday.  My two cent.

 

Edited by MichaelFocus22, 11 November 2019 - 02:46 AM.

[phillyfan24]

1. Hmm, DPDR is an interesting acronymn, I've a friend who has this and does seem rather out of it but she eventually went off all medication including zoloft because of Post-Serotonin syndrome, which basically means your body isn't producing serotonin anymore and many individuals have reported, that they haven't felt like themselves for years. I experienced, some DPDR when I was like 18 but it eventually went away and lasted only a few days, I remember it felt super weird? I eventually just stopped worrying about it and it seemed to resolve itself on it's own. Sounds, like you are doing everything that you can. My reccomendation would be to adopt a pure organic diet, exercise 6 days a week and one light cardio days and then obviously do CBT like you were doing. Then tag in an intense meditation where you meditate consistently for months on end and let go of the expectation of a result for when it will go away.   I would just work on genuinely perpetually self-improving all aspects of my life and everything else will naturally follow. Often times, we DPDR ourselves, because we want to detatch ourselves from our problems and hide,  yet this is a cop-out from the responsibility of growing. Sure, you can go the chemical route but it will only be band-aid, since all neuro-chemicals are subject to the Yerkes-Dodson Curve.  Keep doing what you are doing and DO it for a LONG TIME and then see where you are, it's cliche but things take time. Don't believe me? I came here looking to cure my ADHD and I'm still here years later with no answer and alot of drugging...You want a sustainable long-term solution not a band-aid. Any drug you take you must pay a price for, what comes up must COME DOWN. I hope you don't ignore this. Otherwise, just add a little more self-improvement and come-back in a while and see where your at. If it's any consolation, I would suck it up, I have GAD and ADHD-PI and OCD symptoms and I'm in fucking pain everyday.  My two cent.

thank you for the response...I do say DPDR, but i also am unsure if it is simply just "brain fog." i just feel detached from things and its like there is a constant fog over me...memory is horrible, and fatigue is unrelenting. I do exercise 5x/week, pushing through the fatigue as best I can. I just know that quickly tapering off my SSRI is what induced this, so I am not sure if I should stay at the level I am at now, or try to get off. I am thinking i will just stay for a few months and hope it gets better. I have done mediation before ,and do need to get back into it. I enjoyed the guided meditations, but found they were tough to find...any suggestions?

[MichaelFocus22]

thank you for the response...I do say DPDR, but i also am unsure if it is simply just "brain fog." i just feel detached from things and its like there is a constant fog over me...memory is horrible, and fatigue is unrelenting. I do exercise 5x/week, pushing through the fatigue as best I can. I just know that quickly tapering off my SSRI is what induced this, so I am not sure if I should stay at the level I am at now, or try to get off. I am thinking i will just stay for a few months and hope it gets better. I have done mediation before ,and do need to get back into it. I enjoyed the guided meditations, but found they were tough to find...any suggestions?

 

 

1.  Hmm, I would advise in being patient with DPDR treatment because sometimes it could take years before you see any results. Are you willing to be that patient? You won't always get instant-results and with my ADD it's nearly impossible to wait but I have no choice in the matter. In other respects, I empathize with the poor working memory and fatigue, I suffer from all of this and nothing I've done has ever really made it better. Only improving my diet seems to drastically increase my energy, so I'm working on cleaning my diet. My simplest advice is whatever treatment you do, is keep consistency, if your going to meditate you need to do it consistently or your not going to see any results, it's really that simple. I'm be  lying to say that I'm always consistent, I'm not in fact I miss taking my medication because it's waay easier to be consistent.  A few months really is nothing in the grand scheme of things, you need to commit to a minimum of 6 months to a year if your actually serious.  A year feels like a really long-time but it's really not in the grand-scheme of things. Now, I've never been truly consistent with meditation to say for sure what it's results have been. When I was consistent on my medication, I remember being in a deep meditative state that  made me very reflective and at some point, you enter a state of "zen". It's something that I would like to do for the rest of my life but I'm still waiting for new treatments myself.  The simplest thing to realize, is that a drug won't fix your problems, Sure I LOVE being consistent on my meds and finally not forgetting things but it's a huge trade-off with many many side-effects, it's not a sustainable way to live. You need to decide for yourself what you want for your life. I've decided I'm going to build income streams and build wealth, so I can Enjoy my life. What do I mean by this? It means you have the choice, to Fix yourself  it's up to you. Life is too short to be miserable. Until neurogenetic treatments are invented that target the real causes of DPDR AND ADHD on a neuronal level, we can expect chemical lobotomization therapy.  I'm emphasizing all of this, so you understand that DSM-5 and Pharmaceuticals only have a rough approximation of what those drugs actually do, we do not have any detail how they work on the micro level. Why does any of this matter? Because, it's up too you to decide what your sustainable treatment is. Just remember without consistency no progress can be made EVER.

Edited by MichaelFocus22, 16 November 2019 - 02:48 AM.

[Aston]

Escitalopram is one reuptake inhibitor serotonin's most selective and potent and has a half-life of 27 to 32 hours.
The Wikipedia quotes side effects including trouble sleeping, nausea, sexual problems and feeling tired.
From my personal experiences I would talk to the doctor about a possible exchange of escitalopram for fluoxetine.
Fluoxetine has a less selective and milder action on serotonin and a long half-life, which greatly facilitates possible withdrawal.
Also talk to the doctor about the possible inclusion of a drug with dopaminergic action such as amantidine, which would facilitate the rebalancing of the relationship serotonin-dopamine.
Not perfect but possível.