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D.C. Urban Moms and Dads
Anonymous
01/17/2013
I took Prozac and felt nearly immediate relief from despair, anxiety, and crushing inability to prioritize and get things done.
After a few weeks, I also began waking up early with energy, which was an amazing contrast to the dread and lethargy of most mornings of my adult life. It was amazing.
Unfortunately, that effect lasted only a few months at 20mg. Doc then upped my dose to 40mg, still what he called a “baby dose”. My libido was completely dead after 8 months or so and I had put on over 25 pounds, though another effect of Prozac was that I strangely didn’t care. Before I’d obsess about myself and undone tasks. On Prozac I had little guilt-/which was liberating–but little conscience, either.
Doc upped me to 80 mg. I was still chasing the miracle honeymoon effect that the SSRI had on me initially, but it never came back. We added Wellbutrin once I reached 75 pounds gained after 2 years on Prozac, b/c although my dic denied that SsRI’s cause weight gain (we now know they do), he said Wellbutin would counter that effect. Then we switched to Lexapro instead of Prozac.
After nearly 3 years, I went off all of it. I still carry around the extra 85 pounds I gained those years. I wasn’t as depressed then, but that amazing miracle depression lifting and energy never came back despite higher doses. I now know what normal people feel like every day, but I can’t have it. During those years, I wasn’t as depressed, but I wasn’t much of anything. I let myself go, lost friendships, just kind of drifted in a flat haze.
I wouldn’t do it again unless my life was at risk.
My experience with Prozac was similar, with the initial amazing “honeymoon phase” that wasn’t sustained. Over the next several years I tried Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, Wellbutrin, and Lamictal, and all of them alleviated the depression enough that I could live my life, but I just felt flat. Going without anything was much worse, though. Finally about 2 years ago I started taking Effexor and got that miraculous feeling of normality back. It hasn’t started to fade yet and I hope it never will. I’m still fat with no libido, but I’m happy.