About three years ago, I started on Lexapro to control some long-standing issues I've had with social anxiety and occasional panic attacks. This worked pretty well for a couple of years, and then the panic attacks started up again. So about this time last year, I started slowly weaning myself off of it over the course of about three months. Coming across articles on Tardive Dysphoria only cemented my decision. To help figure out why I've been having so many problems with anxiety through my whole life, I got 23andme results and pushed them through Promethease to get a better breakdown of the SNPs.
Among those results, I see that I'm GG on rs6323, which corresponds to 75% higher MAOA production. As MAOA breaks down dopamine, serotonin, GABA, and a few others, being low on all of those is probably not great. Am I wrong in this interpretation? If not, is it possible the serotonin downregulation caused by the SSRI simply compounded the issue? After weaning myself off of it, I postulate that my serotonin is now reduced by 75% + the downregulation effects. After stopping the Lexapro, I've had constant problems with sleep onset and sleep maintenance I've never had before, and while I can't link these, the correlation is enough to at least investigate.
Another data point I found interesting is that I had a minor surgery about a month ago, and needed general anesthesia. For about a month afterwards, my sleep was almost normal again. From the recent studies on Ketamine use for depression, I have to wonder if other anesthetics have similar effects, and if that's what explains my month of freedom. I do have a psychiatrist, but she's basically a rubber stamp for throwing meds at me, and is not really helpful for interpreting anything. I'll be bringing this up with her, but so far her only suggestion is to go back on the Lexapro. I admit that would probably solve my immediate problem, but not the long-term issues it created to begin with.
So am I totally boned? Will the serotonin eventually up-regulate again? Is there anything I can do?