Posted by utopizen on January 4, 2005, at 4:48:20
In reply to Starting Lexapro, kind of scared, posted by vicwa on January 3, 2005, at 22:43:09
It's Lexapro.
I don't want to make you think I think your concerns are silly. I mean you're posting side effects that have occured in people. But the odds are always in your favor, and prior use of a different drug is not really an indicator of anything.
I've tried every antidepressant currently on the market, except for Cymbalta, only because it's so new.
I battled depression after initially having only social anxiety disorder and ADD. I'm not sure I'll ever be as youthful and optimistic as I was as an underclassmen in college. I'm currently a senior, and have battled depression for 2 years now. Lexapro did the trick, and I'm not sure depression truly goes away, but I wouldn't say I have it anymore.
That doesn't mean my prior innocence I had just two years ago of thinking I would basically walk without the sense that it was ever possible to lose hope and want to give up to despair. It means if a therapist gives me a questioniare, I probably wouldn't score with enough "yes" questions to the dozen or so symptoms I use to feel I had. I don't feel sleepy for no reason everyday like I did 2 months ago, or crave going to bed, or cry at the very notion that the thought of suicide is actually carries a scary appeal to me, and I was no longer a virgin to suicide ideation. But it does mean I don't have thoughts of suicide cross my mind anymore, and that's all I ever hoped for-- as hopeless as I felt-- I still continued to hope enough to keep taking my meds. And I'm glad I did.
Look, all meds have side effects. That's why your doctor has to prescribe it for you. But it's sold because you probably are given it because if sexual dysfunction was your biggest worry, you wouldn't need it. Just your anxiety over a simple med like Lexapro alone is enough to suspect life could be simpler for you, and I think you understand that already.
I don't know what you have. I have multiple problems, though, so I don't think it matters. Just be glad you can take the med to begin with.
All I can say is Lexapro has few side effects, and I don't happen to have any, and I've taken meds that have been pretty severe meds and I wish I got almost every side effect you listed if it meant I could trade in the side effects I've experienced from other meds before. And none of these meds have been SSRI's, and I've taken every SSRI. So just take it and watch a movie or something, but don't obsess over meds like I do, because to be honest, you're taking this way too seriously.
If you think sexual dysfunction--- the mere possibility of it occuring, which odds are won't actually happen to you- is your biggest possible problem you MIGHT encounter in your current life, then maybe your condition isn't worthy of getting this for. All I can say is, when I was crying because I was saddened with despair to the point where I couldn't admit to wanting to kill myself, but couldn't admit to feeling that I didn't want to kill myself, I knew whatever was going on was not me, and that's when I checked in to a mental hospital for a day to chill out basically. And trust me, you don't do that when your biggest worry is the potential risk of not getting a boner a month for now, okay? Either you're not weighing the risks against your actual problem's severity, or you only need talk therapy.
poster:utopizen
thread:437462
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050103/msgs/437556.html