He has been telling me that I don't know what I'm talk about up until this past week. He finally went to the dr and now has a referral in for therapy and if in a month or 2 he is still not feeling better THEN they will give him meds.
It's nice to know that his doctor is a retard who don't know a damn thing about medicine. Pretty much every study about any mental problem has shown that drugs and therapy together are more effective than one or the other.
Anyway, I am wanting to know what meds have worked for you or your spouse. I've seen that a few of you say Paxil is the devil. I would just like to have a list ready of meds that have had better results.
Drug efficacy depends on the condition being treated. Different types of depression need different medication. For treating low energy and lack of motivation along with severe social anxiety, these are my ratings in order of efficacy:
Paroxetine (Paxil): 0/5
This drug causes extreme sedation, but it also causes insomnia. It's like having the flu or something. Extreme tiredness and desire to sleep, but can't sleep. Just lay in bed for hours and hours. The insomnia makes depression worse in every possible way. This drug had no addictive properties for me because I felt no desire to keep taking it.
Duloxetine (Cymbalta): 1/5
This drug feels like an anxiety attack. Stuff gets done, but it's not enjoyable. It improves motivation and energy, but it makes depression worse. I had no desire to keep taking this drug.
Trazodone: 2/5
This drug is given to help with sleep, but it sucks. It doesn't cause the kind of tiredness that makes me want to sleep. In terms of effects, it's basically the opposite of Sudafed because it blocks adrenergic receptors. That causes some sedation, but it also makes breathing more difficult, so the sedation does not lead to sleep. Trazodone gets a 2 instead of a 0 because it immediately stops panic or anxiety attacks. If I drink too much coffee and it leads to uncontrollable shaking or stomach pain, trazodone stops that shaking and pain. Others have said that trazodone is a great sleep aid, so it might be worth trying. This drug did not feel addictive.
Sertraline (Zoloft): 3/5
I didn't really feel better, but things got done. It made work a lot easier because it mostly reduced anxiety. Instead of procrastinating on things like phoning people or answering emails, they would get done immediately. I didn't really have any social life while taking this drug. This drug also caused night sweating, which was unpleasant. If you're stressed about work, this drug is worth trying. This drug felt strangely addictive because I had an unexplainable desire to take more of it all the time.
Venlafaxine (Effexor): 3/5
This drug was very effective stimulant drug, but it caused GI problems when swallowed whole. Chewing the pills fixed the GI problems, but that ruins the time release, so the drug wears off after 5 hours. Those 5 hours felt great, but the crash was not pleasant. I stopped taking this drug because I don't want to be forced to take drugs every 5 hours just to avoid crashing. Even though it's a great drug, it felt less addictive than sertraline. I didn't feel compelled to keep taking more of it, and my gf had to constantly remind me to take more of it to fix the 5 hour crash.
Moclobemide: 3/5
This drug is incredible. It makes everything feel awesome. The down side is that it wears off extremely fast. I can go from feeling great to shaking uncontrollably in less than 4 hours. Moclobemide is a newer MAOI that is reversible, which makes it safer than older MAOIs, but that also makes it have a short effect. I plan to switch this over to phenelzine, which is an old MAOI that permanently disables the MAO enzyme and therefore has a much longer effect.
Bupropion (Wellbutrin): 4/5
This is a stimulating drug. It helps with energy, motivation, and depression, but it does not help with anxiety. It makes life a lot easier. It has a very long effective half-life, so it's a nice and stable drug. I could forget to take it for a week and still not feel any withdrawal. The down side is that the lack of any addictive properties makes it easy to forget about taking it.
Citalopram (Celexa): 5/5
This drug is excellent. It has some effect on motivation, but it greatly helps with depression and anxiety. I started keeping a journal while taking this drug, and I became interested in writing about everything. Journal entries written while taking citalopram were extremely long, detailed, well-written, and positive. The journal entries mostly focused on people and social activity. I was on an 80mg dose when this was going on. I changed doctors and the new doctor said the limit for this drug is only 40mg, so he switched me to 40mg. I felt this wasn't strong enough, so I had to take something else.
Fluoxetine (Prozac): 5/5
This drug helps a lot with anxiety, and drinking alcohol with it causes intense euphoria. I don't feel as social as I was on citalopram, but I'm a lot more focused on science and learning. Instead of writing about my own thoughts, I like to read things. Everything feels a lot softer on this drug, and I like snuggling a lot more. This drug has a very long half-life, so it's stable like bupropion. People who are trying to break SSRI addiction are often put on fluoxetine because fluoxetine is much easier to stop taking due to its slow metabolism.
Mirtazapine (Remeron): 5/5
Like trazodone, mirtazapine is a sleep aid. The difference is that mirtazapine is an excellent sleep aid. I very quickly gained 30 pounds on this drug because it makes food taste incredible, and most people think I look much healthier with that extra weight. Mirtazapine causes restful sleep, and that really helped with anxiety. This drug was incredibly addictive because it made everything so much better. The first thought after getting home was that I should take mirtazapine and chill out. I had to stop taking mirtazapine because I couldn't control my desire to take mirtazapine then eat food all evening.