Fluoxetine Day 15

nh_user_380968
Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:14:42 +0000
Treatment and medication

Hello.

I first had Anxiety ten years ago, after successful chemo. It did eventually ebb away but it was a year of hell that I’d wish on no one.

It came back six years ago, and I was prescribed Sertraline, the lowest medical dose. I remember it messing with my sleep but have no real memory of it helping much. I took it for six months and then cut it down and out by shaving tiny bits off the tablets for weeks!

Dammit! Here I am again, since the beginning of December. Very unexpected. I gave it a couple of weeks to see if I could get on top of it (no) and then saw a brilliant GP, who gave me Fluoxetine 20mg, and Propranolol 10mg to use up to twice a day for any physical symptoms. I haven’t needed the Propranolol.
I’ve had 7 very good days; 4 good days; 4 poor days; and no absolutely dire days, of which there were 4 in the previous 4 weeks .
I speak in public monthly, usually, and do not suffer from performance anxiety but the last time, a few days before I saw the GP, I was having to hold on to the furniture to steady myself, and drink a lot of water for my dry mouth. It was frightening.

My sleep has been disturbed but since the chemo it often is, although not this badly. I think it May be improving in that I get to sleep nice and gently (huzzah!) but I ping awake after 6 hours and rarely get off again. It’s about 90 minutes short, so I’m quite tired.

Other side effects: mild headache; dry mouth then bad taste; having to dash to the loo Very Quickly after some meals; occasional tearfulness; sometimes feel very cold.

I’m low in the mornings but it often improves as the day goes on. I get annoyed at myself at not being able to talk myself up and out of it.

I’m struggling a bit at the minute, because a routine health test showed up something a bit scary. I have a follow up to the Fluoxetine appointment in early February, and the GP has read the results and noted that we will discuss them at the same appointment. I have to keep working on my thoughts to remind myself that they’d have hauled me in if it was really serious.

I get upset sometimes because progress is not a smooth line but a saw edge.

Thank you to everyone in this forum for all your posts. It really helps to read other people’s experiences.
Sorry this is such a long one!

5 posts - 1 participant