Antidepressants? Maybe for Some

Antidepressants. I seriously dislike them. It take a lot less time and effort to make a list of the ones that I have not been prescribed over the course of my adult life. It has been a trial and error over the last fourteen years to cure depression, anxiety and finally, fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, none of them were able to help with any of those issues.

After the birth of my first daughter and some issues I was having with my husband, I noticed that I was having a lot of strange panic attacks. If you have read my article, "The Mom-Kit for Zombie Uprisings," I would like to explain that it was during such anxiety attacks that I developed contingency plans. I would also experience severe depression, to the point that it was all I could do to get out of bed and take care of my infant. Hygiene had to wait until I was out of the depths. I would get thoughts that did not seem to come from me. I would imagine my own death, how would I handle the deaths of others, and I would seriously contemplate suicide. It was terrifying. I finally confessed these fears to my mother, who sent me to my doctor.

After a conversation with this very nice man, I was prescribed Paxil. He was kind enough to give me a couple months' worth of samples with the prescription. I followed the directions, exactly. For the entire time that I was taking the samples, I was not feeling any different. In fact, the opposite seemed to be true. I was dealing with more depression, and the panic attacks were still there.

I went back to the doctor, and he gave me Zoloft. The panic attacks were easier to deal with, but that was only because I was so exhausted from the depression that came from that. I was simply too tired to have a panic attack, so I guess that had some effect on me. I went to work for a doctor who specialized in pain management, and since we did not get benefits, he took care of our medical needs for us. He took me off the Zoloft and had me try St. John's Wort, which had no effect. It was while I was working there, trying to raise a baby and dealing with an extremely unhappy marriage that I began to get migraines.

My boss was wonderful in trying to help me treat them. He switched my birth control, and I never had to get a prescription for migraine medicine. He made sure to keep samples for me. I tried all of the major migraine meds, but Imitrex worked best for me. He was going to put me on Prozac for depression with Xanax for the anxiety, but he changed his mind. He gave me Wellbutrin, which is the same active ingredient in Zyban, since we agreed that I needed to quit smoking. I started taking the Wellbutrin, and I had no change in my situation. The Xanax was 1/2 milligram, but I cut that in half and took it before bed. I slept very well, but I was afraid of it, since I knew how addictive it was. I never took it again.

I tried several other antidepressants while I worked for that doctor, but none of them helped me. I got therapy, and I was on Celexa when I attempted to overdose after a miscarriage. I had honestly come to the conclusion that my daughter would be much healthier with no mother than a crazy one. Thankfully, I did not succeed. My first husband was not the most observant guy in the world. I was afraid that he would get up to go to work and realize that I was not breathing. That would have left my daughter in the house with a dead body for an entire day, and that thought scared me enough to wake him up and tell him what I had done. After a stint in the hospital and a visit with my therapist, it was determined that I needed a different medicine. I was then put on Effexor.

On one side, the Effexor worked. I no longer had anxiety attacks, and I had no depression. The downside to this was that I had no emotions, either. Really, it was like going through the motions of having feelings. I gained a lot of weight. What scared me was that if I missed one dose, I would feel as if electric shocks were going through my body, and I could not cut them in half, since they were capsules. I had to wean myself off them after I got divorced, had no insurance, and could no longer afford them. Thankfully, I was better informed about anxiety and depression, thanks to parenting magazines and the public library. I came to the conclusion that pregnancy had a lot to do with my problems, since I was worse after them, and I decided that I would not have any more children.

Oddly, after my divorce, I was working too hard at my job, paying bills, parenting and starting a new life to be depressed. I was tired enough at night to sleep without nightmares or panic attacks. I was actually happy during the year after my divorce. I was finding a peace in who I was. Being able to work, pay off debt, spend a lot of time with my little girl and doing it on my own were helping me to regain my self-esteem and self-respect. I learned to like who I was, and I liked who I saw in my mirror every day. I was not seeing a fat, frumpy housewife, anymore. I was seeing a grown woman who was making her own way, setting and accomplishing goals. That was better than any medication. I only had two more migraines within the next year, then they stopped.

I met my current husband a year after my divorce. I was not looking for love, but I was certainly not foolish enough to walk away from a man started as a friend, a fun date and a like mind who turned out to be a soul-mate. Knowing that I could get through anything on my own was what gave me the confidence to trust another man with my heart.

I did not have any problems requiring antidepressants until I was in the process of discovering that I had fibromyalgia. I had gone through two more pregnancies without depression or anxiety that was beyond control, although I was exhausted from having one who was nocturnal, one who was on a more normal schedule and one in school. I was able to deal with that. The hyperthyroidism that developed during my last pregnancy and would not let me rest was difficult. I got that treated with radioactive iodine, and I got mononucleosis within two months two months of that. My youngest child had turned one year old during this time. I did not get over mono within a matter of weeks. I was sick for four months. I grew very weak, and I was not exactly a big help. Thank goodness, for my family, or I would have never managed to care for my children, though my daughter was a huge help. My husband worked nights, and he could only help me when he was not at work or sleeping. Still, I was not having problems with depression or anxiety.

Unfortunately, I started having pain that started as a low-grade, nagging type pain in my muscles. I did a lot of housework, yard work and kid work, as I was a stay-at-home mother, at the time. I figured I was just doing too much at one time, or another. I got tired of going to the walk-in clinic that was a forty minute drive from our home and waiting for hours to see the doctor, although I really liked the two doctors that I saw, there. Since they are open seven days per week, I was not always able to see the same one, but at least all of my information was in the same place, so they could scan my chart to see what worked and what did not. However, I had decided to implement a life-style change, and I wanted to have one doctor, and I wanted to be able to have one in the town where I lived that my insurance would cover.

I was able to find a clinic in my town, where I went to a doctor that a friend of my cousin's had recommended. I made an appointment, and I went for a check-up, and I explained my medical history, my history with anxiety and depression. I wanted to quit smoking, and I had heard that there was a lot of success with Chantix. I told my new doctor that I was prone to anxiety, and I had used cigarettes as a crutch for that. I was prescribed Trazadone and Chantix. I started both, and within ten days, I was no longer smoking, and I was not having near as many side effects as I had on my many other attempts to quit. However, the Trazadone was not doing much more than helping me to sleep at night. I went back to work within a month, and since it was a job with an unbelievable amount to learn, I was stressed to the maximum. Trazadone was not helping with that, at all.

I went back to the doctor, and we agreed that I could stop taking it. I had already started smoking again, after two months being off the cigarettes. I tried to quit, again, but it just did not happen. The pain was getting worse, and I was starting to be afraid that my body was doing the "manufactured pain" thing that can occur when a person has become addicted to pain pills. Really, it was kind of silly, since I was not on any pain medication at the time long enough to develop that kind of issue. I am phobic about such things, since there are a lot of members in my large extended family that have had addictions of one kind or another. I had explained to my doctor from the beginning that I was terrified of addiction, so if I did need a pain medicine, I wanted small amounts, only when absolutely necessary.

Over the several months, I was slowly getting worse. The pain was was a constant nagging to piercing pain in areas all over my body. I did some research, and chronic fatigue sounded likely, so I went to the doctor armed with a bunch of research that I had printed. I refused to consider fibromyalgia, although there were friends who had asked me if I thought that might be the problem. Chronic fatigue is related to mononucleosis, and it seemed as if my problems had started within less than a year after I had dealt with that.

I tried Lyrica. It worked, but it made my hands swell, and on the insert, a patient is cautioned to stop taking the medication immediately if that happened. I did so, then made an appointment with my doctor to confer. I tried Cymbalta, but I had a similar reaction to that. Although, this is not mentioned in the side effects, we decided to stop that, too. I was not on anything other than a mild muscle relaxer, pain medication and anti-inflammatory medication.

The pain continued to worsen, and my quality of life was getting worse. I did more research and finally really looked at the information on fibromyalgia. There are only two symptoms that I do not have. I do not have temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ), nor do I have urinary problems. Otherwise, I was a dead-ringer for it. Again, I went to my doctor armed with research, and I took my husband with me. He was able to vouch for the symptoms, and he was able to vouch for the care I take with medications. I was given Lexapro. Within one week of starting this, I had the first migraine headache that I had suffered since the last one, eight years earlier. I went back to the doctor who started me on Elavil.

Elavil seemed to help. I also have bursitis in my hip, so I had to continue the pain medicine, anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxer, but much less. Unfortunately, my best friend passed away during this time, and grief and depression really hit. I was changed to another antidepressant, Doxepin. This one did nothing. Actually, once I was off Doxepin, I actually have had less pain and depression. Once again, I am on the three medications listed in the beginning of this paragraph. The doctor and I keep the medications mild, and when one stops being effective at a low does, we switch to another mild medication. In this way, I do not get addicted to any one medication, or any one type of medication, for that matter. I only take them when I absolutely need them.

My experiences with antidepressants, as you can see, has only served to prove that I do a lot better without them. While they may work for some people, I seem to get no results or bad results from them. I have a lot better results with depression by using things that make me happy, such as good music or dancing for exercise, which also helps with the fibromyalgia and weight issues that are brought by taking antidepressants. For anxiety, I do have a prescription for Xanax. Most of the time, it helps me to get through a panic attack to simply know that it is there. I do use it during my periods, as it seems to assist the muscle relaxer and pain medication with the horrible menstrual cramps that I now have. However, I am extremely careful with all of my medications, and I try to hoard them for the worst of the pain.

Just as it is easy to get to a point where a medication no longer has the same effectiveness in my body, there seems to be a point where pain is something that I am so used to having that it does not affect me as harshly. I am always looking for mild exercises, such as dancing with my children, that do not send me to bed for several days with pain and exhaustion. I also try to eat a more healthy diet, I do not use anything with aspartame (I've heard it can cause a lot of fibro-like symptoms), and I take a lot of vitamins. Since I have been off the last antidepressant, I have been more able to do to handle everyday life.

If you have any of the symptoms that I described, at any point in this story, it is important that you discuss them with your doctor. Just because antidepressants are not right for me, it does not mean that they are not something that can help you. Also, there are many alternatives to medications, such as exercise, relaxation and massage therapy, that can help to reduce or remove depression or fibromyalgia symptoms. It is important, though, to involve your doctor from the beginning. Be completely honest, even with things that may embarrass you or make you feel ashamed. The doctor is not there to judge you. He or she needs to know all that you can tell in order to treat you completely. There are also naturopathic doctors who can help you without putting you on medications that can have harmful side effects.

My main point of this article is to share my experiences with antidepressants, although there are other medications mentioned and some deleted. I have been on nearly every one of them, and that means the serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, tricyclics, and so on. Apparently, something in my chemistry is not receptive to them. I have learned to live with pain and anxiety, and I have even learned how to live with depression and grief. I highly recommend therapy, since many forms of depression can be helped with an unbiased ear, and therapists can give good advice on handling anxiety attacks, too. For me, knowing the root of the problem tends to help me.

Again, if you see things in my story that are familiar, see your doctor. I am not a doctor or a nurse, but I have been through the wringer, medicinally. It is also important to do your research. I highly recommend WebMD.com, as it can help to give you an idea of what to discuss with your doctor. I do not self-diagnose. I gather information and discuss it with my doctor. Also, don not let anybody make you feel like a hypochondriac. There are many people who do not believe that depression, anxiety or fibromyalgia are real problems that need real attention and help, but they are.

I wish you good health and good luck.

Sources:

Personal Experience
en.wikipedia.org
WebMD.com
fibromyalgia-symptoms.org
drugs.com