DrugBuyers.Com: Anyone else Taking Lexapro?

Lexapro takes a very long time to start working. I'm taking myself as a test monitor, but I've been on enough anti-depressants to know which ones are slow and weak and which ones are fast and mind-blowing and Lexapro is lame. It took about 3 months took have even the slightest effect on me.

Update from my 6/17 post: The good old Lex never did let up on the lethargy, although that was compounded by acute and old back injuries that kept me from working out and an actual sleeping disorder. It did virtually eliminate my bulimia. What it did not do is eliminate my eating disorder or the mindset, so when a careless nurse at a disability screening let me see my weight (about 3 weeks after that last post) and I saw that I had gained at least 30 pounds in the course of Lexapro therapy alone . I actually weighed at least 50 lbs more (fully clothed) than I did last December.

So I did get myself back on Effexor. I've been on Prozac, Zoloft, and Lexapro. SSRI's, alone, aren't enough for me anymore. I got off the dreaded Lexapro. . .as I mentioned, it's simply not a strong enough drug for my severe major depressive episodes. Also, to be honest, as a PWED, I could not deal with the weight gain. I've lost over 20 lbs since I dropped the Lex. . . 28 if you want to compare my fully clothed weight to my bare nekkid wake up weight. Bear in mind I was in all senses overweight when that weight was taken in July. Bear in mind that I'm pretty honest with you guys and I'm not going to tell you that I lost all that weight just from switching anti-depressants, I am not satisfied to be back the bottom end of my healthy weight range, and would still like to weigh 50 lbs less than I did in July.

We are prescribed anti-depressants for so many reasons. I'm prescribed them because I have disabling major depressive disorder (par exemplar: I lose the ability to read) and a disgusting eating disorder. I was on the SSRI Zoloft for 3 years and it did manage to keep me from becoming completely dysfunctional until last year. SSRI's are prescribed particularly to patients with eating disorders, which is one of the reasons why the Lexapro affected my weight so drastically. I would not let my experience discourage anyone without an eating disorder from trying Lexapro, but it *is* one of the "slow and drowsy" SSRI's: like Paxil, it makes you drowsy. It takes a long time to kick in. When I started Zoloft, it was the opposite. I was manic in 2 days, sleeping a few hours a night a most (that wore of after 3-4 weeks).

My run-in with Effexor last year was tragic because I had a shrink with too much on his mind to pay any attn to my history. . . he raised my dose every week and I was 120mg of phenobarbitol froma grand mal seizure within about 6 weeks. Luckily I had rivotril and pheno of my own while he was doing this to me. Unfortunately I ran out on vacation and that's when it became apparent that this doctor had done a very very bad thing. I had to go off it, and since I can't take bupropion, react badly to TCA's, the only course of action was to try another SSRI. Well, poop on Lexapro for me. I started sloooowly back on Effexor late last summer and am on Topamax as well, so hopefully I will avoid a grand mal seizure. (They are soooo unpleasant). My Effexor needs to be upped, and the American Drug Cartel needs to invent another anti-depressant, because I'm in bad shape, but not nearly as bad as if I were still relying on SSRIs.

But it seems like some folks are having some positive effects. The effect of "pooping out" on an SSRI seems to be an effect most commonly noticed in depressive patients. The reasons Lexapro didn't work out for me are a) I am still enmeshed in my eating disorder and, in "fixing" it, I became slightly overweight, and b) I've been on SSRI's for a long time, and they are not strong enough to combat my depression.

For those who don't have that background, you have to remember that Lexapro takes a looooong time to kick in- 3 months for me. And it will not have the same effect on you that it did on me, unless you have exactly the same body chemistry, medical history, and indications for taking it. Give it a chance. There is definitely a link between serotonin availability and pain threshold.

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Procrastinate NOW.