anxiety afraid of side effects of fluoxetine

Good morning Julie

Your best option sweetheart is to take what the dcotor prescribes. Ask him how long it will take for the pills to start working and give it that time. After that time has elapsed - if you don't feel you have improved any ask to try something else.

Are you sleeping well? Do you know what is causing your depression? Sometimes it seems we haven't got a clue - but try thinking back and see if you can find what triggered it. If not then try and look back to when the illness began and see if there was something in your life around that time that may have triggered it.

Unfortunatley depression doesn't always need an excuse to creep into our bodies but if you can find some trigger it will give you the starting point to the road to recovery.

If there is absolutely nothing that you can think of that may have allowed this demon in, look at your life now - what makes it worse? Certain times of the day maybe? When you are doing certain things? What happened the day before?

Can you change any of the things that make you feel at your lowest?

Was the counsellor right for you? Did you feel at ease with that person? Could you try a different counsellor?

Another thing you might like to try is some meditation. I'm not suggesting it's a cure - but it might give you some reprieve from your feelings.

I bought a Alpha Brain Wave CD and it does help me to relax when feeling really anxious - that is if I can manage to put it on to listen to it. Now I have it in the CD permanently so I just have to press the remote for it to play.

There is also a good site on the internet that you might like to try.

http://www.myinnerworld.com/

As I say, these things won't cure your depression and anxiety but they will hopeful help you until your doctor finds the right medication for you.

Stay strong

Melbi x

dear melbi thanks for your kind words i moved house moved in with my partner and changed job all at once so i think it all got me down at once but this was 3 years ago so i thought it was to long ago but thinking back now it has been going on all this time in various stages .

i have always thought of myself been a strong person so it shows that anyone can get these problems but when it happens you think you are going mad and there is only you it is happening.

i work with the elderly and i am now changing jobs because i think this also gets to me when the pass away because you get attached to them [/quote]

Hi Julie, I want to try and put your mind to rest about taking fluoxetine.

I have been depressed/anxious for a number of years and been through a number of other antidpressants which I had to give up mainly because they caused me to be very over sedated and because I live alone and have to be able to drive were making my life a misery. I did try fluoxetine once some years ago but even the first tablet made me feel like a cat on hot bricks. What should have happened of course is that the doctor should have talked to me and maybe prescribed a two week course of diazepam to take the edge off the side effects till they passed - but no such luck.

However, desperation has forced me to try again. This time for the first week they were co prescribed with a very sedating antidepressant I hade been taking - Mirtazapine - . After the first week on this regime I was still feeling like a sedated turnip, so I stopped the mirtazapine.

Now I can't say I have had no side effects - I have, but they have been patchy and yesterday which was the first day of my third week I felt dreadful, but to-day so far I feel a lot better.

If you decide to go ahead, decide that for the first two or three weeks you are going to be KIND to yourself. This is an illness like any other -

a diabetic isn't considered weak because they have to take insulin.

If you have side effects try and take some sick leave, if you feel anxious and aggitated talk to your doctor about giving a couple of weeks of a sedative just to be taken when things get bad, if you can't sleep get something for that - just to use for a short while. Make sure your partner understands that although antidepressants will make you feel better it takes time (not like on the the TV soaps where the character gets their pills and next day they're swinging). They can make you feel worse before better and sometime its necessay to try several before the right one is found. If necessary live on readymeals or takeaways until you feel better - give yourself a break and give the meds a chance to do their thing.

After many tries I think fluoxetine is going to help me.

Juliette, listen to these guys, they are so right. I honestly can say I felt worse for the first few weeks - probably longer. Just couldnt see a way out

Just take each day as it comes, I was very bad after just 2 weeks, was worse than ever, and had to go to my Dr for my own safety really. Always be aware that if u really feel like u cant go on - go and at the very least see your Dr, they may up your dose, change your medication - just go see them, they can help you, I promise they can.

This takes a while to get in to your systems, and a word of advise would be DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL whilst on these.

Come on, we all want to help ourselves or we wouldnt be on here.

Good luck, and keep posting, it's saved me babe xx

Suz u r spot on im on my 3rd week of these and i feel at my lowest yet but ppl have told me to bare with it and let them take there course, so im going to do that and hopefully get better in time...

I was prescribed Fluoxetine for anxiety but had the most horrendous reaction to it and ended up calling the paramedics out as my heart rate was touching 150, i was sweating and shaking uncontrollably. It actually had the opposite effect on me that it should have done. I was advised to stop this immediately and to be perfectly honest i dont feel as though i have ever fully recovered from this. I am now takinga beta blocker as my heart rate continued to race intermittently and I was never really given a reason why. :cry:

[quote=\"ajh\" If necessary live on readymeals or takeaways until you feel better - give yourself a break and give the meds a chance to do their thing.

quote]

Although this is probably what I would do, shouldn't one at least try and eat well and try their best to be as active as possible when feeling very depressed? Studies show that diet plays a very important role in mood and cooking can be quite theraputic....

People can;t expect the meds to do all the work, you have to try your hardest to help yourself but not beat yourself up when things don't go to plan.