Monday, 31 October 2011
Saturday, 29 October 2011
So we have reached an impasse - 1.50ml (6mg)
So it was our youngest son’s 13th birthday this week, which also marks the 13th anniversary of my being on and off (mostly on obviously) Lustral/Zoloft or Prozac.
So anyway, I, or we’ve reached a bit of an impasse with my withdrawal plan. I’ve been tapering slowly and steadily every 5 or 6 weeks for the past 3+ years. I am now stuck at 1.5ml.
1.50mls!! have you thought about how teeny tiny that dose is every morning? At this stage of the game it would be SO easy and tempting for me to just stop dead, but I know from past experience that that way madness truly lies (and I don’t mean “The House of Fun”) and my current healthy mental state would unravel with the withdrawal. I proved countless times in the past that I am obviously very sensitive to SSRI reductions. It’s crazy how powerful this tiny drop of liquid is.
In many ways I am amazed that I ever got as far as I have, a few years ago I thought I was on Prozac for life, I thought that it wasn’t physically possible for me to cope with life without it, but deep down I could never truly accept that I would be on it for life, because of the side effects I’ve always had a very strong inner drive or compulsion to get myself off this stuff, it refused to go away no matter how much I tried to convince myself to stay on it. Some inner voice I couldn’t ignore kept telling me I needed to get off the pills and kept driving me on, and still does. I like to think I could be happy sticking with a low low dose but deep down I know I’m not really.
So anyway, after 3 months at this dose I am feeling that I would like to now proceed with another reduction, I am now very stable. Peter is very ambivalent about this and I think it’s the first time we’ve disagreed on this issue. I understand his point of view, we have been and still are under financial pressure and both working hard. He also has the pressure/burden of an industry exam to pass. He is also the one who has to cope with me when a withdrawal hits. The last time it happened I am embarrassed to admit I burst into tears in his office and I couldn’t stop, and there was no obvious reason, it was a withdrawal pure and simple, but I just couldn’t stop crying.
So there we are....an impasse.
Any comments welcome.
Prozac reduction timeline
So anyway, I, or we’ve reached a bit of an impasse with my withdrawal plan. I’ve been tapering slowly and steadily every 5 or 6 weeks for the past 3+ years. I am now stuck at 1.5ml.
1.50mls!! have you thought about how teeny tiny that dose is every morning? At this stage of the game it would be SO easy and tempting for me to just stop dead, but I know from past experience that that way madness truly lies (and I don’t mean “The House of Fun”) and my current healthy mental state would unravel with the withdrawal. I proved countless times in the past that I am obviously very sensitive to SSRI reductions. It’s crazy how powerful this tiny drop of liquid is.
In many ways I am amazed that I ever got as far as I have, a few years ago I thought I was on Prozac for life, I thought that it wasn’t physically possible for me to cope with life without it, but deep down I could never truly accept that I would be on it for life, because of the side effects I’ve always had a very strong inner drive or compulsion to get myself off this stuff, it refused to go away no matter how much I tried to convince myself to stay on it. Some inner voice I couldn’t ignore kept telling me I needed to get off the pills and kept driving me on, and still does. I like to think I could be happy sticking with a low low dose but deep down I know I’m not really.
So anyway, after 3 months at this dose I am feeling that I would like to now proceed with another reduction, I am now very stable. Peter is very ambivalent about this and I think it’s the first time we’ve disagreed on this issue. I understand his point of view, we have been and still are under financial pressure and both working hard. He also has the pressure/burden of an industry exam to pass. He is also the one who has to cope with me when a withdrawal hits. The last time it happened I am embarrassed to admit I burst into tears in his office and I couldn’t stop, and there was no obvious reason, it was a withdrawal pure and simple, but I just couldn’t stop crying.
So there we are....an impasse.
Any comments welcome.
Prozac reduction timeline
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Confessions of an RX Drug Pusher
I just finished this book:
Before I read it though I had to google "rx" because although I'd seen the term I wasn't sure what it meant. This was the definition I found: Rx: A medical prescription. The symbol "Rx" is usually said to stand for the Latin word "recipe" meaning "to take." It is customarily part of the superscription (heading) of a prescription.
Gwen Olsen has had an amazingly interesting life. She spent more than a decade as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry, the whole book is fascinating but her insight into the decadence, power and corruption of the drugs giants, the political shenanigans and her own experience as one of those reps who wined and dined doctors and showered them with freebies in order to sell the drugs and up the prescriptions, and the hard sell was the part I found most interesting. What a brave woman to whistle blow on the industry she had worked for.
Gwen also has personal insight into mental illness and the "catastrophic consequences that lurk in medicine cabinets", with a family background of mental health problems and a 19 year old niece who committed suicide as a result of being a victim of the adverse affects of prescription drugs.
Marketing antipsychotics.
I won't go into the politics too much of Big Pharma because there are other blogs and web sites who do that far better than I ever could, it is something that interests me and I have a list of books on my hit list:
Anatomy of an Epidemic - Robert Whitaker
Mad in America - Robert Whitaker
Prozac: Panacea or Pandora - Ann Blake Tracy.
The one I'm reading next though is We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Some sights that go into the politics in depth:
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Antidepressants and sex: A doomed romance?
A great article sent to me by a friend.
Link to this article
Antidepressants and sex: A doomed romance?
As a libido-friendly "happy pill" gets FDA approval, we talk to people who've endured other drugs' bad side effects.
It sounds like an absurd deal with the devil, the sort fairy tales are built around: You can get back your zest for life — all you have to do is surrender your desire for sex. Feeling depressed, isolated and lonely? Just take these pills that will make you lose interest in one of the most powerful ways that humans achieve connection and intimacy!
Extreme, perhaps, but that’s a common trade-off made by going on antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Of course there are other potential side effects, but dry mouth and insomnia are bearable insults compared to sacrificing your libido, erections and orgasms; and these sexual snags are a significant reason people discontinue treatment, according to experts. So when news broke this week that the FDA had approved Viibryd, a so-called sexy-friendly antidepressant, it caused quite a stir. Far too often, people are forced to choose between their mental and sexual health — as though these were entirely separate categories.
A 25-year-old photographer living in Florida tells me that his libido plummeted when he went on antidepressants. “I would have chosen a bowl of ice cream over the sexiest woman alive,” he said. “I stopped taking the medicine because it wasn’t worth the side effects.” It’s an interesting contradiction: He lost his libido but not the strong desire to have a sex drive. Now, he says, “I’m horny 24/7″ — which is just the way he likes it.
A 28-year-old married man tells me that he had trouble getting and staying hard while on Effexor. “I also had trouble reaching climax.” But he didn’t stop taking the medication: “Even though the side effects caused marital problems, not taking it caused the depression to act up, and the mood swings to get really bad. I just couldn’t handle some things without the meds.” A 51-year-old man tells me that he was already struggling with erectile problems when he went on citalopram. “The ED and depression are a chicken and egg thing, don’t know which came first, but each was making the other worse,” he said. “When I was able to get hard enough for sex, I would often not be able to come for a very long time, if at all.” Eventually, his doctor switched him to bupropion, which he says helped with his depression and lessened the sexual side effects.
At least women don’t have to worry about getting and maintaining an erection to have sex, right? Only, it seems they are far more vocal than men about the sexual costs of antidepressants. A 28-year-old woman tells me that before going on Celexa, she would have sex several times a week, and masturbate alone just as often, without any trouble climaxing. “After about a month on Celexa, I stopped masturbating entirely and lost interest in sex with my partner. I couldn’t climax — by hand or vibrator — and I didn’t have the same sexual drive to even try. Looking back, I’m not sure how I made it! It was so frustrating!”
It wasn’t just frustrating for her, either. “My partner complained about my lack of interest and noticed that I was going through the motions of sex, in addition to skipping my personal pleasure time. I couldn’t climax and I rejected a lot of her efforts,” she said. “I was tired of not feeling like myself in and out of the bedroom. My lack of sex drive hurt my self-esteem and my partner’s. We just didn’t feel like we were connecting like we used to.” So, she went off the drug and she reports that she’s “climaxing again and back to my old bedroom ways!” (She isn’t alone: Last year, Ada Calhoun wrote for Salon about how going off Celexa turned her into a bit of a nympho.)
“Jessica,” a 31-year-old living in New York, says she “had plenty of good sex” while on Zoloft, but it took tremendous time and effort for her to climax. “I was emotionally numbed out,” she said. “It was like I couldn’t access that part of me, emotionally, that would allow me to let go. At the time I thought it was trust issues. I’d read about oxytocin and bonding, and I thought maybe I was subconsciously protecting myself from getting hurt, because being in my early 20s, I was getting hurt a lot!” After several years on the drug, she went off and “the orgasms came back almost immediately.” She had harbored suspicions that the Zoloft was to blame for her lack of orgasms, “but it really only all became clear to me once I got off it — they came right back, without any context change.”
When my friend Elissa, 26, went on Lexapro, she “noticed it look at least 45 minutes to get one orgasm, and the orgasm was basically a tiny blip that was more struggle and irritation than anything,” she said. “So I stopped masturbating. I didn’t mind not having orgasms because I was happy.” But then she found someone else was frustrated by her medication: her boyfriend. He wanted to be able to make her climax, so she went off the drug, but, funnily enough, she still couldn’t have an orgasm with the guy (although it was no problem on her own). That’s a reminder that sexual relationships are mysterious and frustrating, even without the obfuscation of medication.
Anyone who decides to go on meds has to wrestle with these riddles all the time: Which part is the drugs, which part is me, which part is the side effects? (For that matter, anyone in a relationship is familiar with that dilemma as well: What’s me and what’s the other person?) Psychiatrists and social critics might cringe at the idea of people going on and off their meds to chase their orgasms, but that clearly happens quite a bit. Michelle, 38, says her libido and her orgasms disappeared on Prozac, but she was terrified that she would “go off the rails” if she stopped taking the medication. Ultimately, she says, “I just could not envision living life with that big piece” — the sex piece — “of the puzzle missing,” she said. As it happens, she didn’t go off the rails.
From all the media hype this week you would think Viibryd had flipped the pharmaceutical industry upside down — but that doesn’t seem to be the expert opinion in the medical community. Andrew Francis Leuchter, a professor at UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, said the drug’s data looks solid, but he wasn’t ready to call it a game-changer. There are already antidepressants on the market that boast low sexual side effects, and doctors commonly layer drugs to avoid killing a patient’s libido. The problem is that antidepressants aren’t one size fits all. “Whichever medication we pick, it is only going to get patients well about a third of the time,” he said. “We have yet to find a drug that gets most of the patients well right out of the gate.” Better drugs with fewer side effects — sexual and otherwise — are crucial, he says, but it’s important to develop better ways of predicting which drug will work for individual patients to avoid the trial and error approach.
Antidepressants can make life more bearable — they can save lives — but, for many people, a sexless life isn’t much of a life at all. That people are willing to risk this trade speaks to the level of desperation that can lead to antidepressants; and that many find the trade unbearable certainly speaks to the power of sex.
Close.Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory
Link to this article
Antidepressants and sex: A doomed romance?
As a libido-friendly "happy pill" gets FDA approval, we talk to people who've endured other drugs' bad side effects.
Extreme, perhaps, but that’s a common trade-off made by going on antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Of course there are other potential side effects, but dry mouth and insomnia are bearable insults compared to sacrificing your libido, erections and orgasms; and these sexual snags are a significant reason people discontinue treatment, according to experts. So when news broke this week that the FDA had approved Viibryd, a so-called sexy-friendly antidepressant, it caused quite a stir. Far too often, people are forced to choose between their mental and sexual health — as though these were entirely separate categories.
A 25-year-old photographer living in Florida tells me that his libido plummeted when he went on antidepressants. “I would have chosen a bowl of ice cream over the sexiest woman alive,” he said. “I stopped taking the medicine because it wasn’t worth the side effects.” It’s an interesting contradiction: He lost his libido but not the strong desire to have a sex drive. Now, he says, “I’m horny 24/7″ — which is just the way he likes it.
A 28-year-old married man tells me that he had trouble getting and staying hard while on Effexor. “I also had trouble reaching climax.” But he didn’t stop taking the medication: “Even though the side effects caused marital problems, not taking it caused the depression to act up, and the mood swings to get really bad. I just couldn’t handle some things without the meds.” A 51-year-old man tells me that he was already struggling with erectile problems when he went on citalopram. “The ED and depression are a chicken and egg thing, don’t know which came first, but each was making the other worse,” he said. “When I was able to get hard enough for sex, I would often not be able to come for a very long time, if at all.” Eventually, his doctor switched him to bupropion, which he says helped with his depression and lessened the sexual side effects.
At least women don’t have to worry about getting and maintaining an erection to have sex, right? Only, it seems they are far more vocal than men about the sexual costs of antidepressants. A 28-year-old woman tells me that before going on Celexa, she would have sex several times a week, and masturbate alone just as often, without any trouble climaxing. “After about a month on Celexa, I stopped masturbating entirely and lost interest in sex with my partner. I couldn’t climax — by hand or vibrator — and I didn’t have the same sexual drive to even try. Looking back, I’m not sure how I made it! It was so frustrating!”
It wasn’t just frustrating for her, either. “My partner complained about my lack of interest and noticed that I was going through the motions of sex, in addition to skipping my personal pleasure time. I couldn’t climax and I rejected a lot of her efforts,” she said. “I was tired of not feeling like myself in and out of the bedroom. My lack of sex drive hurt my self-esteem and my partner’s. We just didn’t feel like we were connecting like we used to.” So, she went off the drug and she reports that she’s “climaxing again and back to my old bedroom ways!” (She isn’t alone: Last year, Ada Calhoun wrote for Salon about how going off Celexa turned her into a bit of a nympho.)
“Jessica,” a 31-year-old living in New York, says she “had plenty of good sex” while on Zoloft, but it took tremendous time and effort for her to climax. “I was emotionally numbed out,” she said. “It was like I couldn’t access that part of me, emotionally, that would allow me to let go. At the time I thought it was trust issues. I’d read about oxytocin and bonding, and I thought maybe I was subconsciously protecting myself from getting hurt, because being in my early 20s, I was getting hurt a lot!” After several years on the drug, she went off and “the orgasms came back almost immediately.” She had harbored suspicions that the Zoloft was to blame for her lack of orgasms, “but it really only all became clear to me once I got off it — they came right back, without any context change.”
When my friend Elissa, 26, went on Lexapro, she “noticed it look at least 45 minutes to get one orgasm, and the orgasm was basically a tiny blip that was more struggle and irritation than anything,” she said. “So I stopped masturbating. I didn’t mind not having orgasms because I was happy.” But then she found someone else was frustrated by her medication: her boyfriend. He wanted to be able to make her climax, so she went off the drug, but, funnily enough, she still couldn’t have an orgasm with the guy (although it was no problem on her own). That’s a reminder that sexual relationships are mysterious and frustrating, even without the obfuscation of medication.
Anyone who decides to go on meds has to wrestle with these riddles all the time: Which part is the drugs, which part is me, which part is the side effects? (For that matter, anyone in a relationship is familiar with that dilemma as well: What’s me and what’s the other person?) Psychiatrists and social critics might cringe at the idea of people going on and off their meds to chase their orgasms, but that clearly happens quite a bit. Michelle, 38, says her libido and her orgasms disappeared on Prozac, but she was terrified that she would “go off the rails” if she stopped taking the medication. Ultimately, she says, “I just could not envision living life with that big piece” — the sex piece — “of the puzzle missing,” she said. As it happens, she didn’t go off the rails.
From all the media hype this week you would think Viibryd had flipped the pharmaceutical industry upside down — but that doesn’t seem to be the expert opinion in the medical community. Andrew Francis Leuchter, a professor at UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, said the drug’s data looks solid, but he wasn’t ready to call it a game-changer. There are already antidepressants on the market that boast low sexual side effects, and doctors commonly layer drugs to avoid killing a patient’s libido. The problem is that antidepressants aren’t one size fits all. “Whichever medication we pick, it is only going to get patients well about a third of the time,” he said. “We have yet to find a drug that gets most of the patients well right out of the gate.” Better drugs with fewer side effects — sexual and otherwise — are crucial, he says, but it’s important to develop better ways of predicting which drug will work for individual patients to avoid the trial and error approach.
Antidepressants can make life more bearable — they can save lives — but, for many people, a sexless life isn’t much of a life at all. That people are willing to risk this trade speaks to the level of desperation that can lead to antidepressants; and that many find the trade unbearable certainly speaks to the power of sex.
Close.Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter. More Tracy Clark-Flory
Monday, 10 October 2011
World Mental Health Day
I am no longer ashamed to admit that I have suffered with depression and anxiety and that I had post natal depression twice, I am still occaisionally chased by the black dog. I have felt the stigma and still do, and in my own small way I hope this blog will help contribute to bringing the subject out in the open. It's not a very sexy subject but it is part of the human condition for many people.
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