Re: Anti-depressants
Mulcahey, this is just ridiculous:
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"if you take drugs for depression, your not going to figure out why you are depressed. you won't be able to sort it out at all. you just end up taking drugs until the problem goes away, and if the problem is caused by you, then there is no good solution, and you will end up taking drugs for a long time."
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Imagine someone telling you that you shouldn't take medicine for a sinus infection, because if you do you'll never figure out why you got infected. Sometimes (maybe most of the time) depression really is just chemical.
I've been on a lot of the antidepressants mentioned in this thread. Unfortunately, I don't actually suffer from classical depression-- I'm bipolar. This mis-diagnosis is incredibly common, so OP should definitely make sure he spends a lot of time with his doctor eliminating the possibility of bipolar disorder.
Anti-depressants (prozac, wellbutrin, paxil, etc) are actually harmful if you're bipolar. They induce mania, which feels great and looks like a positive reaction to the medication, but the effect fades and the mania leads directly to depression. The "poop out" phenomenon is probably mainly due to anti-depressants (mostly SSRIs) incorrectly given to bipolar patients.
As far as the medications themselves: prozac by far has the fewest side effects-- no weight gain for most patients and few negative sexual side effects. Most guys notice some delay of orgasm but that's not always a bad thing as noted previously. Diarrhea is really common-- serotonin affects mood AND intestinal movements. Expect to try several, possibly in combinations, before finding a working solution. From what I understand this has to do with which neurotransmitters are being tweaked by the meds-- serotonin, norepinephrin, or dopamine. Cymbalta is a newer med that some people like a lot. Paxil is the only med that ever got me close to suicidal thinking, and that was more about anxiety rather than actually being a danger to myself. Basically it made me really afraid of suicide; it didn't make me want to do it.
Most doctors learn how to prescribe one antidepressant-- they know how to watch for side effects, how to regulate the dose, and how long it takes to work. They just stick with the one med for all their depressed patients. So it's worthwhile finding someone who really knows all the meds and how to mix them into an appropriate cocktail if necessary. If OP is just starting out, try prozac first-- it's the original SSRI and in a lot of ways still the best.
Crazymeds.org is a great resource.
Maybe some of that is helpful. And yeah yeah tl;dr. Sorry for rambling.
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