It changes the way your brain processes emotions and cognitions.
The way you feel might be because your circumstances need changing.
And…the modern psychiatric profession is 99.94% (est) established around the unproven hypothesis that all undesirable emotional experiences are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. i.e, unpleasant feelings are by definition a disease to be cured by analyzing the brain chemistry that correlates with those emotions and then seeking a chemical antagonist that seems to nullify the unpleasant emotional condition.
My recommendation: try it, but don’t attribute more professional expertise to the shrink than you’d attribute to your bartender or the drug pusher down the street.
Wrong! If you’re going to make a statement like that–cite!
Yes, because your brain is misfiring in its ‘natural’ state.
Again: cite! Depression, OCD, panic/anxiety disorder are not merely ‘unpleasant feelings’–they are thoughts and emotions that you cannot control, that may cause you to do harm to yourself or others, that are irrational, that FUCK UP YOUR LIFE and your ability to function!
I can’t believe that someone would actually hold that opinion. If you don’t want to take medication, fine, don’t: but don’t interfere with others’ treatment for a disease. You sound like the neighbor woman who told my mother all the time I was growing up that I would “grow out” of my diabetes and that I really didn’t need insulin.
Actually, I’d like to see some cites for that percentage. Seems like something pulled out of thin air to me.
I have to take umbrage here, AHunter3. First of all, how qualified are YOU to make a diagnosis? If the answer is no more than I am, maybe you oughta stick to “suggestion” rather than “recommendation.” Second, it IS proven that there can be body parts that do not always work the way they are supposed to - let me direct your attention to the isles of Langerhans for a ferinstance. The brain should not be expected to function any more optimally at all times than any other body part is. If the drug being taken, whether it be insulin or Paxil, corrects the problems caused by a malfunctioning organ, then it’s not addictive in the same sense that, say, heroin is. It is merely replacing that which is lacking, or jump-starting the organ in question. Are diabetics addicted to insulin? Paxil is SUPPOSED to change the way your brain processes emotions and cognitions – you’re on Paxil because your brain isn’t doing it right in the first place!
Whether or not dantheman needs to change the circumstances of his life is not the question, nor did he make it any of our business. He merely asked what experiences others have had with the medication.
well, i took paxil, and many other ssri’s, and i found that paxil did the best job of controlling my wild mood swings, mostly depression, and did so with the least amount of sexual side effects.
HOWEVER… when my 'script ran out, and i didn’t have the $ to get a refill (stupid college pharmacy changed their services, got it for free one semester, then only the first bottle free the next semester), i got severe withdrawl effects. granted, i should have tapered off, but even on days when i just didn’t get home in time to take the pill and skipped a dose i would feel awful. like someone took a cattle prod and stuck it in my mouth clean through to my brain stem.
at first i didn’t realize what was happening and almost went to the er, i called the doc and he didn’t seem to think i should be having such severe withdrawls. but i broke down and bought some more, and felt better. until that ran out.
of course (slight highjack here), this is the same infirmary that sent me home with a pneumothorax (small hole in one of my lungs, causing it to collape), even after an x-ray. they told me it must be an anxiety attack, gave me a valium, and sent me home. two weeks later, they called and told me to go to the emergency room, that i had a hole in my lung. (gee, thanks).
I took Paxil for several months about 9 years ago. In my case, perverse creature that I am, it caused insomnia. You read it right, insomnia. When I mentioned this to my therapist, she came up with a simple solution. Instead of taking it at bed time, I took it in the morning. Problem solved. I was coming off a nasty attack of depression at the time, but it worked wonders for me. My theory is it evened out the lows and stabilized my brain chemistry so the psychotherapy could take effect.
dantheman, if your doctor is doing this because he suspects you’re depressed, I would not start a drug regime without therapy at the same time. To me, taking anti-depressants without therapy is treating the symptom, not the disease. Then again, I am not a doctor or therapist of any kind.
The thing that grates me is that he prescribed this junk for me after all of 20 minutes - I had never seen this doctor before. I realize that sometimes fatigue = depression, but certainly not always. Seems like a very risky endeavor to prescribe medication with as many side effects as this after so short of a time.
Actually, my pancreas is just fine, but the insulin argument is such an easy one to understand that I often use it to illustrate the concept. I have ADD, and often have to explain my medication to ignoramuses (ignoramii?)
I’ve been taking Paxil for quite some time now, and I find it to be, on the whole, quite beneficial. I had all the textbook symptoms of depression (and it was easy for me to recognize them, because it seems like my parents had it even worse than me. When I saw myself turning into them, I sought help). It does take some time to kick in – a couple of weeks to a month before you’ll feel the full effect (if your experience is anything like mine).
That said, the side effects are real. I don’t find that I get insomnia, or that it affects my energy levels in any way at all, but the sexual side effects are definitely there. In my case, it makes it all but impossible to, ahhh, finish. My libido is definitely supressed, although not completely extinguished.
Also, stopping, even for a few days, can be really, really unsettling. It’s happened a couple of times that I’ve run out and it’s been a couple of days before I could get a new prescription. Not fun. “Zaps,” depression, anxiety, etc. Just something to be aware of.
Your first visit you told him you were feeling tired all the time and he prescribed you Paxil immediately? I would seriously be finding a new doctor.
Call me crazy (ha!) but I would want my doctor to rule out any physical illnesses before he decided it was depression. Especially if I was not feeling depressed, only tired. 101 things could cause fatigue and sometimes it is the first symptom of a serious problem.
Did he even do any blood work?
Don’t get me wrong, I think antidepressants are great if you need them. But to me prescribing them immediately based only on fatigue is like deciding a women is pregnant based only on the fact she is gaining weight.
That’s interesting. I was on Paxil and switched to Celexa; they both work fine for me for depression and panic attacks. (I have Ativan (lorazepam) for when the panic flares up but it doesn’t very often because of the SSRIs). Paxil and Celexa both make me yawn a lot and sleep soundly, although with more vivid and realistic dreams than without. I have some flattening of affect (forget the term) where happy things don’t make me as happy, the same way depressing things aren’t so depressing.
During the worst of my panic episodes, I got the prescription for Ativan and it said “may cause drowsiness”. Since at that point I hadn’t really slept for three weeks, I said, it damn well better cause drowsiness.
I would also say to get another opinion about your tiredness, especially if you don’t have other depression symptoms. I had physical symproms from panic but ruled out other issues through blood work as part of getting things straightened out.
According to whom? Psychiatrists make this diagnosis on the basis of behavior and reported emotional content. They believe this because it is a core belief of their profession. As an activist in the psychiatric inmates’ liberation movement puts it, though, –
So you believe in the medical model of mental illness. I don’t. Even if you are right and I am wrong, though, the fact remains that the psychiatric professions’ “magic bullets” are crude blunt tools that attack neurological activity.
I won’t stand in anybody’s way if they wish to insert Paxil into their mind/body. Nor will I interfere with them if they wish to shoot up some heroin. I am not interfering. I am expressing my opinion, in response to the OP. My experiences with Paxil are not direct but I run into a lot of people who have gotten crossways with the psychiatric profession as a result of my activist connections, and the detoxing from Paxil ranks up there with clonazepam and valium addition probs from what I’ve seen.
(In the above quote from a movement activist, she speaks of schizophrenia, not depression, and of cognitive content rather than emotional content. I should have made it clearer that I was extrapolating to depression and emotional content–the logic remains the same)
Fair enough. IANAD. Please substitute “suggestion” for “recommendation”.
Depression may or may not be a brain disease; certainly the individual person experiencing the emotions and exhibiting the behaviors that can result in a psych diagnosis of “depression” may or may not have a brain disease. Psychiatric ailments are not understood in the same way that diabetes is understood. In the case of diabetes, we know with great precision and accuracy what is going on endocrinologically, and the insulin replaces the exact biological chemical that the diabetic lacks but the non-diabetic does not lack. With depression, we understand it about like we understand headaches: we have some pills that address their symptoms, we’re comfortable saying the problem is located in the head, and we’ve done some backwards theorizing based on studying what the effective pills are doing, but we don’t really know what’s going on. And depression is not a Paxil-deficiency disease any more than headaches are an aspirin-deficiency disease.
Admittedly, not everyone shares my opinion that psychiatry is to medicine as astrology is to astronomy, but my perspective isn’t provincial and unenlightened like the beliefs of Flat Earth proponents. With the disclaimer that I hold no relevant licenses or degrees, and am therefore not dispensing medical advice, I stick by my suggestions and comments.
Well, there doesn’t seem to be much for me to add. But far be it from me to shut the hell up. And, like so many others here, I’m no doc, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I’ve never taken Paxil, but I was on Luvox for years for OCD/GAD/bipolar. I have close friends who have taken Paxil, so I have a vast acquaintanceship with SSRIs. It all boils down to this: yes, there are some side effects - they are generally mild, and not everyone experiences them. I never have, on Luvox. I have a friend who had tremors from Paxil, and another who said it made her sleepy. Both responses are pretty typical. And, I’d like to reiterate - if you plan to go off the drug, consult your doc, and s/he will help you settle on a good way of tapering down your dosage.
As for whether you SHOULD have been prescribed Paxil in the first place, it would be impossible to know, if you haven’t actually had a psych evaluation. This is something that should have been done in the first place, to see if you met diagnostic criteria for depression. Your doc may have jumped the gun, but I would suggest finding out exactly WHY s/he thought you were depressed and needed this drug. If the answer is “fatigue is a sign of depression!” your doc’s probably leaping to conclusions - it’s a sign of lots of things. (See ** VeacitySeeker ** 's post).
So, like pretty much everybody here, I’d recommend not doing anything rash, but do make an appt to see your doc, and get the low down on exactly what he thinks and why. And do make an effort to explain to him clearly how you feel - physically and emotionally.
Two of your cites refer the same (not different) lawsuits; one of those is from the office of the lawyers handling the case. The third cite is basically repeating the warning sheet that the makers of Paxil itself distribute. I’m not too impressed with the Board of Directors behind the drugawareness.org site, either. A nurse, an orthopedist, two “nutrition” advocates, a psychologist (not a psychiatrist), and only one brain chemistry researcher. Uh huh. One or both of the “total wellness” nutrition nutbars would probably assure me that my Type I diabetes could be cured simply by eating blue-green algae or the like.
FWIW, I was without my Paxil for a period of three months about three years ago. I had NO withdrawal symptoms at all, just a return to abysmal levels of depression and anxiety.
Paxil saves my life. If your advocacy involves getting it removed from production, you’ll be responsible for killing me.
I vehemently oppose removing it from production or making it unavailable to those who find it useful, or even necessary. I would hate to see the manufacturers hamstrung by lawsuits that lead them to discontinue the product. It’s certainly no worse than diazepam (Valium).
Allow me to apologize a little bit for my tendency to mount the soapbox when my hot-button issues come up in a thread. I definitely do think that the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical industry would like to have the general populace believe a series of myths regarding the medical model of mental illness and the efficacy of their drugs. I resent it in the name of the right to informed consent, and I resent it in the name of the legitimacy of felt experiences (even if they be hideously unpleasant), the latter of which is not to say that there are not times when you need something pharmaceutical/chemical to get you through some awful troughs, btw.
Not every drug that is addictive is addictive to every person. I myself am pretty much immune to cocaine and its derivatives. I did some awfully stupid things (in retrospect) in my 20s and 30s just because people kept offering me line of coke or crack pipes and acting like I would of course enjoy it, and I’m probably lucky that I didn’t rapidly glom onto the experience and seek it out at every opportunity, or experience withdrawal. (I didn’t. My overall reaction to coke is “Big deal, my nose is numb, now what? Is something interesting going to happen?” And to crack: “Hmm, kind of like strong coffee, except that I’m very very easily annoyed. This is fun?”) Heroin, on the other hand, (smoked in small quantities), led me to decide very very quickly “Oh this should be unavailable. I could oh so easily climb right into this” and it’s a good thing I knew its reputation, mm?
Paxil appears to be addictive to at least some portion of the population for whom it has been described. If you scroll up, I ended my original inflammatory comment with the suggestion that the OP go ahead and try it, but my intention was to make the OP wary of the possible addictive nature of the drug and also wary of the supposed expertise of the shrinks who prescribe it.
I was on Paxil and just recently went off it and onto Wellbutrin. The sexual side effects were staggering, I didn’t realize how bad until I was off of it. Oddly, I also am sleeping less than I ever have. I’m fine with seven hours a night when just two months ago ten hours a night wasn’t enough.
And I just want to echo what the others said about tapering off. I was on Paxil when I found out I was preggers with my daughter, so stopped immediately. I went through three days of being so dizzy that I felt close to puking if I moved my eyeballs too fast. Bad.
I must warn you, I may use profanity in this post.
Went to a psychiatrist about 8 weeks ago to talk to him about anxiety and depression(still going, not really the issue), and was prescribed paxil. I got the side effects within, maybe, a week. I went from sleeping maybe 5 hours/night before taking it to sleeping 13-14 hours/night after starting to take it. This was a pretty fuckin’ serious effect on my life as I was loosing 8-9 hours per day - and was tired when I was awake. I figured, if it works, I can deal.
Shortly after I started to sleep more, I also noticed another one. I had gone from having the largest sexual appetite in the free world to having next to no sexual appetite at all (of course “next no sexual appetite” is subjective). This too, I was willing to deal with as I was/am having pretty serious problems which need to be corrected. I also don’t have a girlfriend so it doesn’t really matter all that much right now. I probably wouldn’t be wise get one for a while anyhow.
An important thing to note now before I go further, is that since i was a child, my hands have shook. Nothing too serious but it’s noticable and is constant. I’ve been dealing with it for 25 years though, and would probably find it strange living without it. After I started taking paxil, my shaking went from controllable to uncontrollable. The actual shake itself became more severe but the increase in severity occured from time to time, rather than constantly. I was thinking that maybe paxil wasn’t for me, but I’ll give it maybe another month (six weeks total) for it to work to see if maybe it’ll just mean relearning how to do things.
I gave it a full 7 weeks and there was no difference at all (as far as what it’s suppose to do anyhow), and I was now taking up to 1.5 pills per day (doc suggested that after 1 pill wasn’t working). I went off of it and luckily I had no withdrawl symptoms of any sort. I don’t mean to sound like paxil is a shit drug and doesn’t work. It very well could be very successful for some people - just didn’t work for me.
