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Is Anyone Micro-dosing Anti-Depressants?

starryeyes

Senior Member
Messages
1,558
Location
Bay Area, California
I've just started to try an anti-depressant for pain. It's Doxepin and I've got it in liquid form. I took one drop the other night, a very tiny drop and I had a new kind of debilitating dizziness the entire next day which finally wore off that evening.

Is anyone else here micro-dosing ADs and if so can you please share your experiences with them? A micro-dose is 5 mg or less.

Thanks in advance,

teej
 

Otis

Señor Mumbler
Messages
1,117
Location
USA
I've just started to try an anti-depressant for pain. It's Doxepin and I've got it in liquid form. I took one drop the other night, a very tiny drop and I had a new kind of debilitating dizziness the entire next day which finally wore off that evening.

Is anyone else here micro-dosing ADs and if so can you please share your experiences with them? A micro-dose is 5 mg or less.

Thanks in advance,

teej

Teej,

At one point I was taking up to 20 mg of doxepin at bed time. I got some level of stomach pain relief and some better sleep with it. I started getting more and more hungover from it and started decreasing the dose until I was at 5mg which didn't help me.

I am not medication sensitive, except with antidepressants. Side effects hit me at VERY low doses now. Messing with neurotransmitters dosen't seem to agree with me. The only exception is trazodone which I take for sleep, but at a lower dose than is ever prescribed for depression, not that it"s used for that much anymore.

So I'm not sure if that helped but before I got ultra-sensitive it did help with stomach pain, at the time my only pain - not so now.

A drop sounds like much less than 5mg. I had a 1mg/ml suspension and I would guess 5ml was perhaps 20-30 drops. I had a little syringe so I didn't measure by the drop.

Diziness dosen't surprise me but the severity does. It sounds severe enough to be of serious concern - it sounds like you are more sensitve than I. If you can I'd drop the dose to 1-2mg, although you may already be below that if you just took a drop. If you can't drop the dosage I'd speak with your Dr. If you can drop it go low and titrate very slowly.

Best of luck,
Otis
 

serenity

Senior Member
Messages
571
Location
Austin
i'm on like 50mg of Doxepin & it's the only thing i've tried that i had no side effects from. w'ere all different
it helps me to sleep
 
Messages
68
I'm on 50mg Doxepin too. Started taking it about 20 years a go. I started at 6mg liquid and have worked up to 50mg over the years. I take it to sleep. If I take it about an hour before I go to bed, it knocks me out.
 

serenity

Senior Member
Messages
571
Location
Austin
lucky you Aiden i'm not to the knocked out point yet, still have to take Lunesta to get to sleep - but the Doxepin helps me to stay asleep.
 

Summer

Senior Member
Messages
175
I've just started to try an anti-depressant for pain. It's Doxepin and I've got it in liquid form. I took one drop the other night, a very tiny drop and I had a new kind of debilitating dizziness the entire next day which finally wore off that evening.

Is anyone else here micro-dosing ADs and if so can you please share your experiences with them? A micro-dose is 5 mg or less.

Thanks in advance,

teej

Bless your heart. (HUGS) You may not tolerate any amount of it. I do understand. I tolerate Doxepin, but I don't tolerate some homeopathic remedies, much less even small doses of some things. Wish I knew how you should proceed, but I will keep you in my prayers.
 

alice1

Senior Member
Messages
457
Location
Toronto
I had to start with very low a.d. as the side effects were too much.but after about 2 weeks i adjusted and they've been very helpful for me.
good luck!
 

starryeyes

Senior Member
Messages
1,558
Location
Bay Area, California
Thanks so much for posting your experiences with ADs everybody. This is quite helpful to me.

Maarten, I need to reiterate that I'm not wheelchair bound. I have to use a wheelchair for days in a row sometimes when I push through my symptoms because the pain in my legs and ankles gets so bad I cannot bare my weight at all.

This does mean that I have to be bedbound about 95% of the time.

Caledonia, I'm hoping that the dizziness will wear off.

Alice, what kind of AD do you take?

I'm going to try titrating the dose by putting a drop in a shot glass and only drinking a 1/4 of the contents and then titrate up or down according to my reaction.

According to Cheney, taking Doxepin with Klonopin (an anti-seizure drug) can help eliminate a lot of pain in some PWC. That's what I'm aiming for.

Already the 1/4 mg. of Klonopin I've just started taking at night seems to be giving me deeper sleep and I'm in less pain the next day and have more energy however the pain I do have is more intense. It's hard to explain and I really have to wait until I use it for longer to truly assess how it's working for me.

I sure love the idea of micro-dosing. I thought I couldn't take any meds at all. Klonopin has been a nice surprise and so far I like its subtle effects.
 

August59

Daughters High School Graduation
Messages
1,617
Location
Upstate SC, USA
I tried Prozac several years ago and my doctor then believed in starting very low and slowly working up. Prozac has a very long half-life and if you go up to quick you could pass right by your most effective dose. He started at 5mg and went up 5mg. every 2-3 weeks. Most doctors start at 20mg and that's it and some people do perfectly fine with this dosing. I actually think that is the recommended dosing. I can tell you from my personal experience that Proza didn't have any effect on me at all. I was up to 80mg a day and it didn't change anything (and I mean anything!!). Celexa was a different story as I was a Zombie with it. I ended up on Zoloft for about 4-5 months and it worked the best and had minor weight gain which fell off as soon as I quit taking it.
 

starryeyes

Senior Member
Messages
1,558
Location
Bay Area, California
Sorry to hear your bad experiences August.

Last night I put a drop of Doxepin in a measurement shotglass and filled it with water to the 1 oz. line. Then I poured that into a liquid measuring cup and stirred it. Then I poured the contents back into the measurement shotglass and filled it to the .5 oz. line and drank it.

I could feel it right away but it was okay. It was kind of nice and the feeling I had went with the movie I was watching.. a newwave Godard flick called Breathless.

I slept well and didn't feel dizzy from it today. I believe I have found my titration level that I can handle.

Tonight I will take both the .25 mg of Klonopin and the one drop diluted into .5 oz. of water together. It's the synergistic effect of both of these meds together that Cheney says will help reduce pain. Although the Klonopin alone already seems to be reducing my pain.

I was able to walk around our town very slowly using my seatcane a lot the other day after taking Klonopin the night before and for the first time in years I did not suffer with severe leg pain the next day. Usually that would cause much more pain for 3 days and nights.

I really can't believe it. I'm almost afraid to say it. I'll let you all know how I continue to do.