antidepressants,prozac in particular

alzeb

anyone on it?how did it effect your heart rate,training and will it make me gain weight?presuming i stick to my normal food intake............asking from a productive view as its been prescribed again but im always too scared to take it.

pader

it shouldn't have any particular effect on heart rate. sometimes people get a bit of extra anxiety when starting it. Its pretty much weight neutral but any gains should be more than offset by riding. if either of these things do become a problem there are other medicines available such as sertraline and citalopram which are argueably more effective and certainly more modern. The national pharmacy organization has some excellent information sheets which are helpful. I would beware the endless forums which might confuse more than inform.

alzeb

yeah,also people tend to dwell on prozac forums when they are having a bad time with it rather than reporting the positive effects.

Anonymous

pader - can you change the email address in your profile to a valid one please? ta

jerry3571

Being a veggie, I started taking a dessert spoonful of fish oil and I never looked back since then. I'd been depressed for years and this changed my life. Feed your brain what it wants and see if you perk up. Do what the Doc tells you but the fish oil shouldn't effect your treatment.
Good luck
-Jerry
PS- MIMS book is handy too.

alzeb

yeah,im too scared to eat any form of oil though,ditto wont have a massage as it involves oil


have started drugs today as behagiour has become dangerously distressing,will have to trust that they will not make me gain weight,am sticking to what i eat normally religiously now so i cans till power the bike,regardless of the nausea the tabs may cause.

am terrified!

jerry3571

Try the Oil for sure. It tastes really bad and it hangs around you but after some days but you get used to it so you don't notice it at all. As an old time trialist said to me as he passed me, "Dig deep!" If it doesn'twork afetr 2 weeks then you know it's not for you.
Good luck.
-Jerry

alzeb

nah,think you got me wrong,i wont ingest any form of oil!its not the taste!

allaction

Do you mean you can't or wont ingest oil? If can't it may be something in your diet you are missing that certainly wont help. Allow about 4 weeks for tablets to kick in and with improved weather and as much excersise as possible you should notice a difference. Allow for possible trembling sensations whilst your body adjusts also.

alzeb

am already doing 18n hrs buike a week,you mean MORE than that!!!???

craker

alzeb wrote:

anyone on it?how did it effect your heart rate,training and will it make me gain weight?presuming i stick to my normal food intake............asking from a productive view as its been prescribed again but im always too scared to take it.

Your mental health has got to be way more important than your physical health. I had a course of sertraline - feeling way better, no side affects. Why would you not want that?

alzeb

thankyou!your right,and twill ensure i want to participate i n LIFE again and i reckon this will lead to better performance,THANKYOU,nice to have positive feedback re drugs!i was on sertraline about 10yrs ago,didnt work 4 me,effexor DID!

dave_1

Prozac helps but it deals with symptoms of depression more than the causes..looking at the causes is not always easy though, as they are possibly the relationships very closest to the sufferer

dennisn

Seems that I read some years back that Prozac was actually helpful to athletes. But
don't quote me on that. Something about a famous marathoner using it to help deal
with the stresses of his sport. That's all I remember. I take it for depression and / or to
help me sleep better. The doctor is not sure if I'm not sleeping well because I'm depressed
or depressed because I'm not sleeping well. They kind of go hand in hand. In any case
that was some years back and now I sleep much better and am not depressed. I still
take it, although in smaller doses. The only bad effect that I get from it is a slightly
diminished sex drive. Key word "slightly". I'm 60 years old and still at it(cycling and sex)
although more of the former than the latter.

Dennis Noward

dave_1

Has it been conclusively proven that depression , low seratonin levels exist independently of difficult relationships with close ones, loved ones. My hunch is that it's too painful to look at the relationship issues and hence avoid the pain that comes from looking.

As R.D Laing once said, "there's a great deal of pain in life, and perhaps the only pain which can be avoided, is the pain the comes from not dealing with that pain"

meagain

Danger of confusing depressed with "clinical" depression here, surely? The latter can have a predominantly (if not entirely) physical cause, e.g. chemical imbalance(s). Finding the right corrective medicine can be a long process and a bit hit and miss. It also requires expert help.

My best wishes for recovery or at least containment, alzeb.

alzeb

odd this topic is bouncing up again,just been prescribed them againa and too frightened to take them,maybe am too frightened of what its like to feel well even though feelin ill sucks.-i use the scape goat that i dont wana muck about with my metabloic rate etc

meagain

"maybe am too frightened of what its like to feel well even though feelin ill sucks."

Seek HELP.

expatbore

Meagain: Thankyou for your input. (Dave1 - depression is very often chemical, and no I can't prove it.)

Alzeb: I am a long term sufferer of winter depression, and take SSSIs, in my case Citalopram, which works a treat and has no side effects re training or anything else (apart from slight drowsiness). Prozac is a very different drug, and you should definitely talk to your GP, and read the leaflet in the box in real detail (there's more useful information there than you'ld imagine!)

But I am really concerned that you are not well and are not taking your medication mate. Please, please, from someone who knows (a little) how you are feeling, please get some help. There is a real downward spiral that goes like this: feeling low = low self worth = therefore don't deserve to feel better = therefore don't take advice/medication as it is for 'better people' = feeling worse...etc. If you don't believe me just read Graham Obree's autobiography (The Flying Scotsman - but don't see the film, it's pants), it is all there.

Please, please listen to me, and MEAGAIN,

Best - Robin

All the best

alzeb

thanks,ive had depression for 22 yrs now,effexor was fab for me but for some reason they wont prescribe it anymore,citalopram made me drowsy,sadly due to this blinking internet milarkey ive read prozac=weight gain so i wont touch the stuff,BUt life slips by ,so maybe time to TRUST the medics.

dave_1

expatbore wrote:

Meagain: Thankyou for your input. (Dave1 - depression is very often chemical, and no I can't prove it.)

Alzeb: I am a long term sufferer of winter depression, and take SSSIs, in my case Citalopram, which works a treat and has no side effects re training or anything else (apart from slight drowsiness). Prozac is a very different drug, and you should definitely talk to your GP, and read the leaflet in the box in real detail (there's more useful information there than you'ld imagine!)

But I am really concerned that you are not well and are not taking your medication mate. Please, please, from someone who knows (a little) how you are feeling, please get some help. There is a real downward spiral that goes like this: feeling low = low self worth = therefore don't deserve to feel better = therefore don't take advice/medication as it is for 'better people' = feeling worse...etc. If you don't believe me just read Graham Obree's autobiography (The Flying Scotsman - but don't see the film, it's pants), it is all there.

Please, please listen to me, and MEAGAIN,

Best - Robin

All the best

Hi Robin, I feel people on prozac should also consider seeking psychotherapy on as a a twin track kind of method of working on their problems as this can sometimes help someone see why they are down. My personal feeling about this approach isthat many have relationships they will not be in a strong enough emotional state tocope with looking at as that can cause hurt to relatives who therapy will I fear reveal as being involved even if ...the very people closest to the depressed person have or had a role in their current depression ad have been good and well intentioned to the sufferer through out the relationships.

But definitely to those with depression-do get help from prozac initially. It is hard when most of the people in the country we live in dance around like life is great when the depressed person can see fine well, objectively it is not so. It's isolating.

Depression need not all become breakdown, it can be break through as well

meagain

"It is hard when most of the people in the country we live in dance around like life is great when the depressed person can see fine well, objectively it is not so."

Sorry to harp on, but that is being depressed, not suffering from (clinical) depression. Mankind in general and its leaders in particular DEPRESS me utterlyas (on a more personal level) does getting old. However I do not suffer from depression (and having lived with someone who has for much of last 40 years, the difference is plain).

dave_1

meagain wrote:

"It is hard when most of the people in the country we live in dance around like life is great when the depressed person can see fine well, objectively it is not so."

Sorry to harp on, but that is being depressed, not suffering from (clinical) depression. Mankind in general and its leaders in particular DEPRESS me utterlyas (on a more personal level) does getting old. However I do not suffer from depression (and having lived with someone who has for much of last 40 years, the difference is plain).

Hi Meagain. Just want to double check that ...did you mean :?: the "life is great brigade" I highlight in my example are actually depressed you mean ??? or those like me who feel life is not so pretty damn good?

who defines clincial depression and by what criteria? I dislike labels that are used to treat people. R.D Laing is wortha read by many I think

Regds

D_1

meagain

"or those like me who feel life is not so pretty damn good?"

What I was trying to say is that while many of us get "depressed" about certain "things", whether they impact upon us directly/personally or otherwise, that is not "depression". I have what seem to me at least to be logical arguments why getting old does not make me feel cheerful - or put another way depresses me! Suffering from depression need not have any objective cause that is visible to anyone else. Depressives often have what to on-lookers appear perfectly satisfactory lives/environment. Hence the futile response along the lines of "you should count yourself lucky". They don't and they can't.

dave_1

meagain wrote:

"or those like me who feel life is not so pretty damn good?"

What I was trying to say is that while many of us get "depressed" about certain "things", whether they impact upon us directly/personally or otherwise, that is not "depression". I have what seem to me at least to be logical arguments why getting old does not make me feel cheerful - or put another way depresses me! Suffering from depression need not have any objective cause that is visible to anyone else. Depressives often have what to on-lookers appear perfectly satisfactory lives/environment. Hence the futile response along the lines of "you should count yourself lucky". They don't and they can't.

I think many depressed people have much hidden inside themselves which they may or may not discover. Prozac shelves their feelings mostly...


if somone had no deaths or illness in their life, plenty money, but something very hidden...that would be the cause of the depression..they may feel they cannot talk to family...we are all busy impressing our relatives at certain stages of life. If someone's consealed trauma or something they are ashamed of, we cannot make sense of that unless they tell us.

DanielFriebe

Alzeb, I'd advise reading this book (below), about exercise and mood/mental health. If you're riding 18 hours a week, it's important that you're not doing them in such a way that they make you feel worse. Also, it's important not to see the exercise as a drag/formality, but almost a kind of alternative medicine.

Read the book and see what you think, anyway.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spark-Revolutio ... 866&sr=8-1

dave_1

DanielFriebe wrote:

Alzeb, I'd advise reading this book (below), about exercise and mood/mental health. If you're riding 18 hours a week, it's important that you're not doing them in such a way that they make you feel worse. Also, it's important not to see the exercise as a drag/formality, but almost a kind of alternative medicine.

Read the book and see what you think, anyway.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spark-Revolutio ... 866&sr=8-1

everything in moderation is what I learned, by trial and error. 1400 miles a month is not moderation-it's a grind , was for me...years of it take a toll on weaker people, did on me..was on 15,000-1700 miles a year and hated cycling quite honestly..hence 8 years off the bike

Cajun

A recent talk-show in the US, regarding 'Prozac', points to Prozac as being 'responsible' of suicides and 'mass' killings; i.e., people killing family members for virturtually without reasons..
http://injury-law.freeadvice.com/drug-t ... rnings.htm
http://www.breggin.com/bulletinprozac5.html
http://drugawareness.org/ (source of talk-radio report)

expatbore

Fascinating debate. And yes Prozac is getting a slightly wobbly press of late.

Dave_1 I do agree in the 'twin track' approach of therapy and medication.

Anyway, I am lucky enough to have completed our 40 miler club run today (Kingston Wheelers) and the SUN ACTUALLY CAME OUT.

Now I know it is bordering on the insulting, to say it, but it cheered me up absolutely no end.

dave_1

expatbore wrote:

Fascinating debate. And yes Prozac is getting a slightly wobbly press of late.

Dave_1 I do agree in the 'twin track' approach of therapy and medication.

Anyway, I am lucky enough to have completed our 40 miler club run today (Kingston Wheelers) and the SUN ACTUALLY CAME OUT.

Now I know it is bordering on the insulting, to say it, but it cheered me up absolutely no end.

sun helps a lot

How well trained are GPs when it comes to dishing out prozac? Depression is costly to the economy in lost work days, so perhaps prozac helps society contiue to function?

Can one still go on indefinitely on prozac prescriptions without being compelled to seek therapy? I know they could in the early -mid 90s and it was wrong. Ity is vital that depressed people get a perspective from someone outwith their family and circle of friends who they can trust...vital. depression is not a communicable disease , it is to do with current relationships