Fluoxetine diary!

[ElleEm]

Can I ask, did you have problems sleeping when you started taking it? If so how long did they take to resolve? That’s the thing that’s really killing me! I’m so tired…

Hi again Lizzie! Sorry it's taken me so long to write back. Yes yes yes yes and YES. The sleeping thing drove me mad!!! I'm used to 8-10 hours a night in the past and no matter how early or late I would go to sleep I would be waking 4 times through the night and be wide awake by 5-6am having to get up. It was ridiculous and almost broke me! It lasted for around 3 weeks and gradually got better. I'm still waking around 6:30 every morning but if I do wake through the night it's quite easy to drop back off to sleep. I make a point of trying to get to sleep by 10 or so, I'm getting a solid 7-8 hours.

It will go away, I promise. It's just one of the many wonderful side effects of the fluox. I have also heard that the early waking does end as well. Have you noticed that no matter how tired you are during the day you still can't nap at all? Ugh.

[LizzieEC]

Hi again Lizzie! Sorry it's taken me so long to write back. Yes yes yes yes and YES. The sleeping thing drove me mad!!! I'm used to 8-10 hours a night in the past and no matter how early or late I would go to sleep I would be waking 4 times through the night and be wide awake by 5-6am having to get up. It was ridiculous and almost broke me! It lasted for around 3 weeks and gradually got better. I'm still waking around 6:30 every morning but if I do wake through the night it's quite easy to drop back off to sleep. I make a point of trying to get to sleep by 10 or so, I'm getting a solid 7-8 hours.

It will go away, I promise. It's just one of the many wonderful side effects of the fluox. I have also heard that the early waking does end as well. Have you noticed that no matter how tired you are during the day you still can't nap at all? Ugh.

Hi ElleEm You have no idea how glad I am to read that. It’s slaying me! You’re right, I’m exhausted but can’t nap, or if I do, at absolute best I’ll briefly lose consciousness for about 5 minutes, and that’s after lying there for like an hour! Then I just give up. And yes, the 5am wake-ups are no fun. I woke up at 5 this morning and ended up getting up at 5.45 because there was no way I was getting back to sleep no matter how tired I felt, and now I’m a zombie and it isn’t even 10am! I’m glad you’ve come through the worst of it, it’s encouraging to hear that it does get better for some people!

Sigh. I really hope this stuff will start to work properly soon! I still feel anxious and it’s getting in the way of everything.

---------- Post added at 09:46 ---------- Previous post was at 09:44 ----------

Will be following your thread! I really love fluoxetine. I'm not on it at the moment and I remember the first 9 days being very cloudy and sleepy, but when I woke up on day 10 I could feel it lifting and it did every day until around day 14 I had no side effects! My anxiety was still there and my mood was low, but not as bad. It took another two weeks or so to feel the full effects. Day ten was definitely a milestone for me. Hang in there! You'll feel amazing soon. Xx

Thanks so much, EmmerLooeez. It's so helpful to hear people say that it's worked for them! Stops me getting too down with the side effects because at least then I can believe that it's worth sticking with!

[ElleEm]

I am the exact same Lizzie! I still can't nap, and I used to be a champion at it haha. I can only reassure you that it does get better :( I know it's so hard to see it now. The changes are so slow and the side effects take forever to go away, but I hear such good things about this med when it finally does work, and that's the only thing that gets me through right now. we must all be a lot stronger than we think, taking something that initially makes us so much worse! It'll be worth it though. Looking back in my journal, it was probably around week 3-4 when I started having a good sleep through the night. I still wake up stupid-early, anywhere between 5:30-6:30, sometimes I can calm myself back to sleep until 7, sometimes not.. but I heard that does go as well.

[LizzieEC]

I am the exact same Lizzie! I still can't nap, and I used to be a champion at it haha. I can only reassure you that it does get better :( I know it's so hard to see it now. The changes are so slow and the side effects take forever to go away, but I hear such good things about this med when it finally does work, and that's the only thing that gets me through right now. we must all be a lot stronger than we think, taking something that initially makes us so much worse! It'll be worth it though. Looking back in my journal, it was probably around week 3-4 when I started having a good sleep through the night. I still wake up stupid-early, anywhere between 5:30-6:30, sometimes I can calm myself back to sleep until 7, sometimes not.. but I heard that does go as well.

Well my fingers are crossed for you! Hopefully all these success stories I keep reading are true and soon we can both sleep past 6am!

---------- Post added at 20:26 ---------- Previous post was at 20:24 ----------

Day 13

Not much to report really. Sleep is still rubbish and I'm still having GI problems. Actually my appetite is much improved, but everything seems to go right through me (sorry... TMI) so it doesn't seem to make much of a difference!

Anxiety-wise things are much the same too.

The one good thing is that my strength seems to be returning and I can train almost like normal (thank GOD for that!!), so I'm hopeful that maybe I'll start to feel better, or dare I say it GOOD, sometime soon!

[ElleEm]

Glad to hear that it's improving for you a bit! Anything helps at this stage right? I too had the gross everything moving through me at lightning speed toilet action too. Improved greatly but still.. loose. Ugh, now THAT was TMI lol Is this your first time on fluox or any anti-depressants for that matter? Usually first timers seem to have an easier time getting on. Fingers crossed that it's over and working well for you shortly!!

[LizzieEC]

Glad to hear that it's improving for you a bit! Anything helps at this stage right? I too had the gross everything moving through me at lightning speed toilet action too. Improved greatly but still.. loose. Ugh, now THAT was TMI lol Is this your first time on fluox or any anti-depressants for that matter? Usually first timers seem to have an easier time getting on. Fingers crossed that it's over and working well for you shortly!!

Ahaha, it's a lot of fun, isn't it! Luckily I think it's settling down now although like you I think a slight increase in, erm, number of times going to the loo might be something I'll just have to get used to .

Day 16
I still feel pretty much the same! Anxiety is still here definitely, although I am going through a particularly stressful period right now so I guess the fluoxetine has more to work on, hah. Sleep is still rubbish although I THINK it's improving slowly. I do still feel so tired, but I suppose this is unsurprising given how much accumulated sleep deprivation I must have by now (MONTHS of it).
I requested more tempazem from my doc. I don't like taking sleeping pills but you reach a point where you literally don't care. Chronic insomnia is definitely the greater evil!

[LizzieEC]

Day 19
STILL not much has changed! I feel very anxious today, not sure why. I just want everything to stop. I don't want to have to go to work, I don't want to train, I don't want to study, I don't want to HAVE to do anything at all. It feels like EVERYTHING is too much. Even little things feel so huge just now. I'm so fed up. I'm tired of being tired, I'm tired of being anxious, I'm tired of having an upset stomach. I'm tired of having no energy and of being full to the brim with worry.

Tired tired tired :(

[LizzieEC]

Day 20
Well, after all my complaining yesterday, I had a pretty good training session and slept not too badly! I was definitely awake in the night but I don't think it was for long. My alarm woke me up out of a proper sleep at 7am, which was HORRIBLE as I wanted to stay in bed asleep, but the fact that I hadn't been awake since 4am or 5am is definitely positive!

I do feel tired today but in a better mindset, so hopefully yesterday was a blip.

On another note, I've now had 4 counselling sessions, and she said something yesterday that really seems to have clicked in my head. She said that I'm expending so much energy fretting about events that haven't even happened yet that a) I'm making them enormous in my head when they aren't really and b) I'm leaving myself depleted of energy and attention for the present. When she said that, I was like, I totally am! I mean I suppose I kind of knew that, but there's something about the way she worded it and having it confirmed by another person I suppose, that really seemed to make it clear.

[LizzieEC]

Day 21

I slept from about 10.15 til 6am this morning! This is ridiculously exciting to me. I feel like I could have done with a bit more sleep, I don't feel totally refreshed, but much much better than I have done for the past 2 days. I'm hoping maybe I'm starting to turn a corner? We shall see.

Mood is better today, too. I've started to notice that the anxiety is definitely most noticeable in the morning and the early half of the day, but it does seem to settle down as the day goes on.
I’ve also noticed something interesting. I like my coffee. I always have. But I’m seeing a noticeable increase in anxiety and a general decrease in feelings of wellbeing after any coffee over and above my one first thing in the morning. I’m not sure if it’s always given me the jitters or if for some reason I’m just noticing it now, but it’s interesting. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

[ElleEm]

Hey Lizzie! You seem to be following the path of many others on here. I'm so glad the sleep is settling a bit for you! Mine did around the same time as well. Sometimes I can even sleep until 7 now! *gasp!*

A lot of people also notice that their evenings are definitely better than mornings. Mine can go either way and one is not necessarily worse than the other lol also with the coffee: fluoxetine is pretty stimulating, the most stimulating of the SSRI's. So add coffee or tons of sugar to that, and it may exacerbate the anxiety as well. So no red bulls for you! Lol