Thursday, June 08, 2006

Lexapro 6 month mark

So I've been taking Lexapro 10mg/day for about 6 months now (with at least another 12 months of refills on my prescription form).

I started to down-spiral again last summer, but put off going to see my physician until December (about 3-4 months later then I should've). By December I was classified as mild/moderate depression (simple).

Key signs for me was the fact that I was laying in bed most nights, idly thinking about different ways to kill myself. (Suicidal ideation, but with no firm plans, timeline or method.) Also, laying in bed at night doing nothing but reviewing past mistakes and feeling hopeless about the future. Work was also not going well as I felt "slow" and "laggy" most days with very little motivation to do anything (except sit in the chair and stare at the screen).

So for now, I'm simply taking medication. No therapy. We've classified it as mild/moderate with no complications. When I went in to see my doc last December, I told her that even if I didn't ring up as severe depression (like back in 2002), I knew that I was sliding that way. That in a few more months (say early spring) I'd be curled up on the floor most days and in a severe state of depression. (Been there, done that, got the hand stamp.)

At least this time around I got in and got help before I got to that stage. Getting better at putting up the white flag and saying "yo, I need a bit of help here".

It took a while to get used to the meds (6-8 weeks) and I've been off of them twice. Once at the start of March (3-4 days), which resulted in a basic anxiety attack causing me to cancel a trip to NY. The second was at the start of April (2 weeks) due to the pharmacy not being able to refill my prescription when I wanted it (9 days left on a 30 day prescription) and the next week I relapsed and didn't leave the house for 2 weeks.

For the most part, I measure my emotional health by the # of times per week that I think about suicide. And I mean spending an extended amount of time while I lay in bed thinking about it, not just a passing reference. Last fall, I was pondering it at least 3-5 nights per week. Now, I haven't dwelled on it in weeks and it doesn't attract me in any more then morbid curiosity.

So I may not be cured, but the Lexapro lessens the symptoms enough to be functional again.

Labels: 2006

posted by Wuphon's at 12:01 AM