Well just back from the Psychiatrist and feeling extremely disappointed and disheartened. I don't know what I expected?
I felt so optimistic this morning especially about the Amiluspride, I knew deep down it would be a no the Adderall but it was a NO to both.
He felt because I had tried so many drugs over such a long period of time that they wouldn't be of any use. And said what I had printed of wasn't clinical evidence and we should stick with clinical based evidence. I feel so frustrated and angry and sad.
I know the feeling: you visit a medical professional full of hope they will respond positively to your ideas, but instead you receive a "no" to your requests, which feels negative and a bit authoritarian.
That's why I dislike going to doctors to ask them for something. I think when you are mentally frail in some way, whether it is with depression, anxiety, or whatever, the doctor's "no" comes across as much harsher; it feels cold and distant, and you don't sense you have any rapport with the doctor.
That's one of the reasons I prefer to do things myself, reading about possibly useful drugs or supplements, and then buying them online.
He said he understands how bad anxiety can be but thinks it can be got over with Psychological therapy - I just don't agree.
I think you are absolutely right.
Myself and many others on this forum are often quite critical of psychiatrists. There are good psychiatrists out there, so I don't want to generalize; but the main problem is the tendency for psychiatrists to think that symptoms like anxiety likely have a psychological cause — ie, they are due something in your life or your personal experiences, rather than due to something physically amiss in your body and brain. Depression can be due to something in your life, but it may also be caused by something out of kilter in your body and brain
This is where I think psychiatry often goes wrong, by all too quickly assuming the symptoms are psychologically-caused. It is quite clear to me that my anxiety and depression are caused by physical factors in my body and brain, not by any psychological causes in my life, because my life at present is placid and stress-free.
In my case, my anxiety, depression and anhedonia symptoms all started after a I caught a viral infection in 2003 (and several other people who caught the same virus as it was going around also developed severe generalized anxiety disorder, and depression / anhedonia symptoms, so it was clear that the virus was the cause).
So anything a psychiatrist says about psychological causes you have to take with a pinch of salt, if he/she is one of those psychiatrists always oriented towards psychological talk therapies.
I was saying to my GP yesterday that it would be ok if you could take an antidepressant to try and see if it works but they just don't work like that. What I mean is if say you have a back ache for a couple of weeks and take painkillers, you stop the painkillers and that's fine no withdrawal. But with antidepressant NO MATTER WHAT GP'S PSYCHIATRIST SAY you just CANNOT stop taking these drugs without withdrawal. I still don't think they believe withdrawal really exists and that it is all to do with your 'mental condition' rubbish. That's another story!
I have read many stories online of long and unpleasant withdrawal from SSRI antidepressants. Myself I have never taken an SSRI longer than a few days, due to the fact these drugs dramatically worsen my depression, so I don't have any personal experience of long term use and withdrawal.
I found
this post interesting; it's written by someone who tried all the SSRI drugs, and he compares them. He said he found Lexapro "far and away, the best of the bunch," and particularly good for anxiety (although he said it does tend to flatten the emotions more than other SSRIs).
The other thing I meant to ask yesterday is do you have any problems with sleep. I am a chronic insomniac. Have had this since I was about 13. Do you know anything that could help with this. Have tried all the usual drugs. Am having some success with 0.5 mg Lorazepam prescribed by GP but don't want to keep relying on this. Also took Melatonin, Valerian etc but doesn't even touch it. But maybe with the Amiluspride that might kill the anxiety and help with sleep? God I hope so.
Sleep problems always seem hard to solve. In ME/CFS, sleep becomes shallow and "thin," with not much depth to it, so you can easily wake up and then find it hard to get back to sleep.
The only things I have found that help deepen my sleep a little, which then reduces waking up and insomnia, are
evening primrose oil 2,000 to 4,000 mg before bed, a 500 mg
calcium tablet before bed,
kava kava root 300 mg before bed (kava kava is also a good anti-anxiety supplement, and also may have some antidepressant effects). Whether this will help anyone else with sleep problems, I don't know.
Melatonin 5 mg I find helps me to get to sleep more quickly (if I don't take melatonin, it can take me up to two hours to get to sleep); however, I don't find melatonin helps much with deepening sleep.
My elderly mother suffers from a lot of insomnia, and she occasionally takes zolpidem (which is similar to lorazepam), but also does not want to use it regularly. Her doctor also prescribed amitriptyline 10 mg (the tricyclic antidepressant) for sleep, and this seems to work quite well when taken before bed (but strangely not every time; it seems to work best when taken as a one-off rather than regularly).