Side Effects May Vary
Side effects: the crapshoot bonus gamble of meds!
It dawned on me this morning that I might not be just rocking a continued flue/cold — it could be a side effect of the newest member of my drug cartel. According to the leaflet, Zoloft can cause drowsiness, but I’d had it suggested it was more likely to be a bit of an upper. I cannot decide if it is upping or downing at this point ’cause of the continued flu-y feelings, but it does give me food for thought. Do I move taking the Zoloft to the evening with the Seroquel, or so I keep letting it ride?
In that regard, I’m fortunate that I’m only on two actual meds for my bipolar; while I take chamomile for anxiety and the fish oil for all its supplemently goodness, most of my pile is related to other things (and lacking in side effects). I know that the Seroquel can one-two zombie punch me if I take it during the day, so I take it at night and enjoy those effects against my latent (though blessedly mild) insomnia. Sleep continues to be one of the biggest tools in my arsenal for keeping my brain sorted, so soporific effects are a delightful bonus. But what of the Zoloft? Does anyone else have experience to offer with it that would help me decide whether it was better to take it morning or night? I’d prefer morning if I could since it’s not extended release (I don’t think — it’s not marked as such), but spending a couple of hours in Zombietown mornings isn’t a great way to find one’s get up and go.
Anyways, I’ll figure it out in the next week or two, seeing how it takes a few weeks for an antidepressant to get settled into the system anyways!
Hope everyone is having a good day, and an especially nice one if you’re off on public/bank holiday.
<3
I have taken it. The worst was weight gain. I’m still trying to recover from that!
I’m, knock on wood, so far so good on that count. I’d heard that Seroquel was pretty bad in that regard too, so I’m hoping that if one didn’t, the other won’t.
All SSRIs make me sleepy, described side effects to the side, unless I’m in an actively really bad swing. But if I’m in a pretty steady state, or on an upswing, they make me snoozy. I take my Wellbutrin + topomax + ativan all at night, and then I carry a few half-split ativan with me during the day in case I get ragey/upset/whatever. I’m on a really low dose of meds (100 mg Wellbutrin, 50 mg alternating with 75 mg every other day of topomax) overall because: refractive and six years now means maybe? I’m a little moar bettar, but I’ve found I prefer a little more lability to the highly drugged and lethargic feeling a “regular” dose of SSRIs can give me. Wellbutrin seems to work better for me than other SSRIs at low dose in terms of helping me maintain a kind-of-baseline. I’m still prone to swings, but the suicidality isn’t so likely, and it’s not black pits of despair. I’ll take it.
And topomax saved my life. It’s the best. I have way more lucidity about my moods, and I’m not so paranoid/ragey/manic, and– it’s just. Awesome. Well, aside from the part that it made me kind of anorexic and I lost agency over my eating and my body for a while, but, well, I was unhappy being fat anyway even if I wanted to control losing the weight all by myself, and I figured out how to eat again, over time. Most important, *knock wood* I haven’t had a major mood episode in three years.
And may your mood continue to be stable and nice! I have to keep reminding myself that I’m early days yet and to not give up hope against the sleepies and the not-quite-stable and all of that. 🙂