Hi everyone. Ive been on mirt for 6 months. All going well until past 2 weeks. Now experiencing the dark lows, burst into tears over nothing, increased energy & weight loss. I strongly feel that meds are no longer working. Has anyone had this experience? LOST
Ahhhhhh Deb.... sorry to hear that. Funny you post about this because about three months ago I told my doctor I think he needs to find something else other than "ol reliable Remeron/mirtazapine" - cuz it seemed to not be cutting-it anymore. It didn't even make me sleepy anymore.
He switched me to another 'ol reliable' - Elavil (amitryptaline) - I was skeptical. But I'm about two months-in now on it, and I can say, at least for me, it has already been far superior as an anti-depressant than Remeron. There is a caveat to that endorsement tho (hehehe) - I find the Elavil does nothing to help my anxiety problems, whereas Mirtazapine absolutely did help with anxiety for me as well as depression.
Good luck nailing-down a back-up med with your doctor. When the Remeron stopped working for me, it was like you described - it stopped working almost overnight. :-/
THANK YOU sooo much for your reply steverz & sharing your experience with meds.. more confident in making an appointment asap & ask for an alternative that will help with my depression.. Hope you continue to feel well champ.. cheers x
Hi,
sorry you are feeling down. I am a little bit like that from cutting in half but no increased energy and certainly no weight loss. Have you had your thyroid tested lately, it could be nothing but sounds a little like an overactive thyroid.
Hi Deb
I've read of Mirt pooping out many times, but not usually after only 6 months. There are some other pharmaceuticals that interract, stop Mirt working, some anti biotics and some foods like pomegranite, grapefruit - some are on the leaflet, Maybe choose your own search engine to read more, but drugs . com is a good place to start?
Yes, have a thyroid check, I think we all need to do this whilst on AD's.
Hope it helps a little and hope you soon stabilise, with a little luck could be a temporary blip, here's hoping.
I second this. I came off mirtazapine when it stopped working and all my symptoms came back. It turned out I had an over active thyroid. I was losing weight too but I was trying as had put on weight with mirt, but when I came off the mirt my weight plummeted. I am now being treated for hyperthyroidism and feeling a lot better.
I'm glad you are feeling okay. I have felt all along that the mirtazapine I was talked into taking was masking something. I started off with a racing heart end of last August which just came out of nowhere and then this dreadful nausea which lasted for 13 weeks. It got so bad I went into hospital for a couple of days at the beginning of December and because of hardly eating lost 1.5stone but certainly didnt have any energy as I wasnt sleeping either and this heart thing would rev up about 3.00 every morning and it was the old story anxiety!! I said I have been stressed most of my life and why now but these people are very single minded. I have mild primary hyperparathyroidism and I went down to see a endocrine surgeon in March and had another ultrasound this time done by a doctor. He asked me if I was on any thyroid medication and I said no why, he said it seems there is something going on with the thyroid. When I spoke to the surgeon about it, he said let's not read too much into that at the moment but concentrate on the Vitamin D. 50,000IU a week which I cannot tolerate. I have since asked for a copy of the ultrasound results and it says a possibility of Graves thyroiditis. I just wonder why it didnt show up on the blood tests I had in October. Anyway, I am going to persevere with cutting the mirtazapine from 30mg to 15mg as I dont like taking it and I did feel better on the 15mg initially. I wonder what they are treating your hyperthyroidism with as I always thought one had to have radioactive treatment to kill off part of the thyroid. I am going back some years to when my aunt had this.
I am on carbimazole. My T4 was over 50 (should be 9-22). My TSH is undetectable. I too had the nausea and not eating. If I forget my dose I pay for it for days because I can't sleep even with sleeping pills and heart and inner tremor plagues me through the night. It's torture. You should get it treated because it can be dangerous if it affects your heart. And yes, mirtazapine can mask symptoms until it gets so bad it can't anymore.
Hi & thank you to everyone for your feedback & supportive advice. Its great to know that there could be a possability of probs with thyroid. It was frustrating trying to find info in regards to mirt, my symptoms just wasnt adding up to the usual side effects of taking this medication. So relieved to have found a site such as this. Have made an appointment for Monday to see psych & definately pursue further investigation such as a blood test/thyroid. Im sorry that you have all been through a tough with health & wish you all well. Its also interesting to consider other meds/foods etc., LOVE you all xx
Thanks, I will somehow have to get it checked out. I have given up on the GP surgery, 10 minutes of clock watching and being told "you have seen three different doctors this month" that was last September and I havent been back since.
When I was at possibly my worst last October, a private endo did blood tests but I always have to be the unusual one, and they seemed okay
Free T3 5.0 pmol/L (3.1 - 6.8)
Free T4 18.18 pmol/l (12 - 22)
Thyroid stimulating hormone 3.240 mU/L (0.270 - 4.200)
Our surgery only do the basic TSH as the other tests are too expensive! Same as the parathyroid hormone test "it can go off in the van"!!!
Glad to read you're feeling better Evergreen, hope your sleep pattern is ok maybe now too?
Hi Calmer. Sadly my sleeping has hit a new low. Last Wednesday suddenly I just couldn't sleep. Thursday in desparation I took two diazepam and two temazepam. Still no sleep. Friday I was even more desparate and came down at 3 in the morning and downed a tripple vodka. Finally I slept but woke again at 5.30. As it was the weekend I had help at home so went back to bed all day Saturday. Still not a wink of sleep and I was feeling suicidal. Finally, on Saturday night I slept with just one temazepam. Slept okay until this Wednesday and it all started again. The doctor thinks I am getting spikes in my level of thyroxin at night which is revving me up and preventing me sleeping. He's upped my thyroid meds and I now have to take extra in the evening. He has also given me some zopiclone although I daren't take them because I am funny with new meds. But I slept okay last night with 3 glasses of wine and a temazepam. I am taxi again for the next two nights, plus we have visitors, so it doesn't bode well! How are you doing?
I would certainly be careful with all those benzos especially feeling suicidal. I got hooked on Xanax and ended up in hospital and that is how I came to be on the wretched Mirtazapine. I occasionally pop a diazapam, only a 5mg and if I got really desperate would use one of my "old faithfuls" bromazepam.
Sounds like your doctor might be right about the thyroxin, I wonder if that is what happened to me last year when nobody took any notice of me. I have noticed since cutting the mirt in half now that the heart racing has started at night again.
Hope you feel better soon and lay off all those pills and the alcohol.
Take care,
Elaine
Thanks, Elaine. I'm not a big drinker normally. I stick well under my 14 units. In fact I went off it completely when I was really hyper. Couldn't stand it. But when yoou can't sleep for as many nights as I can't but yave to get up at 7 am seven days a week plus stay up to pick up my son from work after 11 four of those days, you get desperate. (I never drink on my driving evenings, obviously). As for the benzos, I have been taking them on and off for twenty years. Usually just two a month but since becoming hyper, it has been one temazepam every night until the other night when I had two. My mum gave me the diazepam, so they're not a permanent thing.
I know exactly how you feel about the no sleeping, the only fortunate thing was that I am retired and widowed but I had 13 weeks of non stop racing heart, nausea and no sleep and I too used to just pop the occasional half a xanax once or twice a week if I was going out the next day usually a long trip twice a week to visit my dad in a nursing home. It then got to half once a night, and then a whole one every night and at the end 12 which ended me up in hospital. Gp was useless, in fact a few weeks before this the one gp I thought I could rely on (I think she was miffed that I had gone to see a private endocrinologist, this was only because another GP was trying to get me to chew on 3000mg of calcium a day for the osteoporosis and hadnt noticed my blood calcium was over the range!!) said as she glued her eyes to the clock on the wall "youve seen three different doctors this month"!!!!!!!!!!! As if that's my fault and I have barely been to the surgery over the last 26 years. I was given diazapam and the mirtazapine after the xanax incident but the diazapam was stopped after a couple of weeks as gps in the u.k. are overly cautious about benzos, so now I have to buy them on line but certainly not the xanax again. All the Ativan I sent to a friend in the U.S. and so just try to stick with half a mirtazapam which I am sure is masking something and occasionally the diazapam which are difficult as they come in 10mg and I dont want to take that much. I hope you get on okay x
Hi Evergreen
Sounds like you've been thro' hell & highwater this week, I hope your houseguests behave & appreciate you !! Maybe when normality returns sleep might as well. I know I made a big effort to black out my room after the insomnia, so I have blackout blinds + blackout lined curtains, then you find light sneaks around the edges ggrrrrr .... so I prop up my yoga mat to hold them in, oh and a book against the alarm clock so I cant see the light. In Switzerland they have total black out blinds that you can have fitted, waiting for them to arrive in UK !!
I heard a story about a guy that had insomnia, later he figured that he could only sleep when the room was cold, and therefore he used to go to his parents house and sleep in the cellar, it was the only place he could sleep, it may have been on the radio this week. On this subject ... when I wake at 5 ish, I am hot, by nature this tells the body to wake up making it very difficult to go back to sleep of course, so I switch on the fan and it usually works, its air con, best thing we ever did to fit that in the bedroom. Just a thought, especially when menopausal; I had a real tough time with sleep problems during mine, so it was the obvious necessity !
I used to take Zopiclone before Mirt', I think it's ok as a last resort, but I'm not sure how restful that knock out sleep leaves you. Yes I understand how you might fear this med' after the Phhenergen, and with Z drugs lowering the heart rate. Tbh my anxiety was so bad back then in 2014 that Zopiclone only knocked me out until 2 am, then what do you do !
Best wishes, hope the sleep returns, think it will, houseguests can be lovely but a pain at the same time !
C x
I've got blackout blinds then bought an extra one which I cut down to fix so that a piece curls around down either side plus lined curtains. No ticking of clocks. Yesterday I had a quiet air conditioner installed and in the early hours I thought oh no I can see the faintest light on one side and wondered where it was coming from but thankfully when I turned the power off at the wall it disappeared.I guess when its in use I'll have to stick something over it but I can't sleep on my left side anyway because of the pain in my leg so wont be a problem. So the only other problem is a wretched woman over the road leaving two dogs barking grrrrr!
Gosh Elaine, me too, blurrey dog over the back of me ... I find the
"white noise" effect from the air con quite soothing and it does block out some sound. The things we have to do to get a good nights rest.
Always down to other inconsiderate people. The last five years have been stressful with a vile brat next door do much so I had to sleep in my daughter's old bedroom. Now that has improved and bought a special mattress fort poor old bones these dogs can start up usually Friday and Saturday nights and can be until the early hours. I only had this Dakin I think its called installed on Friday and it is hot today so might try it out tonight. Just hope I don't get big electricity bills although it runs on s 5