meet the new boss. same as the old boss

[the_siobhan]

I met the shrink yesterday. I like her. Very engaged, wants to hear what I think, wants to explain everything to me at length, wants to give me lots of options.

I told her about my previous psychiatrist experience. There's a face that doctors make when they know they aren't allowed to call a colleague a quack but they're thinking it very loudly.

5 mg Cipralex. Starting tonight before bed. Half the normal minimum dose to see if it makes my head fall off.

Fuck. I hate taking pills.

Comments

[jo]

Jon's on cipralex. He started on 5mg too for about a week, then up to 10mg for another week and now he's on the normal dose of 20mg. He is finding it is maybe making him somewhat less anxious, he's not sure if it's really doing anything for depression, however. But he's sticking with it since they told him it could take 4-6 weeks at the full dose to start really working. He is having really vivid, disturbing dreams however, which he really doesn't like (as I posted about yesterday). He's also eating a lot more, which in his case isn't a bad thing since he's 6'2" and back in January weighed about 118 lbs. He's now up to 147 lbs.

Jon takes his pills in the morning - he doesn't find they make him sleepy at all.

[the_siobhan]

She recommended before bed because my previous side-effects from SSRI's were nausea and severe vertigo and we figured it might be slightly less of a negative impact if they're at their worst when I'm (hopefully) sleeping. It might not make any difference at all but we're trying everything we can to minimize the chances.

The dreams thing is interesting, none of the resources I've looked up mention dreams, although they all mention possible sleep disruption. I already have really vivid dreams so I can't imagine what they'll be like if they get stronger.

The increased appetite might be a result of the reduced anxiety. It's hard to eat when you're in a constant state of low-level adrenaline rush.

[jo]

I've googled somewhat re: excessive intense dreaming and came across quite a few people saying the dreaming started/intensified when they started taking cipralex, and then they stopped taking it, the dreams went away (or at least became much less intense/vivid). Jon just hates it because he's regularly waking up 3-4 times during the night and doesn't feel rested. He was talking actively in his sleep before I left this morning, and woke me up just before my alarm went off with some anxious moaning. Good luck with it anyway - this mental health stuff is such a crapshoot...

[the_siobhan]

So far I've just been looking at pharmancy/medical sites - I haven't started hunting for patient forums yet. Are there any you thought were good?

I've noticed that a lot of the times the side-effects that people self-report don't show up on any of the published medical info. When I was reading support forums prior to my hysterectomy there were a lot of women who said they suffered from chronic insomnia for up to a year afterwards. I couldn't find any mention of it anywhere on the info sites, and doctors all looked at me like I had two heads when I asked about it. But over a third of the women in the forums reported it.