What's your experience of anti-depressants

[sealiphone]

From my experience antidepressants are prescribed for many people with a TBI and sometimes there can be a reluctance to take such medication, given all the negative things you'll find on the internet.

I'm currently on Mirtazapine 45mg and a friend urged me to look up all the negative feedback, in fact he stopped taking a dosage of 30mg after 3 months

This was due to the common negative effects reported, such as weight gain and 'Zombie' like feelings during the day, both of which he experienced. In fact Mirtazapine is prescribed for anorexia, to promote eating. All these negative symptoms are well recognised and not just skewed by negative experiences being reported on the web.

As I experience chronic fatigue the Zombie like symptoms were of particular concern along with the common symptom of having a negative effects concentration.

However after 2 weeks I was getting up at the normal time and it had no effect during the day.

After 6 months I had a check up at my GP surgery and I'd lost 2 lbs in weight, go figure.

When my Neuropsychiatrist said he wanted to prescribe anti-depressants I challenged the wisdom of this decision, as clinical trails are done on 'normal population studies'

Whilst he acknowledged my concern was valid, he felt able having seen my Neuropsychology report.

Unfortunately (fortunately), I've not had a need to see the Neuropsychiatrist to discuss whether my experience may be due to my TBI.

What have others experienced, mine has been very positive.

[Kirk5w7]

Me again.

I hcan only say that my experience has been positive too.

I was put on sntidepressants, a very low dosage of certraline, 10 mg, whilst still in hospital and quite soon after i cama out of the coma.

At that point they help d calm my anxieties and panics i was having. My GP kept me on them for as long as i wanted them and apart froma 3 month glitch to get me over last years SAD i dont take them any more.

I have taken anticdepressants on and off for the last 20 plus years, well before by BI.

My brain does not make enough serotonin for our lifestyle today and i have no problem giving nature a hand. After all i would take my medication if i was diabetic and there is no stigma there, why it is so different when it involves mental processes i dont know !

As to the weight gain ive never seen it as a huge issue, my weight gain atm is because of the change in my activity level because of my BI. That will be addressed this year .

Janet x

[sealiphone in reply to Kirk5w7]

I think there's a promotion not to prescribe anti-depressants but to use other approaches such as CBT and counseling rather than just patient reluctance.

Your medication was what's known as a SSRI, however due to my epilepsy medication I'm unable to take SSRIs, so mine has a same effect by another chemical route.

I forgot to say my epilepsy medication's, common side effects are:

headache

being unable to sleep

feeling sleepy

dry mouth

feeling tired or weak

Love the insomnia and feeling sleepy effect, work that out!

But again not experienced, due some luck after a TBI (?).

[Kirk5w7 in reply to sealiphone]

😁

Im going to sign off now Sealiphone, its approaching my bed time now and the pre gabalin ive neen prescribed for my pressure headaches help me sleep and im drowsy now.

Good night and thank you for the posts/ discussions today the actual word escapes me

Janet x

[Hidden]

My husband has been on a low dose of Citalopram for a while now and it certainly helps him by keeping his mood reasonably steady. No side effects as far as I can see.

[NightBird]

It's hard to make a blanket statement on antidepressants. There are several different classes which work in hugely different ways. I tried two as a last-resort measure a few years back - citalopram and duloxetine. They spaced me out even more than normal, so I didn't last more than three weeks on each (and that was a stretch). Both drugs have a serotonin-boosting effect and I suspect that was the problem. They did lift my mood but I wasn't really having bad moods anyway.

My own feeling is that brain injuries mimic other conditions and you need to take the right drugs for those. If it "looks like" ADHD, take a stimulant. If it "looks like" anxiety, take an anxiolytic. Doctors really need to break their obsession with CBT, counselling, mindfulness and lifestyle adjustment. Those are decent enough as minor tweaks but they won't get at the heart of this.

[sealiphone in reply to NightBird]

If you look at the evidence and ask someone with knowledge a lots of the evidence concerning anti-depressants it's far from clear regarding what's actually going on.

So it's bound to be if it doesn't work try another one and see what happens.

I see that Citalopram acts on Serotonin and Duloxetine on Serotonin & Norepinephrine a bit like Asda's 2 for 1!!

The other thing is Clinical depression is very different to depression.

[NightBird in reply to sealiphone]

Yeah, the prescription wasn't down to me. Citalopram (SSRI) didn't work, so I did a bit of research and said I wanted an NDRI. They looked at me blankly and provided a SSNRI. I gave up on the whole alphabet soup. I only took them in the first place because nothing else was offered.

We should probably make a distinction between "Antidepressants for depressed people" and "Antidepressants for nondepressed people" too...

[sealiphone in reply to NightBird]

I think societal attitudes to depression is an interesting question, is it bad or a normal life experience like grief.

As I've already said Clinical depression is a totally different ball game.

[cat3]

I've taken SSRIs for over 30 years but, as NightBird says, even though they're in the same class of antidepressants, there are many, and each differs greatly from the next.

I had 10 months of continuous side effects trialing different ones 'til I tried Seroxat, which made me feel 'This is me ; I'm home/safe/sane'.

When I had my SAH, for reasons I never grasped and was too 'out of it' to question, the resident neuropsychiatrist changed them for Sertraline.

The symptoms were dreadful and included sounds of loud, metallic rattling whenever I moved my head, hence waking me every time I turned over in bed, but I persevered for 6 weeks before asking my GP to reinstate the Seroxat. Within days I was at peace again, and ready to re-focus on my BI recovery.

It's still trial and error 'til pharmacology can work out how to match drugs to brains, instead of patients waiting weeks whilst they assimilate..............or not !