Greetings to all of you in the psych field!
I stumbled upon this place researching some of my meds and enjoyed reading through the various topics of people in this profession.
I've been in the medical field for a little over 5 years myself, mostly with eye care but recently became a pharmacy tech.
Anywho.
Let me say right now I'm fully aware no one is allowed to officially diagnose without being my actualy doctor, can't legally advise certain things, blahblah. I know better than to act on my own - I've always taken new information to my doctor first to see what course of action she might want to do with it.
Soooo... I have GAD and Depression (I feel it's starting to fall into the "major" category but more on that later) that were both diagnosed at the same time about 6 years ago. I knew the GAD was coming - I've been a highly anxious person for as long as I can remember. Depression was surprising. It was one of those moments you realize the only thing you know about something is from movies/TV. Surpriiiise! Depression has many faces! After doing some actual research - yeah, I definitely had it, and for a long damn time.
So, I was put on Cymbalta, told it helps with both. This was back when insurance made you do the step therapy thing of trying like 3 different meds before it would cover one. I liked the cymbalta. Next was wellbutrin. Never noticed any change with it. I honestly don't remember what the third one was and I don't think it made an impression on me. So I got my cymbalta. I was on 30mg for years. I noticed it did help tremendously in certain areas, others not so much.
Then it started to not work about 2ish years ago.
So my doctor paired it with the lowest dose of wellbutrin.
Y'all, that was the best i've ever felt in my life. I felt like I was really feeling things for the first time since childhood. My head was clear. I was actually happy. But, it gave me awful hand tremors. To the point it was hard to write, or eat without food falling off the utensil. Plus, as an ophthalmology tech at the time i needed very steady hands. So we had to stop the wellbutrin. Instead, she upped my cymbalta to 60mg in hopes that would help.
It did. To a point.
I never got that feeling back like I was completely out of the haze. I'm still on it, but I'm noticing a decline again. At this point I'm starting to ask myself - is it my depression worsening or a resistance to the cymbalta? Last month i mentioned this to my doc, she gave me a 15 day supply of abilify to try alongside it. I've only been able to take a couple of the pills though. They knock me out hard and I don't like that.
Backtracking just a bit, a while after we upped my dose, we had a good long chat during my follow up about other issues i'd been having - mental ones that made no sense to me. Lots and lots of memory problems, mostly with short term but occasionally i'd be missing chunks of long term, too. Couldn't focus on anything worth a damn. Always notorious about having about 58 different tabs open on my browser at any given time. Never able to finish projects. Hyper-focus on particular things. Ect ect. She asked if I'd ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a kid, and no, I hadn't. That was that, no more was said on it and she moved on to other possible reasons.
I went home and then it struck me - why did she even ask me that? Again, it was a moment of realizing everything i knew about this disorder was based on pop culture stuff. I could not believe how accurately ADD described me. Adults don't have this! Thats what I told myself.
On my return visit, i went over it again with her and we both agreed it sounded an awful lot like ADD. (You probably managed it in different ways than most kids, she told me, so it went unnoticed.)
Thus came the life changing world of Adderall. Hello, focus. Hello, memory. It was like... one of those diagrams that just continually branch off eachother for eternity. Like 15 TVs and radios all playing different programs at the same time. Like what I'm sure the desk of a med student looks like during finals week. Then I took my first adderall and it all stopped. It's almost been like that moment of cymbalta/wellbutrin, except with cognitive ability rather than mood. It's been a life changer.
But now back to the depression. It's worse. I'm wary of going off of cymbalta to something else because the withdrawal from it is absolute hell. But at this point I'm not sure what else can be done. Is there anything else that can be paired with it that wont make me want to sleep 16 hours straight or give me the tremors of parkinsons?
Not only that but I'm noticing new things with my depression that remind me too much of bipolar for my comfort, yet not frequent enough to be it, so it seems. Manic episodes are increasing, though the episodes only last a day or two. Sometimes it's nice because i can be super productive during them, but then sometimes its more like "No, the ONLY thing you can do is organize your closet." which is not so nice. Insomnia is on the rise. Cymbalta had practically eliminated what I liked to call "headnoise" at night. A million thoughts, emotions, memories, scenarios, whatever my brain could bring up all at once when I tried to sleep. Turned out that was anxiety, I learned. But that has started to come back. Not nearly as much, but I find it happening more within the last year than i've had since starting the cymbalta. And then my mood. I wouldn't say I have wild swings, but for me, an extremely laid back and quiet person, the swings I have had feel pretty drastic. It normally takes a LOT for me to get even a little angry, but every once in a while I can go from 0 to Hulk in no time at all. Or my "i must be a nice and polite member of society" filter just drops completely.
So, what say you all? What might be the next step for me, or something i might be able to suggest an/or talk to my doctor about?
Thanks in advance!
I stumbled upon this place researching some of my meds and enjoyed reading through the various topics of people in this profession.
I've been in the medical field for a little over 5 years myself, mostly with eye care but recently became a pharmacy tech.
Anywho.
Let me say right now I'm fully aware no one is allowed to officially diagnose without being my actualy doctor, can't legally advise certain things, blahblah. I know better than to act on my own - I've always taken new information to my doctor first to see what course of action she might want to do with it.
Soooo... I have GAD and Depression (I feel it's starting to fall into the "major" category but more on that later) that were both diagnosed at the same time about 6 years ago. I knew the GAD was coming - I've been a highly anxious person for as long as I can remember. Depression was surprising. It was one of those moments you realize the only thing you know about something is from movies/TV. Surpriiiise! Depression has many faces! After doing some actual research - yeah, I definitely had it, and for a long damn time.
So, I was put on Cymbalta, told it helps with both. This was back when insurance made you do the step therapy thing of trying like 3 different meds before it would cover one. I liked the cymbalta. Next was wellbutrin. Never noticed any change with it. I honestly don't remember what the third one was and I don't think it made an impression on me. So I got my cymbalta. I was on 30mg for years. I noticed it did help tremendously in certain areas, others not so much.
Then it started to not work about 2ish years ago.
So my doctor paired it with the lowest dose of wellbutrin.
Y'all, that was the best i've ever felt in my life. I felt like I was really feeling things for the first time since childhood. My head was clear. I was actually happy. But, it gave me awful hand tremors. To the point it was hard to write, or eat without food falling off the utensil. Plus, as an ophthalmology tech at the time i needed very steady hands. So we had to stop the wellbutrin. Instead, she upped my cymbalta to 60mg in hopes that would help.
It did. To a point.
I never got that feeling back like I was completely out of the haze. I'm still on it, but I'm noticing a decline again. At this point I'm starting to ask myself - is it my depression worsening or a resistance to the cymbalta? Last month i mentioned this to my doc, she gave me a 15 day supply of abilify to try alongside it. I've only been able to take a couple of the pills though. They knock me out hard and I don't like that.
Backtracking just a bit, a while after we upped my dose, we had a good long chat during my follow up about other issues i'd been having - mental ones that made no sense to me. Lots and lots of memory problems, mostly with short term but occasionally i'd be missing chunks of long term, too. Couldn't focus on anything worth a damn. Always notorious about having about 58 different tabs open on my browser at any given time. Never able to finish projects. Hyper-focus on particular things. Ect ect. She asked if I'd ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a kid, and no, I hadn't. That was that, no more was said on it and she moved on to other possible reasons.
I went home and then it struck me - why did she even ask me that? Again, it was a moment of realizing everything i knew about this disorder was based on pop culture stuff. I could not believe how accurately ADD described me. Adults don't have this! Thats what I told myself.
On my return visit, i went over it again with her and we both agreed it sounded an awful lot like ADD. (You probably managed it in different ways than most kids, she told me, so it went unnoticed.)
Thus came the life changing world of Adderall. Hello, focus. Hello, memory. It was like... one of those diagrams that just continually branch off eachother for eternity. Like 15 TVs and radios all playing different programs at the same time. Like what I'm sure the desk of a med student looks like during finals week. Then I took my first adderall and it all stopped. It's almost been like that moment of cymbalta/wellbutrin, except with cognitive ability rather than mood. It's been a life changer.
But now back to the depression. It's worse. I'm wary of going off of cymbalta to something else because the withdrawal from it is absolute hell. But at this point I'm not sure what else can be done. Is there anything else that can be paired with it that wont make me want to sleep 16 hours straight or give me the tremors of parkinsons?
Not only that but I'm noticing new things with my depression that remind me too much of bipolar for my comfort, yet not frequent enough to be it, so it seems. Manic episodes are increasing, though the episodes only last a day or two. Sometimes it's nice because i can be super productive during them, but then sometimes its more like "No, the ONLY thing you can do is organize your closet." which is not so nice. Insomnia is on the rise. Cymbalta had practically eliminated what I liked to call "headnoise" at night. A million thoughts, emotions, memories, scenarios, whatever my brain could bring up all at once when I tried to sleep. Turned out that was anxiety, I learned. But that has started to come back. Not nearly as much, but I find it happening more within the last year than i've had since starting the cymbalta. And then my mood. I wouldn't say I have wild swings, but for me, an extremely laid back and quiet person, the swings I have had feel pretty drastic. It normally takes a LOT for me to get even a little angry, but every once in a while I can go from 0 to Hulk in no time at all. Or my "i must be a nice and polite member of society" filter just drops completely.
So, what say you all? What might be the next step for me, or something i might be able to suggest an/or talk to my doctor about?
Thanks in advance!
