Posted by Moloko on October 20, 2004, at 3:27:30
Forgive me if I bicker; first a little about myself. I am 21 and for years I have been fighting a chronic "baseline" depression and a supposed case of ADD. I have been to many doctors, psycho-pharmacologists, psychologists, physicians, etc. I have tried therapy, therapy with medication, and medication by itself, and I have yet to find a viable long-term treatment for depression... I am tired of the drugs, tired of the side-effects, tired of having each drug tailor to a specific symptom. Until recently I was on massive amounts of adderall (40-80 mg a day), effexor (150 mg) ontop of having drugs to sleep: ambien, sonata, clonopin... it seemed whenever I complained to an M.D. they would throw more drugs at me... and they strange thing is many of these drugs can cause other problems regardless of their effectiveness. I found that it actually made things worse in the long run. I had tremors, muscle spasms, irritability; it was always up and down... I hate them all! Sure they improve things, but for a short time, and the effect (at least in my opinion) is not worth it. I mean I almost killed myself on Prozac, and other drugs like Zoloft, and Lamictal (after they started to take effect) made me feel better for, at most, a few months. Is there any alternative to medication? I'd love to hear some success stories. I quit smoking both pot and cigarettes. I have started to adopt better eating habits, I am slowly starting to exercise and I am trying to regulate my sleep cycle. I find thus far that this is just as good as medication. I haven't completely conquered my depression, but certainly all of these factors have improved my life, and I find all of these behavioral changes easier to accomplish without any sort of medication. Anyway to my question... a few months ago I decided no more drugs, first because the adderall was driving me crazy, and I started to exhibit "cokehead" like symptoms. I had been on effexor for nearly a year, and I was still depressed... in fact it was a few notches above my worst bout of depression; I stayed in bed most of the day. For a month I weened myself off of adderall; it was hard and I developed hypersomnia. After that ordeal, I kind of started to feel better, next it was time to get rid of the Effexor, I tried tapering off, but that didn't work very well. I am still in the midst of the withdrawal, and experiencing some of the common withdrawal symptoms; lightheadedness, hot flashes, but I encountered a new symptom... incredible premature ejaculation! Not that I have a partner... but when I masturbate, time to reach orgasm is very very quick... 20-30 seconds seems to be the average, my orgams suck - they aren't pleasurable at all, for some reason the volume of my ejaculate is abnormally low, and I am really starting to get worried. When will this subside? How common is this? I should also mention that I am currently taking one more drug... wellbutrin. Is that also a factor? I did some internet searching, which brought me here. I hope that covers enough to get a decent answer. Please, please, please... someone help! If you've read this far I thank you for bearing with me.
poster:Moloko
thread:405031
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041018/msgs/405031.html