I never had any stomach discomfort from fluoxetine when I was on it but generally speaking if a med makes your stomach upset then taking it with food will help.
As far as hiding it, if it is working properly then there really shouldn’t be anything to hide other than the actual act of taking the pills. When it comes to taking the pills you don’t relly need to worry about taking them at the exact same time every day with fluoxatine specifically. Fluoxatine has the longest half-life out of any SSRIs. The half-life of the medication is 1-4 days and the half life of it’s metabolite is 7-15 days. So while you ideally still want to take it at the same time every day, practically it makes no real difference when you take it as long as you still take a dose every day and don’t take them too close to eachother. It is the least picky SSRI as far as timing goes. If hiding taking the pills is a concern then you could even talk to your doc about switching to the weekly pill (because that does exist for fluoxatine).
Edit: Forgot you also asked about managing the other sideeffects. There really isn’t much to do except ride it out and tell yourself it’s temporary. Fluoxatine is one of the better ones as far as start up sideeffects go. I normally get horible start up sideeffects from depression meds and with fluoxatine all I noticed is that I was a bit more irritable for a couple weeks and at times I would randomly get a bit jittery for the first few weeks. Because of that last one it also seemed to make my caffeine tollerance lower so bear that in mind if you normally drink a lot of caffeine.
Thank you so much! I started feeling jittery (and I don’t drink coffee) and had a horrible stomach ache, so I was worried it would be visible that something is wrong. I feel less worried now. I’m now in the second day, I’m eating more and I don’t have huge stomach aches.
I was prescribed a lot of different drugs before being diagnosed ADHD. The only SSRI that ever had an effect on me personally was Wellbutrin, but only for about a week. After that, even changing dosages, had no effect. That week the Wellbutrin worked I was a robot. No emotion, just “work”. Need to do the dishes…did the dishes. Need to work, productivity about 400% for the week, etc. I’m on Addrrall now, but it’s nothing like being on Wellbutrin. This was just my experience.
I wouldn’t expect an ADHD med to have an effect on you, or if it did it could be similar to your previous experiences with other SSRI’s.
Agree with the other poster though. Not sure where you are, but no state in the US bans Wellbutrin or Adderall. If you’re not in the US though, then I can’t offer any advice.
Atomoxetine is terrible in my experience. Phenylpiracetam is alright and maybe kind of similar to bupropion, definitely my body tolerates it far better than atomoxetine. If you’re looking for an SSRI with less side effects, escitalopram might be a good option. I’ve never heard of a country where bupropion is illegal, any idea what that’s about?
You can never know with 100% certainty what effect any treatment, be it drug or therapy, might have for you personally without trying it. If a lot of people say that something helped them, that doesn’t mean it will definitely help you too. Some people don’t benefit from therapy, some don’t benefit from drugs, some benefit from both, some from neither. There is unfortunately no way around trying different things and seeing what happens (unless a particular treatment concept doesn’t make sense to you from the beginning or even makes you uncomfortable - then you’re probably better off skipping it).
As somebody who has been through multiple different antidepressants, I think you are overestimating their effectiveness. While I hope they might be able to fix all problems, realistically they simply help. For me, they flatteren the bumps and reduce me spiraling but some CBT helped me learn how to recognise these and techniques to manage them. I’m not longer receiving CBT, Ive been to 20+ sessions and felt I wasn’t gaining anything anymore (not that I’ve been able to get any other therapy for 4 years now) but those techniques what I learnt from them were genuinely helpful. Helped me to realise that my drugs at the time weren’t effective as well
I won’t delve deeper but every time I tried to work out my problems (twice) with therapy I ended up on antidepressants (not saying cbt wasn’t still somewhat helpful for me in its own way), and once they kicked in it seemed to me that there was no problem to begin with. Like usually cbt comes along with some condition it’s meant to mitigate, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what I need since I have no complaints
Long standing depression and anxiety often come with habits; mental, personal, emotional, relational, hygiene. These habits can establish a negative cycle- don’t feel like doing anything because depressed > depressed because didn’t leave the couch today, etc.
CBT is about managing behaviors and won’t really go into rehashing every bad thing that’s ever happened to you. Some therapists list CBT on there About Me section, but then just do regular talk therapy, where that’s basically all you do.
If your life, health, relationships and career are all fine and you purely struggle with unpleasant feelings that are effectively medicated away without unwanted side effects, then there would be no need for CBT.
This will be hard to answer because everyone is different, particularly how they react to meds. You can keep a daily record of your mood when you switch over to try and track its efficacy and to monitor side effects though. That can be helpful to both you and your doc.
I was on 150mg of Zoloft. Ended up running out before I could get a new prescription. The withdrawal symptoms were horrible. Now I’m on 20mg of Prozac and 30mg of Buspirone Hcl. All I can say for sure is I’m actually getting some sleep now.
I’ve been on SNRI’s for a decade +. Venlafaxine, the worst of the bunch. They “work” in that I can feel barely able to live as opposed to definitely wanting to off myself daily. But they disabled my dick and flatten any kind of peak-ey emotions as well, including riding a rollercoaster. If I forget even a single dose - BANG, brain zaps for 12 hours. Good luck falling asleep.
I don’t know whether to be thankful they exist or to be sorry I got on them and have to live life like some sort of half-human in the meantime.
There was a time I was really considering SSRI’s. Mostly for anxiety related issues. But I heard about problems with those kinds of meds similar to what you described.
I’ve been able to find my own methods to deal with anxiety. Glad I never got on SSRI’s as I’m not sure I would have been able to get off them.
I have been on Venlafaxine for almost a decade as well. I'm now on a low dose (37.5mg daily) and I function well on it. I don't feel flattened. But oh, fuck those brainzaps. I want to quit but I'm a bit anxious to.
I’m on 37.5mg Venlafaxine for the second time–tried Zoloft for a bit in between. What’s wicked weird is that the first time I was on Venlafaxine I got brain zaps from missing a dose. This time I don’t and I kind of miss the built-in kick in the pants to take my meds.
When I got off Venlafaxine XR the first time, I weaned myself off very slowly. At first, I counted down the tiny pellets in the capsules, then I got a medication scale. I was able to avoid brain zaps.
What do the brain zaps feel like it, I was on it for years at max dose (for Canada anyway) and I don’t think I ever felt anything like a brain zap. Sleep problems yes, but I also stopped cold turkey one day and had no negative effects
Wait, after reading this thread, I feel like I got a lot of brain zaps, but for me they are not unpleasant. For me they are actually somewhat good feeling of relaxation. But maybe its just me. Also as a sidenote, did venlafaxine really helped you? I got it for 1 month, then my doctor cancelled it, saying that it was not having intended effect on me
Venlafaxine did help. The first time I was on it, I remember walking down the sidewalk and just doing of double-take of “oh, this feeling. I think I’m happy. This is what ‘happy’ feels like. Weird.”
I haven’t had anything so flagrant this time (and the flavor of stress I’m under is different), but I think it helps with my anxiety.
I mean great you found something that works well for your case. A friend of mine is on SSRIs for his depression since years and still has to take neuroleptics from time to time for his panic attacks.
I guess he’d also like to cut down the SSRIs due to the side effects (mostly loss of libido bothers him I think) but I don’t think that’s an actual option given his condition.
Anyhow, from a quick glance, 50mg/day seems to be the standard dose here, which you seem to surpass
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