Day 26 fluoxetine for Post natal anxiety and depression.

[Jadenatalie]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this site but have been using it over the past couple of weeks to try help me get through the hell i'm currently experiencing. I have a baby 4 months old and gave been diagnosed with GAD and post natal anxiety and depression. I was started on fluoxetine 20mg 26 days ago (3 and a half weeks) and I feel only slightly better. No more panic attacks now but I am having very bad 'down' days where I feel so tense, angry, irritated, sick etc and just really anxious and I get intrusive thoughts and have random crying spells. Basically I feel terrible for a few days and then i'll have a good day of hardly any anxiety but then a few days later i'll feel like i'm back to square one again. Is this normal for fluoxetine and my time scale upto now? Fed up of feeling great and then going back downhill. Especially when i've been on them nearly 4 weeks and i've got a baby to look after!
Any words of advice or encouragement would be hugely appreciated!
X

[NoPoet]

Hi, sorry to hear that things are tough for you. They will get better! What's very important is that you're having days when you feel better, which proves that you are not a prisoner of the illness.

The early days of antidepressant medication can be quite rough and your moods can be all over the place. This seems to be a signature effect of anything that affects your serotonin balance. You describe this perfectly in your post.

From my own experience, if the medication is making things unacceptable for you due to their side effects, speak to your doctor to evaluate the situation: it could actually be that your brain is trying to restore its normal chemical balance on its own, and the medication is interfering with this process. (In my own case I needed specific anti-ADHD medication, as there was nothing wrong with my serotonin levels. Taking medication to alter my serotonin balance created a nightmare of side effects.) This is just a possibility though, it doesn't imply that you shouldn't continue with medication!

If you can cope with the side effects a while longer, remember that some people have side effects for 6-7 weeks. Seek support from friends, family, Samaritans (*) and your therapist if you've got one. Consider going to private therapy if you've got a few quid and don't fancy waiting months.

If your side effects are still really bad after 6-7 weeks, you should talk to your doctor about it, as the medication probably isn't suiting you. Again, this is from personal experience.

(*) Some people on the forum are wrongly, and dangerously, telling people you can only call the Samaritans if you are in some ultimate emergency. This is total B.S. If you've got any problem that you cannot face alone, or that is preventing you from getting on with your life, you can call the Samaritans.

[Chocolateface]

Talk to your health visitor, you are still getting back to normal from having a baby, are probably sleep deprived and had a major change in your life. See if there are any baby groups you can get to, they are a life saver for a new mum.

Hope you feel better soon

[Lexilou]

Weeks 3 and 4 were the worst for me. It does get better though.

[Jadenatalie]

Thank you all for getting back to me. So would you class 26 days as early days still? I have been going to lots of baby groups and they do help but i still feel shocking some days. The mornings are horrible, I wake up with a tremor. I cant sleep either at the moment so i'm constantly shattered. I'm hoping its just the tablets doing this and it will pass, I just hope its not a relapse!
X

[Lexilou]

I've been reading 6-8 weeks, as much as 12 for the flu to work. Those bad weeks I woke up with anxiety every morning. I just wanted to sleep, I was so tired but the longer I laid there the worse it got. That finally stopped, though I'm still tired a lot. I just kept reminding myself that this was a process and I was having more good moments. This morning I did wake up in full panic mode, not sure why though I vaguely remember that I was dreaming. Three in the morning of course and I couldn't calm myself down so I had to take a pill. But I've recently upped my dosage too so maybe that played a part. I don't know. It's been nine weeks so far so hopefully once the dose gets stabilized I should be good. I was on 20 and my doctor upped it to 40 because the mornings were hard.

[Donz34]

Hi, I'm on fluoxetine myself for the second time. The first time I went on them at about 3 weeks into taking them I felt worse then wen I wasn't taking them. I wud cry for no reason and was just very down all the while. This lasted for about 4 days maybe a little longer, then I started feeling abit better each day. I always said wen I came off them 3 years back that if my anxiety started getting to bad I wud go back on them.it started getting worser so I went to the doctor. Well 4 days into being back on them I had a weekend of feeling more down. Was no where near as bad as the first time, I wasn't as bad with anxiety as I was last time. Then after 3-4 days I felt better in myself. No pmt, no mood swings nothing. I feel like myself. Been back on them about 2 months now. X