![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Reggie BoStar on December 28, 2008, at 4:06:42
Hi Everyone,
It's been a while since I posted on any of the Psychobabble boards. I should come here more often. I could use it.I'd better recap. My pdocs and therapists say I'm Bipolar II, mostly on the severe depressive side, with migraines and other oddities that may or may not be related to neurotransmitter foul-ups.
I can vouch for the depression and migraines. I'm not sure I buy the Bipolar II part.
Anyway, for the depression I've been on Cymbalta 60mg and Wellbutrin 400mg for years. For the supposed manic part a number of things have been tried in conjunction with the other two: Seroquel, Abilify, Lamictal, and others I can't remember right now. Most of those had no effect. The rest made matters worse in a variety of ways.
Per some of my last posts I've been having more and more trouble with extreme fatigue and drowsiness, sometimes sleeping for 2-3 days at a time.
Also, in the last few years my sex drive has totally disappeared. I may be too old to have much of a drive anyway. I'm not sure any more.
I've been moaning about these and other problems for some time. Last time I saw my pdoc I said he absolutely had to do something or I'd probably wind up in ECT again. I'd rather not do that.
He decided to cut the Cymbalta daily dose in half to 30mg, and add 50mg of Pristiq(desvenlafaxine).
Finally, the question in this post. Pristiq is pretty new on the block. Is anyone else taking it? If so, how much do you take, when did it take effect (if at all), and what does it do for you?
I've been on it for 4 weeks now. The only difference I've noticed so far is that I've become more depressed. Cymbalta is pretty fast in and out of my system so I noticed the effects of the cutback of that within a week. Since then I've been waiting for the Pristiq to kick in.
The website (pristiq.com, natch) says it's an SNRI. That's what Cymbalta is, so what's the difference? It's supposed to be "time release", but for a drug that takes 4+ weeks to kick in, I can't see where that matters.
Wyeth makes it. That's the same outfit that makes Effexor XR, which is also time release and also an SNRI.
Seems like a lot of different flavors of the same thing. I told my therapist that all of this reminds me of when they kept trying to give Prozac staying power by adding "adjuncts" and other combos to it. Why do they keep trying all these different variations on the same theme this way? None of these SSRI or SNRI drugs ever lasted very long for me, if they worked at all that is. A lot of people I see in groups say the same thing. It seems like they should shelve the whole idea of these drugs and start completely over from scratch. They're prolonging the agony of a technology that's all but dead.
I got off the track. Sorry. Anyone out there taking Pristiq yet? Any results of any kind?
Thanks for your time,
Reggie BoStar
Posted by Phillipa on December 28, 2008, at 11:05:21
In reply to New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments?, posted by Reggie BoStar on December 28, 2008, at 4:06:42
If it's a new version of effexor as believe it to be then it would be similar to cymbalta SNRI? A number of people have posted on the med. Phillipa
Posted by Reggie BoStar on December 29, 2008, at 1:30:55
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Reggie BoStar, posted by Phillipa on December 28, 2008, at 11:05:21
Hi Phillipa,
OK, I see those other posts now. At first I had searched the current page of postings, which only goes back to 12/27. I just missed the earlier ones by a few weeks.I'll go back and post some feedback in those.
Happy Holidays !!!
Reggie BoStar
Posted by Phillipa on December 29, 2008, at 19:14:24
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments?, posted by Reggie BoStar on December 29, 2008, at 1:30:55
Reggie late reply but gladd you found the thread and Happy Holidays to you too. Love Phillipa
Posted by Reggie BoStar on December 30, 2008, at 21:25:28
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Reggie BoStar, posted by Phillipa on December 29, 2008, at 19:14:24
Thanks Phillipa, I hope 2009 goes a little easier on all of us.
Reggie BoStar
Posted by Phillipa on December 31, 2008, at 0:08:10
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Phillipa, posted by Reggie BoStar on December 30, 2008, at 21:25:28
Reggie me too!!!!!! Love Phillipa
Posted by B2chica on January 6, 2009, at 11:56:35
In reply to New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments?, posted by Reggie BoStar on December 28, 2008, at 4:06:42
sorry for the delay in post but i wanted to say that i've been on pristiq since september.
i think it took about 8 weeks before it leveled out my symptoms. i did notice being more depressed the first 2-3 weeks but i just thought my depression was cutting through. my pdoc doubled pritiq for two weeks then we went back down. and just waited it out.
once it kicked in its been working great.
b2c.
Posted by Phillipa on January 6, 2009, at 20:16:04
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Reggie BoStar, posted by B2chica on January 6, 2009, at 11:56:35
Hey that's great glad to hear another med is working!!!!!Love Phillipa
Posted by Reggie BoStar on January 6, 2009, at 21:54:28
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Reggie BoStar, posted by B2chica on January 6, 2009, at 11:56:35
Still spiraling down, unfortunately. I saw my t today but didn't accomplish much that I can remember. I will see my pdoc a week from Friday. I have the option to call before then to request a change and/or help. He recently moved to a new clinic that holds free support meetings for patients. I stayed on his patient list so now I can attend those meetings if I can get the energy and nerve up for it.
I'm staring and daydreaming a lot more and getting easily distracted. My t noticed this and suggested it might be the med(s) because I couldn't pinpoint a single event that might have started another down cycle. Problem was I couldn't come up with a coherent list of reasons because of this vagueness, as I call it.
Catch-22
Later,
Reggie BoStar
Posted by Phillipa on January 7, 2009, at 19:36:03
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » B2chica, posted by Reggie BoStar on January 6, 2009, at 21:54:28
Reggie I'm sorry. Be safe okay? Love Phillipa
Posted by Garnet71 on January 11, 2009, at 1:34:05
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments? » Reggie BoStar, posted by B2chica on January 6, 2009, at 11:56:35
Reggie,
have you gone to an endo, neuro, pharmapsychiatrist, nutrionist...and/or tried nootropics, magnesium, fish oils, etc., etc.?
Don't give up yet--I mean, wouldn't it be worth a try before going for ECT?
Posted by Reggie BoStar on January 26, 2009, at 3:07:45
In reply to Re: New med: Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), any comments?, posted by Garnet71 on January 11, 2009, at 1:34:05
Hello Garnet71,
Sorry for the delay in this response. I don't get all of your abbreviations, but I'll give it a shot:Endo = a gastro specialist, like the MDs who give colonoscopies and treat reflux disease? If so, yes, I do a lot of business with them. Since I turned 50 (7 yrs ago) I've had 2 routine colonoscopies, both passed with flying colors. I also have reflux disease and had to have my esophagus dilated in 1995. It had swollen shut from the inflammation and I couldn't swallowed. The fix worked, I've been on acid blockers since, and they work fine with me.
Neuro = Neurologist? Yes, I've suffered from terrible migraines since I was 14. The latest neurologist has done a pretty good job helping me with them. Along the way I've had at least one CRT and one MRI of my brain to make sure there were no overt problems there. They came back normal.
Pharmapsychiatrist = aren't they all nowadays? Around here, the psychiatrists handle the meds, ECT treatments, detox wards, and mental health wards. They coordinate with the therapists, who do the talking treatments. I'm keeping the same therapist, who is very good, but probably changing my psychiatrist soon. He had moved to a new clinic recently. Previous to that he was in the same clinic as my therapist. I followed his patient clientele to the new location. It's now an inconvenience to get to his office; with that and the lousy job he's been doing for me the last year or two, I may go back to one of the pdocs in my therapist's clinic.
Nutritionist = my MD coordinates all that. I get a lot of blood work done because I'm an alcoholic and they're forever checking my liver. The acid blockers I take can compromise nutrition in various ways, so he keeps an eye on that too. He checks my nutrient levels, vitamins, etc, and keeps me advised of things like the Food Pyramid and recommended diets if something in the blood panels doesn't look right. He knows what he's doing.
Nootropics = As far as the prescription meds go, I don't suffer from any organic brain damage or progressive disease like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc, so there isn't much need for me to be taking any of that stuff. There's no connection between them and treatments for migraines, either. As far as the over-the-counter stuff goes: since I don't believe any of them actually do anything to enhance cognition, they don't. In other words, the Placebo Effect doesn't work on me. A drug actually has to produce real results if I'm going to respond to it.
Magnesium = covered by my MD. My levels are OK. At one time a pdoc put me on higher than RDA levels to see if that would help with the depression. It did nothing at all as far as I could tell.
Fish Oils = It's actually not a very good idea to take too much of that stuff. People sometimes quote the Stoll experiment as proof that Omega-3 fatty acids can help with mood disorders such as bipolar depression. However, the differences between Stoll's control group (Placebo) and the group taking active Omega-3 acids were not statistically significant. For more rigorous studies, check out the links below. They used larger numbers of subjects and reported no significant differences between the control groups and the groups taking fatty acids.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/84/6/1308
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=1642264
In addition, taking fatty acids in the form of over-the-counter fish oils runs a risk of heavy metal and other toxic poisonings. This is because the fish from which the oils are taken are at the top of their food chain and thus are repositories of many toxins and heavy metal contaminations. The safest way to take over-the-counter fatty acids is to take them in the form of flaxseed oils. For those fatty acids, the risk of contamination is only as high as it is for any other unregulated over-the-counter medication.
As far as those "other unregulated over-the-counter medication" , many of these are now manufactured in China. No thanks. For my part, I've run numerous internet traces on the "Canadian Pharmacies" that purport to sell these products at discount prices. They do all that, but they're not manufactured in Canada. Guess where?
I use a shareware program called Visual Traceroot to do this. There's nothing magical about it; it's a good way to check out things like this.
For the time being, I take no unregulated over-the-counter drugs unless I can verify that they aren't made in China. This is not a diss on Chinese workers who are obviously among the most industrious in the world. They're having major QC issues, but the workers are not the problem.
You're right, I should try every possible option before resorting to ECT. I did so and none of it worked, which was why I wound up going into ECT the first time around.
I'm running out of options again. I'm not trying to shut down your suggestions out of nastiness; I just wanted to explain what I tried, how I tried it, and why I didn't try some other things.
Besides, as I commented in one of the other threads on Pristiq, I'm climbing the walls tonight. I can't stop typing!
Now if you can think of something else, I'm all ears, believe me. Also, I'm sure I probably got some of your abbreviations wrong. If I did, let me know...
Take care,
Reggie BoStar
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Medication | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.