I'm in the 38th day of fluoxetine 20 mg

[horta]

Hi guys,

A brief update. If you remember my previous topic (namely, "I'm in the 28th day of fluoxetine 20 mg"), I was still felling very terrible (I said in the topic: "Still suffer from severe sadness, and also have a lot of anxiety."). I'm happy to say that I've improved quite a lot.

The anxiety has dimished a lot, and the sadness also dimished (in a less degree).
Since the GP was keen to increase my dose 10 days ago, at which point I refused because I was still feeling severe side effects, and since I was not having such side effects anymore, I decided myself to increase it bit by bit.

I now take 20 mg in the morning, as usual, and about 5 mg before bed (I open the capsule, dissolve in water and drink 1/4). I plan to slowly increase my dose until the next therapeutic dose (40 mg) and tell my GP about that in my next appointment, which will happen this week.

I don't want to give me false expectations, because I still have depression, and I still feel it. But I also think I should share my experience with you, and I will post an update again soon in the future.

Best,
Danilo

[KK77]

Very pleased to read this. Keep up the good work and build on the respite med has given you. We can't expect it to cure us overnight and do all the hard work on its own.

Let us know how you get on with dose increase too.

[Mariem]

Hi would love to know how you are getting on now, reading your previous post then this has helped me to keep going, I'm on day 21 and feel rubbish still, I started a post about my experiences looking for others experiences to compare.

[horta]

Hi Mariem,

Sure. I'm on 9th week. I was put on 20 mg for about 6 weeks and I'm now on 40 mg for about 3 weeks. The transition from 20 mg to 40 mg was quite smooth.

I told my doctor last week that I'm 80 to 90% free from depression. This means that I can feel happiness, can enjoy activities that I used to like, can work and talk to people. But it also means that I have some moments of sadness during my days with no much reason.

Because of this residual depression, I told my doctor that I was prepared to go for the next dose (60 mg), but she said that it was too soon and I should wait more. I will see her again after the holidays, on January, at which point we will be able to tell if my treatment needs some adjustment.

By the way, the idea of increasing my dosage by 5 mg did not work because I had bad diarrhea. My doctor said that the capsules are useful to protect your stomach, so don't do that!

If I think about 2 months ago, when I was contemplating suicide, it is a huge improvement. However, I promised myself that I will not accept less than 100% free from depression, and this is now my only goal.

I'm sorry that you are still feeling rubbish. I would say that I got noticiable improvements only at week 6th. That is really a long process for us in pain, feels like a year. I can only advise you to stick with the medicine, and don't feel afraid of upping the dose.

Let me know if you need any help.

[Mariem]

Brilliant, so pleased for you. I am so pleased to read stories of the progress with prozac. It helps me through the bad days!