Finding the right medication and dosage does require a little time and patience. It usually takes this kind of medication about a month to kick in so don't give up! Follow up closely with your doctor and hopefully, given enough time, the meds will kick in and you'll start to feel better. However , if you find that it's a lot, try reaching out to your doctor again, maybe he can give you something more acute until then. We're here for you🖤
Hi Kathush, I totally agree with "Heliophile" in that any medication takestime to reach full efficacy. That includes finding the right medications, the
right dosage as well as even the right time of day to take it.
It can take from 4-6 weeks before you feel the effects and sometimes a
little longer if the dosage is increased. My best to you xx
Hi kat I'm sorry but your better of away from prozac is on it for a while and had to come off it as it made me aggressive I know every one is different to how meds work or don't work for them give it a couple of weeks as your doctor has suggested and if it doesn't start to help by then go back to your doctor buy please don't stop it on your own as that is asking for trouble good luck and all the best david
Kathush. I’m with you on the frustration about when and how medication works. I was never on meds before and 3 weeks in I asked the doctor why I am not getting better. I also talked to a close friend who has been on different meds and he did calm me down and helped me Accept that it can take weeks and weeks to see the change… and keep giving some time and keep talking about it. But also meds are only one part of your healing journey and not a magic pill, it gives you a bridge or leverage to help you put more energy in to your well being.
So what I mean by that is that medicine contributes to your improved health but is just one piece. If you haven’t already, think about making other self care a priority. Doing the best you can to get sleep ( even if doc gives you sleeping pill for a short period) , drinking enough water is surprisingly a huge benefit over time and getting off screens and just moving more. All work together for you to help yourself. I know the good thing sucks too but just start slow focus on trying to get some healthy foods each day and it will build. I dropped 10 lbs and didn’t have an appetite. As a tried, day by day I got a little healthier.
I was pretty bad and hitting a rock bottom and needed combination of medication but also new tools to handle anxiety and depression. Specially I entered an amazing program that taught me ACT acceptance and commitment therapy. Ask your therapist about it. When anxiety is high breathing, ice packs and mindfulness really help. When it is more manageable try to think of anxiety as just as a thought, you can’t control the thought let it come, see it, acknowledge your mind is making you anxious and you can’t stop thinking about X and acknowledge that you get a headache or heart rate jumps and know those are just body sensations, just thoughts and sensations try to see them, then let them pass.
Finally, no matter how bad your day is you have “wins” we just don’t see it for ourselves. Take a few minutes even if they seem simple and give your yourself credit as a step forward. For me just the act of getting out of bed, drinking water and showering was wins on certain days… little by little those grow.
Sorry for the long reply, I read your post and I related and could have wrote the same exact thing you did, 2 months ago, I can tell you it gets better and we’re all in the middle of our process. Take care.
Thank you so much for your own personal story on going through this too. I have came back to read it a few times and it gives me some hope.
Hi Kathush
I read your latest post and feel you needed a little more reassurance...
Your mind and body is still adjusting to this new regime, it feels bewildering, especially if you are monitoring every little change of symptom.
Glimpses of improvement will come....i include a link below to an interesting 30 day blog of someone who explains it better...i hope it gives you light at the end of the tunnel you seem to be in....the rainbows...and the sunshine will return...please persevere...best wishes.
You might try doing a psychopharmacological test which uses your dna to determine which meds are best suited for you genetically. It can help take a lot of the guess work out of the process. Mine was from Genesight and paid for by my insurance. I tried over a half-dozen meds including prozac and none worked for me so I did the test which confirmed that none of them were right for me. i started on one it did recommend (Pristiq) and it has worked well. The only med I tried that directly helped my anxiety was Klonopin which is a benzo that they don't like to prescribe for long term use. As others have said, we all react differently to meds and it typically takes 2 - 4 weeks for a med to make any noticeable impact. Be aware that with anxiety you typically don't like change and are hyper-vigilant about your body sensations during the time the med is taking affect so you can over react. Try to be kind and supportive to yourself during this time. Sometimes understanding what is going on helps.
Like a lot of people, I found that meds alone didn't solve my anxiety issue and it required a combination of meds and therapy. What helped me was learning that I had been taught the wrong way how to deal with it and that the more productive way is learning that anxiety is a paradox and the more you fight it, hate it or try to out-think it the more it persists. the solution is in learning to really understand it to allow and accept the anxious thoughts and feelings and let them flow through you so you no longer fear them. I suggest checking out the DARE Anxiety book and youtube videos or the book At last A Life and Beyond by Paul David.
Thank you. I will check out those 2 books you posted. You are 100% right about being hypervigilant about any body sensations with my anxiety. Thanks again.
Prozac never kicked in for me and I finally just had to stop it. I have a low opinion on most antidepressants that I have been on. Nothing ever worked for me but that is not to say that you will not get a deceant outcome from its use. Give it some time/
I did well on sertraline for years but it finally pooped out..I knew it had but still took it because I didn't have depression but was in fear it would come back. And boy it did. I hope you found something that worked for you. Thank you for your reply.
I tried all kinds of SRIs none of which worked - they all caused more anxiety. After almost three years of hell I gave up and almost lost my marriage and my kids. In a last effort I got a new psychiatrist, he couldn’t believe the old one ( one of the most respected and most expensive stuff n Boulder) kept trying ssri’s. If you have severe anxiety SSRIs can make it worse. He said I had TRD, and had me try Lamictal, often used for Bi-polar. Within 4 days I was much better, after a month I was 75% back to myself. Now 7 months later I’m starting to say anxiety and depression in the past tense. I’m not even on half the therapeutic dose. Little or no side effects. A freaking miracle. You never know what will work, but ask your doc about Lamictal, and why ssri’s if you have anxiety? My main symptom was endless ruminating on existential ideas and insomnia. The endless ruminating stopped on Lamictal
Wow, sounds wonderful. Did you suffer with major depressive disorder too.? That is or was my main problem and this prozac has absolutely magnified my anxiety and I had 2 panic attacks in the last 2 days. My anxiety was in remission before the prozac, but it's a side effect, ugh.
Yes I had major depression. I tried ketamine, didn’t do much. Prozac made me more anxious for sure, I was on it for a year and it was not that effective, ruined my libido, and I felt mentally off. I weaned off everything for about 5 month, before I stumbled on Lamictal. I also have a great therapist that I have been doing EMDR with. Look up Lamictal on heathunlocked and Reddit. It saved my life.
I had a nervous breakdown in the late 90s about a year after a bad sexual assault. I did not connect the two. But the big new pill was Prozac. And it seemed that every visit I had more side effects or whatever. I have always been med compliant. So like a sheep I took him at his word
I shortly 8 months) was taking Prozac, but anxiety med, sleeping meds, antipsychotic etc.
These meds take 6 weeks up to 3 months EACH to see if they work so pumping me with all that poison was irresponsible on his part. I was a drooling zombie. I tried to kill myself twice
Pills aren’t magic. Used responsibly they make my life work well. I live with complex PTSD, anxiety bipolar 1 ( prozac is a huge trigger for me… )
So I am a proponent of
Meditation!!
Yoga
Acupucture
Breathing. OMG 4 deep breathing of one set can relax me as well as 1/2 a klonapin)
Just take breathe in 4 beats through nose, 8 beats through pursed lips. Focus only on the breath
Do it for ten times.
By the time you get good at this I bet you will be so good at this you will be hungry for more mindfulness in your life.
Me too. Of course I’m coming off my steroids ( don’t know if I mentioned it)
So I started feeling gooooood 3 days ago and wasn’t sleeping 12-20 hours a day. So that’s nice right?
Next night I’m fixing pizza at midnight (3 hours after all my horse pills….. telling my husband how GREAT!! I feel… went to bed at 6 am finally. ).
So I can’t just think yay depression
I’m worried what’s happening. Didn’t matter. I crashed the day after. Those ups and downs on a roller coaster are fun. Roller coaster in bipolar rapid cycle, not so much.
😍. Of course my husband forgets the drama that is mental illness. He’s like yeah maybe you can open the store again Lolol
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