Sound Mind and Body NJ

Your mental and physical health resource for northern NJ and beyond

Tag: Prozac

Depression and Me: Dragging Myself Through Depression

June 15, 2021 /

I hate to be so dramatic, but for a while I’ve been feeling as if I was dragging myself through depression. This is the main reason I haven’t been writing my blog consistently. I’ve been displaying the symptom of anhedonia or not wanting to do the things you like doing or not being able to feel pleasure,

green car running of flooded road
Photo by ahmad syahrir on Pexels.com

Here’s what has been going on. About 5 weeks ago ago I stopped taking the antidepressant, Lexapro and started taking Prozac. My psychiatrist was in complete agreement with this medication change because I felt like the Lexapro wasn’t alleviating my depression very much. I started on 20 mg of Prozac and after about 3 weeks it didn’t seem to be working. My psychiatrist had told me it could take 4 to 6 weeks for the Prozac to start working but I was very impatient!

I’ve been having some uncomfortably bad symptoms including crying in the morning and feeling like I could cry at any time. I’ve also been very irritable and I’ve tried not to take that symptom out on my husband and daughter. I’ve been feeling very tired and it’s been difficult for me to do basic household chores. My ability to concentrate has been off so that I’ve had trouble completing an article for my blog. My self-esteem has been barely in existence. Another symptom that’s usually the clincher that I’m having another bout of serious depression is that I’ve been feeling like binging, although I haven’t done it in over 2 years.

It’s unusual for me to have depression in the spring and summer when there’s much more sunlight and the weather is warm. This is the time of year when my previous psychiatrists would usually suggest lowering the dose of my antidepressant because I was feeling too pumped up. I can’t even imagine feeling that way now!

As I’ve written in previous articles, I think that part of the reason for my depression now is the changes going on in my life. For one thing, our lives are getting closer to the way they were before Covid. My daughter is going to school 5 mornings a week and my husband is starting to extend his time working in his office and decrease the time working at home. In-person gatherings are starting again so that my social anxiety is increasing. I’m also worried about summer activities/camp for my daughter who will be going to summer school in the morning for 6 weeks. It’s been difficult to find her activities in the afternoon other than going to the town pool (and I know we’re very lucky to have 2 open pools in our town).

I started to wonder if I was becoming resistant to the medications used to treat depression. After all I’ve had depression for 40 years and I’ve been on medication for almost all of those years. In fact there is a diagnosis known as “treatment resistant depression”. “… with treatment-resistant depression, standard treatments aren’t enough. They may not help much at all, or your symptoms may improve, only to keep coming back (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/treatment-resistant-depression/art-20044324.”)

I’m not sure that I have the patience to try another antidepressant(s) if the Prozac doesn’t work. There are alternative treatments however, that I’ve heard about from people who have used them. One is electroconvulsive therapy or ECT. “Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure, done under general anesthesia, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. ECT seems to cause changes in brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of certain mental health conditions (https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsive-therapy/about/pac-20393894.”) ECT scares me though and I kind of see it as a last resort.

Another alternative treatment I’ve considered is medical marijuana. I would have to find a doctor to write me a prescription for it because my present psychiatrist doesn’t prescribe it.

When my psychiatrist suggested that I take 40 mg of Prozac I decided to give it a try and hold off on any alternative treatments. He told me that 20 mg is considered a low dose for Prozac and that 40 mg might work better.

At times it seems as if the 40 mg isn’t working either because I’m showing the same symptoms as when I was on 20 mg. I even seem to be crying more than usual. At other times however, I think that I’m feeling better and that the Prozac must be working. I have a few days without crying. I’m more in control of how my irritability shows up in my relationships, and I’m able to sit at my computer and work on an article for my blog.

I’ve been told that I actually have cyclical depression. ” Cyclical or cyclic depression is also sometimes referred to as recurrent depression. It can occur, abate, and then reoccur throughout a person’s life (https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/depression/what-is-cyclical-depression/).” I’m not sure if this type of depression varies in its severity also. I believe that I do have cyclical depression because I’ve had periods in my life when I was seriously depressed and other times when I barely notice the depression.

I feel as if I’ve been in a period of more severe depression lately. I’m not hopeless though because the 40 mg of Prozac seems to be helping at times and I’m hopeful these times will occur more often.

Has the return to almost normal life after Covid affected you in a positive or negative way?

Depression and Me: The 50’s -Miracles and Mayhem

May 7, 2021 /

Although I’m still in my 50’s, I’m 57 to be exact, I have a great deal to write about up to this point in my 50’s. The number “50” was scary to me. For one thing, I began to receive mail from AARP (American Association of Retired People) which is a misnomer since many people who are members of this group are working and aren’t retired at all! Also, when I think of “retirement”, I think of people much older than 50. Anyway I haven’t joined AARP yet.

Not only did I receive mail from AARP, but also from cemeteries and mausoleums! Well if I did’t feel old yet, I sure felt old now! I think that my parents actually received their cemetery plots as wedding presents! Very thoughtful and practical gifts, I guess.

Well enough about being in my 50’s and death! Instead, let’s talk about some miracles that occurred in my life in this decade…

At the age of 50, my kidneys were starting to fail. This was mostly due to my having had Type I Diabetes for more than 40 years and not controlling my blood sugar very well at certain times in my life. In Type I Diabetes, the pancreas doesn’t produce any of the hormone, insulin which metabolizes sugar (glucose) in your blood stream. Your body uses glucose for energy. This unmetabolized sugar in your blood then begins to break down the blood vessels in your body, especially the ones in your kidneys, retina (eye), brain, and nerves. Diabetics are more prone to strokes and heart attacks too.

My husband and me 2 days after our kidney transplant

What do the kidneys do? “Your kidneys remove wastes and extra fluid from your body. Your kidneys also remove acid that is produced by the cells of your body and maintain a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals—such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium—in your blood (Google).” They then produce urine with these substances. .

When I was in kidney failure, I was tired all the time and used to take at least 2 long naps daily. My daughter was 4 years old at the time and I didn’t have the energy to play and run after her. I was cold all of the time and had a metallic taste in my mouth from the toxins that weren’t being removed by my kidneys.

So I needed a kidney transplant or would soon have to go on dialysis. The plan was for me to get both a kidney and a pancreas from a deceased donor so that I could cure my diabetes for a time while getting a functioning kidney. But I couldn’t wait long enough for a deceased donor before I needed to go on dialysis .

Then a miracle occurred! My husband offered to donate one of his healthy kidneys to me, but first he had to be tested to see if he was a match to me. And he was a match! So in May 2015 I got one of his kidneys and it worked right away in my body. I felt so much better after the surgery. I had much more anergy and I didn’t have the metallic taste in my mouth. I was much more able to take care of my daughter. What a blessing this was for our family!

A few months after my transplant however, my depression intensified and it brought along its good friend – ANXIETY! I’ve heard it said that “Anxiety is the flip side of depression.” I really never had such severe anxiety before. Plus one of the psychiatrists at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) put me on Pristiq for depression, which made my anxiety much worse. I couldn’t eat. I paced the floors. I cried when my husband had to leave to go to work. And I had the shakes.

Finally I was hospitalized in the Psych Unit at HUMC for about 10 days. I actually had to stay 2 days in the Emergency Room first because there were no beds available in the Psych Ward. In the Psych Ward I went off of Pristiq and I believe I started Buspar for the anxiety and went back on Zoloft for the depression. When I came home from the hospital, I still had anxiety but it wasn’t as severe as before. I have had both anxiety and depression ever since then though.

So my depression and anxiety continued but they were manageable for the most part. I was however, having a great deal of difficulty managing my diabetes. My blood sugars fluctuated from being very hight to very low. I was trying to control them as best as I could by using an insulin pump and taking insulin shots to supplement the pump. It wasn’t working very well and so my diabetologist felt that I needed a pancreas transplant.

“The pancreas is an organ located in the abdomen. It plays an essential role in converting the food we eat into fuel for the body’s cells. The pancreas has two main functions: an exocrine function that helps in digestion and an endocrine function that regulates blood sugar (https://columbiasurgery.org/pancreas/pancreas-and-its-functions).”

I had a pancreas transplant in May 2018. The pancreas was donated by the family of a young man 19 years of age who died after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle. The pancreas started producing insulin almost right away so that I no longer had Type I Diabetes, at least for 10 years if not more! Up to this point I had Diabetes for 46 years!

Another miracle for me and my family! When my blood sugars were so out of control I would feel very tired and extremely irritable. I was not at all easy to live with. My moods evened out with my new pancreas. I didn’t have to do any finger sticks to find out what my blood sugar was. I could theoretically eat whatever I wanted to eat, except for a diabetic complication, gastroparesis getting in the way. (The nerves in my stomach were damaged from years of diabetes and didn’t move food along the digestive system well.)

However, a few months after my pancreas transplant, my depression and anxiety intensified again. I was in such bad shape that I ended up being hospitalized at HUMC at Mountainside 3 times. I also attended their Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) 3 times. It’s been almost 2 years though since I was in the IOP.

This time I was put on Escitalopram (Lexipro), Bupropion (Wellbutrin), and Atomoxetine (Stratera), not all at once though. The Lexipro came first, then the Wellbutrin, and finally Stratera. I’ve been on this “cocktail” of meds for almost 2 years and it has worked fairly well, up to now.

I decided with my psychiatrist to go off of Lexipro and go on Prozac. So I am back with my old friend, Prozac since it had worked very well for me in the past. I’m hoping that since I haven’t been on Prozac in a while, it will work again and I’ll feel better.

It’s very frightening to me when my psych meds aren’t working and so I have to try other ones. One of the main problems is that for many of these meds, it can take a few weeks before you feel any effect. I’m hoping that the placebo effect of knowing that I’m on Prozac will help me feel better before the Prozac kicks in.

Why would my depression and anxiety intensify after having had a kidney transplant and then after a pancreas transplant? I believe that it has to do with both transplants being such big changes in my life. As far as the kidney transplant, I was living with kidney failure for about 1 1/2 years, and probably with damaged kidneys for much longer than that. In terms of the pancreas transplant, I got rid, at least for 10 to 20 years of a disease that I had for 46 years. Both kidney failure and Type I Diabetes require you to change your way of life. Taking care of diabetes becomes your way of life. And then with the pancreas transplant and a working pancreas afterwards, it no longer is your way of life.

Much more has happened in my 50’s than I wrote about here, but I will share these events in other articles under different topics.

Have you experienced any miracles or major changes in your life? How did it affect you?

Depression and Me: The 40’s – A Decade of Change

April 22, 2021 /

In my 40’s life changed a great deal not only for me but also for my family. I still had depression and binge eating to contend with though. I don’t do very well with change especially major changes. They usually cause stress or stress may bring changes on. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, a therapist in an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) I attended would say that “Change + Stress = Depression,” and I have found this to be true for myself.

One major change that happened in my early 40’s was that my tried and true antidepressant, Prozac wasn’t doing its job. anymore. I felt very depressed, irritable and angry, and at one point I went off Prozac completely! I wasn’t thinking rationally at that point either. Around this time I also changed psychiatrists because my NY psychiatrist was too expensive, and going into NY once a month for a visit wasn’t convenient for me anymore.

So my new NJ psychiatrist decided to put me on Zoloft which worked for me just about as well as Prozac. Like Prozac, Zoloft is an SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor). The symptoms of depression I mentioned above improved, and I remained on Zoloft until my early 50’s.

Another change was that I graduated grad school as a Special Education Teacher with my Masters of Arts in Teaching. I taught various age groups, from preschool through high school. Being a teacher was very stressful for me and I often would binge after a tough day at school. My depression held steady though for the most part. I had a hard time getting tenure mostly because I didn’t play the political game well in the schools I worked in, but I came close. So I ended up not being re-hired in the last school I worked in for 3 years.

Not getting tenure in a school that I liked teaching in and worked very hard in made me feel depressed. It also made me question my ability as a teacher. I was however, more angry at the principal who got rid of me, and vowed I would continue in the teaching field to show him that he was wrong to have let me go. This didn’t occur. I had thought that I could make a difference in children with special needs’ lives and I hope I did so for the 5 1/2 years I worked as a teacher. The experience also prepared me how to help my child who has special needs.

The best change that happened in my forties is that we adopted a baby, our daughter who is now 10 years old! I wasn’t able to have a baby myself because I was very high risk due to complications from Type I Diabetes. It took us 4 1/2 years to adopt because we tried several avenues but most turned out unsuccessfully. For example, we ran into a scam artist who strung us along until the last month of her pregnancy. We later learned that she never intended to release the baby for adoption. She was only in it for the financial support.

We were registered to adopt a child from China until they slowed down their adoption program. We decided to abandon that avenue. We also had a foster baby for 2 weeks whom we were told was going to be available for adoption. Then the Division of Youth and Family Services found an uncle of the child’s and he decided to take her.

Finally, we adopted our daughter with the help of an adoption attorney. I was 47 when we brought her home and she was 3 months old. We finalized her adoption after she turned 1. The whole adoption process was very stressful and heart braking with many disappointments along the way, but my depression remained mostly stable throughout.

Two very sad changes occurred in my 40’s. First, my brother had two strokes which left him paralyzed on his left side and cognitively impaired. He was never married so our family took care of him. He lived with my Mom and she had 2 live-in caregivers for him. My older sister ended up coordinating his care and handling the finances. My Mom would hardly ever leave him alone with his caregivers. This proved to be difficult when the rest of her family and friends continued their lives and wanted her to be a part of them.

The other very sad change was that my Mom passed away 3 years after my brother had his strokes and right after my daughter turned 1. I felt her loss deeply especially as I became a Mom. I thought that she would be there to help out with my daughter and myself.

My depression reared its ugly head again when I became a Mom. First of all my mother would die after knowing my daughter onIy 10 months. I also felt like I had postpartum depression even though I didn’t give birth to my daughter. I was extremely depressed over the fact that my Mom left me when I felt I needed her the most. My Mother-in-Law helped a great deal with our daughter, but it wasn’t the same as my own Mom.

I also binged a lot when my daughter was a baby which added to my depression. I think it was an attempt to get some control when my life as a Mom was very much chaotic! I knew what it was going to be like taking care of a child having been a teacher of very young children. When it’s your own child however, it’s very different!

Also I was used to working outside of the house with other adults, and now I was mostly alone at home with my baby. Of course I worked very hard as a stay-at-home mom! At times it was very lonely since most women of my age, 48 had much older children and were working outside of the home. I would meet people at my daughter’s activities but they were usually much younger than me. So, once again I didn’t fit in.

I’ve come to learn that mothers with postpartum or post adoption depression fully love their children even while suffering with a depressed mood. I know that this was true for me. I love my daughter more than I can say! My daughter was and is worth all of the hard work, loneliness, etc. that I still experience as her Mom. My husband and I are truly blessed to have her in our lives!

What big change or changes have you experienced in your life?

Disclaimer

The contents of this blog are based on the lived experience of one person. They are not a substitute for medical or psychiatric consultation.

© 2024 Sound Mind and Body NJ

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑