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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Laurie Beth on September 5, 2005, at 23:44:40
I am experiencing post-partum apathy and anhedonia that I hope (based on a prior experience a few years ago when I was on 300 mg of Zoloft for several years) is caused largely by being on high dose of Zoloft (dose increased prophylactically on day I gave birth, from 40 mg to 100, then 200 mg). Over the past two months, I have been slowly tapering off the Zoloft - was at 50 mg a month ago, now at 6 mg, will be off completely in 2 days. As I've decreased, I've experienced less sleepiness and maybe 25% less apathy and anhedonia (varies from day to day in no pattern that I can discern), but I'm crossing my fingers that eventually I will feel much better, that, this time around, it really is my drug that is my problem.
If the Zoloft is actually causing these apathy and anhedonia, how long might I expect to keep seeing improvement after going off completely? I did see at least one case report in which the woman's apathy resolved completely 1 month after going off the SSRI. I know that the Zoloft should be out of my brain within 16 days after stopping (according to pdoc, anyway), but I imagine that other cascading effects (dopamine increase?) might take much longer.
Any experiences? Or even speculation?
Thank you.
Posted by crazy teresa on September 7, 2005, at 12:23:14
In reply to SSRI-induced apathy - how long to clear?, posted by Laurie Beth on September 5, 2005, at 23:44:40
see above posts on executive function.
crazy t
Posted by Laurie Beth on September 12, 2005, at 9:56:12
In reply to Re: SSRI-induced apathy - how long to clear?, posted by crazy teresa on September 7, 2005, at 12:23:14
Thanks; I had been following that thread (and anything else that seems remotely relevant, including searches for apathy, anhedonia, and others). Although a lot of people on these boards seem to mention the possibility of SSRI-induced apathy, anhedonia ("frontal lobe" syndrome, etc.), no one has yet answered regarding whether they found that these problems actually went away after stopping an SSRI (and how long it took).
Unfortunately for me, I've been off Zoloft now for 8 days (and the taper before that was a very very slow taper ... I'd probably been on an average dose of only about 25 mg for a month before the final dose) ... and I don't really think things are getting better. I may feel a *little* bit less numb, but I don't really feel more pleasure, satisfaction, or motivation. So maybe the Zoloft was just not doing anything at all, at least for the last 4 months. (I don't even want to consider the possibility that being on up to 300 mg of Zoloft for 6 years might have caused some kind of permanent brain damage, as suggested in Prozac Backlash!) The one new symptom that I never remember having before going on Zoloft is jaw clenching / possible teeth grinding during sleep. I recently found out that I have cracked two teeth, something that's never happened before. But I suppose that it's possible that that isn't a Zoloft effect either, but some kind of worsening of my underlying condition. (At least, that's what I bet the pdoc will say!)
What's odd is that I actually felt so good during pregnancy (this pregnancy was achieved after almost 2 years of fertility treatments) and during the first 2 months after baby was born, despite pain from C-section recovery and newborn period sleep deprivation. I have analyzed this all into the ground - could it have been some transient hyperthyroidism (dad had Hashimoto's) that was actually making me feel better, and that then went away (TSH 5 months post-partum was 2.4, so pdoc doesn't think thyroid augmentation is likely to be helpful). Was it sleep deprivation while baby was night nursing that somehow pushed my mood up? Pdoc understands my desire to figure it out intellectually, but tells me (perhaps quite honestly) that not enough is really known about depression for us to figure out the answer. He seems to think it's going to be trial and error, if we start trying other medications at all (I'm not eager, after experience with Zoloft, but we'll see...). Sometimes I wonder, though: why do I have to pay him for visits to try medication, if it's all just random guesswork anyway? I can guess randomly as well as he can, maybe better, since I actually know what my own symptoms are.
This is the end of the thread.
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