Posted by Iden on July 23, 2000, at 22:03:40
In reply to serzone, manic, posted by yona on July 22, 2000, at 11:36:01
>hi there. i didn't get any response to my last post so i am posting again (after having read alot of archives).. still a question for me. the serzone, now maybe day 8? seems to make me a little more manic than normal. ............... i dropped the dose to 50mg 2x a day for a few days now hoping to keep this mania in check. but the questions are: can someone share some experience with this???
**Hi again Yona. I have not had manic or hypomanic experiences -- well, I thought I hadn't. Now, I'm not sure. As I was tapering off Prozac and tapering on Serzone, I did have a very nice mood lift for a time. I became optimistic, looked forward to things, and became more productive and outward-going. I even started to paint my house on the outside and started painting the master bedroom on the inside among other things. I considered the possibility of a hypomanic episode while I was experiencing it so tried not to start too much stuff in case I went back down. It seemed to me that this is what life should be like. During this period, I was always rational and the things I undertook were things I wanted to do anyway. I did not start doing strange things or things that were not on my list of things to do. My need for sleep maybe reduced by one hour -- maybe down to 7 hours from 8. The book says, among other things, that need for sleep may be reduced to 3 hours per night during a manic or hypomanic episode. I did feel some "unusual" urge to talk and talked in social situations where I would normally not say much if anything. I surprised myself a number of times. I don't know if it was the Serzone alone or the Serzone + Prozac.
**For me, it started on about the third week of Serzone and lasted two weeks at most. Remember, that I started at 25 mg once a day and worked up slowly only adding 25 mg per day each dose increase. I am now at 100 mg 2x / day. After my two weeks of being up, I started down again and indeed had some not-so-good days. Now that I have reached 100 mg 2x / day and have been at this dose for 4 days, I am feeling somewhat better again. That was preceded by six days at 75 mg in the morning and 100 mg at night. After a week or two I'll add another 25 mg and keep going up to see at what dose I get good results -- if I do, or when side effects stop me from going higher. Right now, I consider Serzone promising.
**My going so low and slow is based on two things -- one is that I have been unusually sensitive to all prior antidepressants and two, it was suggested here that some people should increase at 25 mg per increase.
>serzone, increased mania, how manic is/was too manic, etc. i take no other meds although i do self medicate with nicotine and tea. since serzone, tea has become much less important to me and nicotine much less enjoyable.probably a great time to quit, finally. anyways hope to hear from someone soon. yona
**Yona, if you take a dip after the up period like I did, hang in there and consider slowly working your dose back up. This is your decision. I am not offering guidelines for you. Let us know how it goes.
Iden
poster:Iden
thread:41187
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000717/msgs/41282.html