Has Prozac helped any of you guys?

[like-spoiledmilk]

I just started taking it, getting desperate, haha..

Before, I've been on Zoloft, Lamictal, Wellbutrin and some Propranolol on the side. Now, I'm starting Prozac. I know I have other options with meds, but sometimes I get discouraged. All of these trials make me feel like a guinea pig, honestly.

If anyone has taken Prozac, or taken it after any of the aforementioned meds, how did it work for you? Did it help at all? Did something else work better for you?

 

[absent_nebulae]

I havent been medicated since 2023 but i was very breifly on Prozac and Sertraline. For me, Prozac made everything 10x worse and it stayed like that until a couple months on Sertraline. The side effects were tolerable, and i dont know what of it was derealization or medication side effects, but I felt like i wasnt in my body and like i had a constant itch under my skin. I was maybe only on it for 2 or 3 weeks, and ive heard it gets worse before it starts working, and ive also heard wonderful things about it. Of course, this is just my breif experience, but i hope Prozac works well for you :)

 

[dragonofenvy]

Zoloft didn't do anything. Prozac helped me be stable but I still don't like life, but at least I'm not horrifically depressed. I think a few weeks in I had a crisis, whether it was because of the Prozac I don't know, but afterwards I felt a lot better. I think it's even helped me be sober and reduce SH.

If you believe it works it will work better. If you believe it won't do anything then that outcome is more likely. The placebo effect is weird.

I'll second @absent_nebulae , it gets worse before it gets better. It's just something to have to tough out.

 

[limenlux]

I just started taking it, getting desperate, haha..

Before, I've been on Zoloft, Lamictal, Wellbutrin and some Propranolol on the side. Now, I'm starting Prozac. I know I have other options with meds, but sometimes I get discouraged. All of these trials make me feel like a guinea pig, honestly.

If anyone has taken Prozac, or taken it after any of the aforementioned meds, how did it work for you? Did it help at all? Did something else work better for you?

I personally felt absolutely no changes while taking Prozac, and nothing from stopping it cold turkey. Before that I was on Celexa/citalopram and felt like I was slowly becoming an inanimate object.

I had a positive experience with propanolol but was taken off of it because my doctors wanted to narrow down which medications might help with a separate medical condition I have. Despite not taking any of those medications anymore because they didn't help, they refuse to put me back on propanolol, naturally.

I started Wellbutrin somewhat recently and feel more depressed than ever.

I can relate to your feeling like a guinea pig. I've been on and off of nearly a dozen medications for neurological issues and once had four neurologists at a doctor's appointment step into the room at the same time to prod at me and argue about my brain. It was like an alien abduction.

I really hope something comes along that offers you some relief.

 

[iguazo falls]

it blunted my emotions but didnt address SH or suicidal thoughts. even eating a biscuit at times felt intolerable due to appetite changes. i still felt depressed. i think my environment and psyche have more to do with my emotions rather than raw chemistry.

 

[sadbh—itstimetogo🤎]

Prozac had an effect on me, but it's a bit numbing too.

 

[FoxSauce]

Well it was the first antidepressants i was prescribed but didnt help at all. Weont fine at the beggining but it just made me more irritable, more suicidal and made my suicidal thoughts worse. My mood would change drastically too.

 

[pond]

Prozac made it much worse for me. I started caring less and less (numbing/getting frustrated that I couldn't really feel what I was feeling in the moment). And then I eventually lost all energy and motivation to do anything.

I was dealing with an extreme walking addiction that went on for over a year and Prozac pretty much killed it almost instantly. Which someone could argue was a good thing but losing my routine and method of coping/distraction (combined with other factors) made me spiral off the deep end and worsened my ED to the point where I know I'll never recover.

The experience was so bad that I wish I had never tried to get help for my OCD/ED. I would rather go back and continuing killing my physical and mental health from walking 40K-60K steps a day and going to the gym than take Prozac.

 

[Lucifer’s Son]

Nope. It did literally nothing, not even any negative side effects, just like every other medicine.

 

[wakeawake]

I'm on max Zoloft now - she is even talking of going further beyond normal max doses, but I feel my depression and anxiety are legit way to feel about my physical health problems and that I'm being over-treated around mental health given I have a long history of that anyway.

If anything maybe it makes me a bit more clouded and emotional blunting. But I definitely do not feel happier.

I've been on many such meds, including long term Effexor and some anti-psychotics also. I got off those after getting Akathisia from the last one I had been put on, a truly terrible thing.

The only one that still helps is frankly my Klonopin - which is a very double edged sword.

 

[SweetChariot]

I'm on week 1 of prozac right now, first time on antidepressant as well so effect wise it probably haven't kicked in but the anxiety have been quite awful
the benzos that's prescribed alongside it is frankly the thing that makes it worthwhile

 

[NoPoint2Life]

I take it for OCD and it helped a lot. Let me get to a place where it was more tolerable trying exposure therapy again.
I happen to also take Lamictal with it.

 

[usernamesarehard]

Prozac helped me be stable but I still don't like life, but at least I'm not horrifically depressed.

it blunted my emotions but didnt address SH or suicidal thoughts. even eating a biscuit at times felt intolerable due to appetite changes. i still felt depressed. i think my environment and psyche have more to do with my emotions rather than raw chemistry.

This has been pretty much my experience on it. I started taking it because I had/have problems with managing my emotions. It was usually anger and depression. Prozac has helped a lot with managing my anger. It was never so bad that I'd like Hulk out or something, but it made having a romantic relationship really hard, if not nearly impossible. I think it also sort of helped with my depression in a way. Like I feel like I have more control over my emotions. Before I would just wallow in my depression, even when things kind of improved, I still wallowed even though I should have been happy. I look back on that period of my life now and wonder how I lived like that. I also just feel sad about all the time I wasted being depressed.

I wouldn't say my depression is 'cured' though and I'm still about the same level of suicidal I've been since I was 17 or 18, although I do have different reasons now. I'm still incredible depressed. I'm also taking Wellbutrin and that is to specifically help with me being tired all the time. But I'm still tired. But compared to before, when I couldn't even get out of bed because I was so tired and would sleep 10+hr/day, it's helped out a lot and I don't have any plans on stopping taking it anytime soon. I'm still not really motivated to do things and most days I just kind of exist and the day goes by. Having done nothing productive, but at least I'm out of bed and awake.

I'm most likely still going to ctb, but taking Prozac has at least made my life tolerable until I'm ready to do so.

I have also experienced the appetite changes. I don't mind eating and I enjoy food when I'm eating, but now I have a strange disinterest in food. I'll wake up and not feel like eating, even though I just have oatmeal everyday and that's the easiest and least labor intensive food anyone can make. Before food used to be one of the only things I looked forward to/ enjoyed.

 

[orpheus_]

I was lucky, it was the first med I got and it helped, got me out of the worst shithole. It reduced that overwhelming sadness that was always in the background and made me able to think about anything other than suicide. Gave me a bit more energy and interest in things. I also started feeling mild positive emotions after not experiencing them at all for over a year. I guess it was also the hope that it gave me, because I saw that "oh shit meds can change anything for better?" - so I'm aware that many of these effects might not have been from the medication itself.
I'm still on it after 2 years (with some other things added), thought about switching/going off as I feared it might be numbing me although I do not realize it... Well I accidentally stopped taking it for over a week (I ran out of pills and kept putting off getting them, as I had no time or motivation) and THAT was when I started getting numb to everything and remembered how it was before medication. Anyway it does help some people, as I said I know I was very lucky