They’re not in the UK, at least, beyond over-the-counter stuff. I’d wager that the average Brit going into a GP’s office is unlikely to know the name of any specific drugs/brands beyond those and the culturally known ones (like Prozac or Viagra), unless they’ve been doing research.
You may also want to look into Yaz, which is a birth control pill designed to help with PMDD. My symptoms were not as bad as yours, but I have found it has made a *significant *difference for me.
…and many people change their medication because it just stops working after a while for some folks.
I know, I was just trying to point out the “blame the victim”-type thinking in fuzzypickles’ post, but I see what he was saying after further clarification.
I think the issue at heart is the role of self-reporting in mental illness diagnoses and subsequent prescriptions. Mental illness diagnoses are fundamentally different from physical ones in that doctors can’t run blood tests or something and pinpoint the antibiotic (or whatever) that would best suit the patient. Since mood is an altogether subjective thing, it’s quite a bit more nuanced to figure out the right medication. Working with your doctor, which upon further investigation is exactly what MissSwitac did, is probably the best bet in combining your subjective experiences with their (ideally) objective expert opinion. Obviously this can be swayed by any number of things - drug commercials being one of them - I just didn’t know if this was a widespread phenomenon or what. I haven’t had much experience changing medication, so maybe that’s why.
I’m on Lexipro, though I’m not sure it’s a perfect fit; I tried Effexor again and suffered quite a bit for doing-so. Finding the right “cocktail” is a pain in the fucking ass. I can’t afford to be all-over-the-place with my moods. I sympathies with your’ frustrations. 