state of the fishie

[piranha]

the escitalopram is working, yay! all the thoughts of death are gone for now, and when i wake up i no longer feel like tackling the day will be a totally insurmountable task. i am just on 5mg, ramp-up dose; i'm hoping that memory and concentration will improve after a couple of months of taking it, and/or on a higher dosage. even if not, i am still more functional now; i've been out of the house and on 3 walks of more than an hour already; i'll be able to handle menial tasks (like my garden, which has laid fallow so far). it started to work very fast; i could feel the first improvements after just a week; no other SSRI has ever worked for me this quickly.

don't even have a lot of side effects; being more sleepy than before, and the anorgasmia is back, which i've had with every SSRI i've tried. but i'll happily trade any and all orgasms for the rest of my life for feeling something other than miserable. and the wellbutrin counteracts the sleepiness to some degree, so its manageable.

i also had the echocardiogram done, and the ultrasound tech was unusually chatty, which means i got to see the part of my heart that's damaged -- at the bottom of the right ventricle, on the septum, a very small spot. so apparently i did have a silent heart attack. i've learned that they're not even uncommon; 25% of all heart attacks are silent; which means there are no symptoms. other than that my heart seems fine.

it's been 8 months since my last tachycardia attack -- that's the longest i've gone between attacks since they started. i do have more palpitations now; very short periods where my heart feels like it's beating irregularly, but they last less than a minute.

Comments

[fairestcat]

I found that the anorgasmia didn't go away completely, but lessened significantly once I'd been on the escitalopram for a while.

Frustratingly, I just had to up my dose, and I definitely noticed the uptick in that particular symptom. Still worth it though, I'm so with you there.

[piranha]

sorry you're having similar problems. :(

it'd be nice if it lessened with time, though i am not holding out much hope, since it never lessened before; if anything, it got "worse". in quotes because i am not sure losing one's libido completely is really "worse" if one can't ever come; it's maybe better, *wry grin*.

[holyschist]

Hooray!

I had pretty much the same side effects as you, but it totally made me able to function, although I eventually switched to an SNRI. Hopefully it continues to work for you and the side effects mitigate.

[piranha]

thank you. i am glad it worked for you to some degree -- any improvement is better than being a sessile blob of protoplasm. the norepinephrine-dopamine angles are covered by the wellbutrin for me. we'll see how it goes, but i am pretty ecstatic that the combo does something positive; i've gone for a long time feeling much worse than i do now; trying meds that didn't do anything, or not enough.

[serene]

I know I tend to speak in superlatives a lot, but this is seriously the best news I've seen in a long time.

[piranha]

*smile*. thank you, sweetie. you always make me feel better.

[pameladean]

I'm very glad that stuff is working for you.

P.

[piranha]

thank you!

[graydon]

That is all excellent news; long may it continue to improve.

[piranha]

thanks! and from your mouth into the god of depression's ear.

[aquaeri]

I'm very pleased to hear you're better.

[piranha]

thanks!

[eub.livejournal.com]

Very glad to hear your successes with meds!

Baby steps and all that

[(Anonymous)]

I don't get to this site very often, but I am glad to hear that you are getting some improvement - quality of life matters, and impacts your ability to do other things that are good for your generally and for your other health issues.

BTW, you take neat photos. I am not up to speed on the flower types, but they are good looking pix, and the information you tag on is interesting.

Warfarin is pretty potent, but unless there is something a little odd, you can get to a point that is productive as defined by your medic (probably about a 2.0 on the clotting test) and cut the frequency of the tests. I had to do 3 a week when I had my clot, but came down to once a week, then once every two once I got to the area they wanted me to be in. There were a couple of small adjustments for other med changes etc off and on, but nothing major. I think maybe 2.5 mg added or subtracted daily once or twice a week. I was on it for about 8 months after the clot, and the initial period in the hospital was the suck, but I got by.