Posted by King Vultan on September 18, 2004, at 10:26:51
In reply to Emotionally Flat on Paxil - is Lexapro Better?????, posted by love bites again on September 18, 2004, at 3:56:26
> I've been on Paxil for over 4 years now and have been emotionally flat for most of that time. I've only come to realize lately that it's an effect of the Paxil. I was starting to think I had a brain tumor or something and it never occured to me that it was the Paxil. Anyway, I'll need an antidepressant for life as I have the type of chemical imbalance that will always be out of whack when not on a stabilizer. My question is which antidepressant deadens your emotions the least? Is Lexapro better for not killing off all your joy and feelings?
My opinion is that you will likely find all of the SSRIs to be like this. To avoid the problem, you need to go with a drug that also works strongly on norepinephrine, and if at also works on dopamine, that wouldn't hurt either. I did not find Effexor to be much better than an SSRI for preventing emotional blunting, but I never took it above 150 mg/day, either (it becomes more noradrenergic at higher dosages). Cymbalta might be a better choice, as it is supposedly less skewed towards serotonin than Effexor is, but I have not really had the time to read what people are saying about it. Other drugs I've tried that did work in regard to what you are looking for have been the tricyclics and MAOIs.Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:392244
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040915/msgs/392302.html