Depression relapse during mirtazapine treatment

[Dubai]

Dear Readers,

I have completed 87 days (12.5 weeks) of 30mg treatment.

The past 5 days, I started to feel a bit of a relapse that is making me very worried of what will happen in the upcoming days.

I was feeling much better around day 50 and was declared to be in remission by my GP.

Has anyone experienced the same?

Thank you in advance for your replies.

[Dubai]

Anyone there?

[sambomonkee]

Yup, only took two weeks on it to relapse for me, seems to be a quite a few stories on the web, with mirt and tolerance too it :(

[Dubai]

Sambomonkee, Thank you for your comments, its more of an anxiety issue.

---------- Post added at 21:45 ---------- Previous post was at 18:44 ----------

For those who read this post, please participate if you can relate to what I'm going through.

[Sands]

Hi thought I would try and answer seeing as I have read your post. I'm on mirtazapine 30mg and have been for almost a year. I have had ups and downs the duration of that time it has never totally cured me. I just try to keep ploughing on and keep myself busy hoping that the more I can accept my feelings the more I can move on from this horrible time of my life. Sorry not much advice but a reply nonetheless

[Dubai]

Sands, Thank you for your reply. by reading up and down is enough for me to hold on to the meds.

[Dubai]

Hello All,

Just to update and seek advise.

163 days on 30mg, was declared to be positively responding to the meds and was told I'm in remission around day 50.

had few difficult weeks since then, the major one was when I started this post and the second one is the whole of this week, I'm feeling anxious, low mood and little energy as well as agitated.

Beginning September I joined a GYM and has been working with a personal trainer almost 4 days a week. The start was difficult, but slowly I built the stamina and started enjoying the workouts and wouldn't miss a workout no matter what happens.

up until last week things were looking great, but this whole week has been horrible on many fronts.

Mirt has helped me a lot, but I'm starting to doubt the med effects at the moment.

Anyone can relate?

Thanks.

[hanshan]

Hi Dubai,

Yes, I can relate. I've been on mirtazapine long-term. Overall it has worked reasonably well for anxiety and very well for sleep. However, there have been regularly occurring periods when it couldn't stop anxiety. Eventually things would stabilise, so it's not as if it simply stopped working, rather it was temporarily overwhelmed.

What has worked for me is combining it with pregabalin. Even then, I'm not bulletproof, but at least able to ward off the slings and arrows...

[Dubai]

hanshan,

Thank you for your reply.

I'm not giving up on the meds yet, I don't mind the low mood/low energy once in a while, but the anxiety makes things look awful.

I will hang in there and hopefully it will pass.

regards,

[hanshan]

Hi Dubai,

Anxiety does make things look awful, and it activates all sorts of primitive survival mechanisms that aren't appropriate to modern life, like "fight or flight" or paralysis. The best thing is that it does pass. Anxiety is a lot more variable than depression - it can be up and down during the course of a day. I find it helps if I know the times and situations when I am most likely to feel anxious, so I can try to work out strategies in advance to deal with it (I think this approach is part of CBT).