I’ve been on Prozac for three weeks now, so I thought I’d report back on its effects, and also offer a bit of a forum:
Comment, if you want to, sharing what medication you’re currently on, or have been on, (doesn’t have to be anti-depressants) and the effects it’s having/had on your life and mood.
Basically, I don’t think people talk about this enough! So, yes, Prozac has been… great. Unexpectedly so. The awful recurring thoughts of badness have pretty much disappeared, and when they come are much MUCH less persistent and less potent. I’ve also generally been feeling pretty ok a lot more of the time – actually contented.
So far, side effects have been minimal, although I am feeling tired in the afternoons more. At the moment that’s ok – I can either have a caffeine overload on the days I’m at work, or have a nap (yay for being a student…), but that’s not really going to be possible when I’m (hopefully) working full time in about 2 months. Apparently Prozac side effects do decrease with time as your body gets used to it, so I’m well willing to give mine the next two months to find out, but if it doesn’t get any better I know I’ll have to make some hard choices.
It’s made me think about quite a few different things, too. I had a brief email conversation with Dr Ben Goldacre (of Guardian Bad Science column fame) about SSRIs, of which Prozac is one, which have been in the news recently. Studies have shown that for people with mild to moderate depression (I would class mine as moderate, as it’s not totally debilitating, but without drugs I am depressed, anxious and suffer upsetting thoughts every day for significant amounts of time) SSRIs were about as effective as placebos.
Obviously, this was shocking news for a lot of people, and various people on here talked about it. To put a different perspective on the issue, a friend of mine who is a psychology student at Sussex University rubbished the revelations, saying they’d only looked at surveys of patients up to one month after they started taking the drug, and that it normally takes longer than that for some people to feel the benefits.
Which, of course, led me to wonder – is Prozac having a real effect on me, or is it a placebo, and I’m effecting the change on myself? I suppose it’s unknowable. Medication for depression is often likened to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, so delicate is the brain’s internal chemistry and so primitive is our knowledge of it. Yet I do feel better, even though I’m consciously aware of the findings of that study, so I think that’s really the only important thing to consider.
The other thing I’ve been struggling with is my personal history. I’ve been on anti-depressants before, during 2003-2004, in my first few terms at university. At the time, I made lots of new friends and was feeling happy and confident in my life. I remember that time as beautiful – full of drunken nights out, laughing endlessly with new mates and being amazingly, intellectually challenged. Up until now I’ve always thought of that time as a result of the circumstances of my life, not the citalopram, then escitalopram that I was on. But I’m being forced to reconsider, now, with the clear, obvious effects Prozac has had on me. It’s patent that my cynicism was, in some ways, unfounded, and that much of my general enjoyment of that time where I felt unanxious, free, fun loving and happy was down to the drugs. I’m not discounting the experience as helping – I’m sure being at uni for the first time had a big effect on my mood. But I’m also fairly certain the drugs had a big effect too.
I’ve recently started to realise, too, that I’ve been depressed, anxious and prone to upsetting thoughts for most of my life. I remember having them, and compulsively overeating, as young as five or six. They’ve never really stopped, or gone away, but have just been influenced by different things, such as grief or love. As such, I’m starting to wonder how long I will need to be on medication. For the rest of my life, perhaps? I’m still reeling from how much Prozac has helped me in what is really a very short time, and wondering how this year, last year, all the other years of upset and sadness and anxiety would have been different if I’d just been put on it sooner. I guess it’s unknowable, too.
Conclusions from all this soul searching aren’t easy to come by, except that I’m going to be far more tolerant of side effects this time. The escitalopram and citalopram I was on before made me drowsy every afternoon, so I was napping a lot and ending up sleeping for twelve to thirteen hours every day. At the time, unsure as to whether the drugs were really having any effect, I gave them up, reasoning that I needed to be awake more of the time so I could work better on my essays and reading. I spent my second year in a haze of extreme anxiety, deep depression and self harmed a lot. I also often got work in late and didn’t read enough, which, I am sure, contributed hugely to me getting a 2:1 instead of a 1st. I don’t want something like that to happen to me again, so I’m going to stick with these a bit longer, and see how it goes. I’ll report back, anyway.
So, what are your experiences?
I was on Prozac in the early 90s and I didn’t see any difference in my moods etc. I was on sertraline last summer as I my depression got worse along with the anxiety. Again, I didn’t feel much different and my GP told me that it would take 6-8 wks to kick in. I obeyed the docs instructions but after 3 mths I still didn’t feel my moods lifting. The betablockers prescribed for the anxiety helped me more.
When I was younger (teens) I was on the tricyclics like, Amitriptyline, Chlopromazine, and Temazepam. I wonderful cocktail of chemical coshes that did indeed turn me into a teenager dribbling zombie.
I suppose with that experience I was kinda suspicious of medication and the way it can be seen as the panacea for all ills. To me it is about choice and being given all the relevant info. Nobody told me the dire side effects from the old style drugs.
But how do you feel at the moment? Have you looked at alternatives?
I just think if this has been a positive experience then maybe medication is working for you and with some it does and some it doesn’t.
Gawd, that does not sound like a fun experience
I’m totally with you on the whole works for some people and not for others scenario – I think it’s really an individual thing.
As far as alternatives go, that’s what I’ve been trying for the past year – I’ve been going to a counsellor, and doing two different therapy groups, as well as trying to exercise, all of which have definitely helped… just not that much. They seem to last a very short time, and while it’s good to focus on my depression with other people I’ve really been struggling all the rest of the time. The Prozac has worked for me all the time – it’s genuinely lifted my mood up in a way I haven’t felt for AGES. It’s almost so good it’s scary. So I think I’m going to be on this for a while…
I’ve been on the -citalopram variants for about 3 years now. I’m a firm adherent to the idea that SSRIs and other anti-depressants are much like going on the contraceptive pill – there’s one out there that’s right for you, but the fact is that you won’t find it straight away. I certainly had this experience when I was on the pill in my teens!
Over the past few years I worked my way up through citalopram at rising and rising doses, until I was put onto escitalopram and have been at 20mg for about a year and a half now. I can definitely concur with you on the sleepiness issue: for the first few months that I was taking it, and any times that my dose was adjusted, I would feel utterly utterly lethargic. I also had, when I first went on it, a lot of cotton mouth and nausea.
That said it settled down after a month or so and since then it’s been invaluable in helping me get better. I have had times when I stop and think – but is this really helping me? Do I mind that I’m being chemically adjusted to feel happier? Am I going to be stuck on this forever? Does this mean I’m not actually enjoying my life, I just think I am? And so on. It took me a good while but eventually I came to be happy with it and realise that it’s not so much a smothering blanket as a crutch helping me to walk along, and that eventually I’ll get out of that.
In fact I’m getting there now, as this month I’ve had my dose reduced! 20mg/day of escitalopram is a very high dose, the most you can take of this medication, so now that my therapy is less intense and I’m starting to have a real life I can start having less of it. I’ve gone onto taking 20mg/day and 10/mg a day alternately. It’s a bit weird at the moment and I’m getting a bit nauseous and some headaches, but having had my meds adjusted so many times over the past few years I’m used to what is and isn’t normal
When I was at my worst – I had a mental breakdown at 18 – the medication was utterly invaluable. I genuinely think I would not have been able to get out of bed without it, and as I’m a person who despises medications and would much rather take herbal things so that I know what I’m sticking in my body, it takes a lot for me to admit such a thing. I’ve not yet had an experience of being on it with a more moderate-mild illness, as the past few years have been very difficult for me, but I suppose I will see over the next few months. Nonetheless, I’m as glad to be getting off the stuff as I am to be on it – something of a paradox, I guess!