Side effects Antidepressants

[Gwen_space]

Hi my name is Gwen space and like many others during this rough time I experience anxiety and depression. Luckily recently I was able to go to physcitrist and been put on antidepressants. Have been on a low dose of antidepressants before that just made my appetite a little less. However this time we’ve been increasing the doses each time I check in with them. I know about the other side effects and how the long time they affect you. At the start it was alright I did get the jitters when I took it and had to wait to calm plus it was effecting my sleep however that went away. And it was all good for while but then we increase about a week ago again my dosage and the side effect such as diarrhoea and low appetite came on. I went to a birthday party where I should’ve just stopped drinking, that was my bad. Which led me to breaking my all proud record of never spewing while drunk over my friends garden. Luckily I realised what was happening and ran out of the house to the nearest bush. I’m not a regular drinker and definitely have not had alcohol since. But after that for days I’ve been nausea, gagging to vomit that turns into a cough or burp. My appetite got even worse low with the thought of food makes me feel even more nasouse or even can’t physically putting food in my mouth. The last two days it has gotten better I can now stomach at most two light meals and trying to increase my water intake. I called my physiatrist up and agreed to adjust my antidepressants to a lower dose again for the past few days .My jitters and shakes come back except there their when I wake up. Causing my sleep to be disturbed and I need a family member to physically calm me down and my nasua or anxiety keeps me up late. So I’m not getting much sleep. I also getting headaches. I believe it’s been more then six weeks since I’ve been on antidepressants so I’m worried about about the side effects sticking around. I’ve been researching about side effects but it mostly comes up about information on what happens when switching or going off of them. I was just wondering if the anyone experience something similar when adjusting your meds to lower dose or how long did nasua effect you and if anyone woke up to similar jitters or shaking again how long did they effect you. I’m just beginning to worry these side effects will continue as long as I’m on my current antidepressants and crush because they didn’t effect me before.

[white knight]

Hi, welcome

So Gwen as I read your post it seems medication is the main problem you are facing. Many if not all of us have gone through the process of trying to find a balance of 1/ finding the right medication that is compatible with our bodily system 2/ the right dose for us and 3/ the right administrator of such medication with ongoing support for same.

We cant discuss various medications here as we're not trained professional medical staff so we often rely on our own experiences of the difficulties we have endured as someone with mental struggles. In my case dosage was a big issue and it took quite a while (months) to get it right. Since then I havent dared toy with it. I also found that keeping in touch regularly with my GP was priceless in snippets of information along with approval or suggestions on changes to dosage levels. Dr Google can help in terms of more snippets like some meds need to be taken at certain times/ side effects etc etc.

I hope you dont mind me mentioning that it is well known that excess alcohol doesnt mix well with medication. You've already paid a price for that so I want to be gentle in saying that. As someone once said "hindsight is a wonderful thing". Like many things to do with mental health on our journey, experience means everything.

It's interesting your doctor lowered your dosage because any medication I've taken has been raised/lowered slowly with quantity. Dosgae is often a "work in progress" for some time so chat with him/her to establish that, as it could answer that question in terms of adverse reactions.

In terms of general life with medication I wrote a thread on this several years ago that you might benefit from. You only need to read the first post. I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/staying-well/medication-is-a-whirlpool

Feel free to repost anytime. Thanks for posting.

TonyWK