SSRI drugs and their interaction or reaction with AS

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Also tried Lexapro before Celexa, and same: no effect.

I've taken a number of SSRIs in the past and they did nothing but make me more depressed, anxious and agressive. Thanks to the reaction of the SSRI's I had to stop school for a while. Thanks to them, I am 23 and still have not completed high school or the equvelent. If I had not had such a horrible reaction to the drugs, I would be finishing college right now. [] you pharmacutical companies!! !

The anti-depressants I took worked for me, then stopped working and now I want to go back on them.
They helped more with anxiety because my depression was a that-time-of-month thing.

Why not go back and start anew?

And I think the purpose of this thread is to talk about how we auties may react differently to psychiatric medications than others. I'm sorry you had such a bad reaction, but you are not alone - as you can see from this thread, many of us have not had the typical reaction to SSRI's. Our brains are wired differently, so it makes sense that meds that affect the brain might not affect us the way they affect NT's.

SSRI's zombify me, even at low doses (like splitting the smallest dosage tables in quarters). They seem to destroy my motivation, emotions, and ability to think, and I also get some weird muscle tremors and stiffness on them. Seems like a low dopamine thing, but stimulants added in never helped. I think I've been on all of them except for one or two of the newer ones. I sure wish they worked, tho.

My next attempt is to possibly try an SSRE -- the "e" for enhancer. Yeah, it works the exact opposite of an SSRI, yet has anti-depressant effects. (Tianeptine) Go figure.

I take 10mg of Paxil (the smallest available pill cut in half) and it works very well. higher dosages lowered my anxiety even more, but it also made me feel like a zombie.

FYI: some of these meds come in liquid form, so you can titrate your dose even more carefully.

As I would do with any patient, start low dosage and monitor closely. Aspies do have a funny backwards brain chemistry though; speeders make my dad calm, and I find that things that make people sleepy like gravol and and like don't make me sleepy at all. Effexor is working fine for me, but of course everyone has to find one that is right for them, neurochemistry is different for everyone aspie or NT.

The anti-depressant I'm on - Amitriptyline - also works pretty well for both anxiety and insomnia. As for functioning better when you're on meds, that's nothing to feel ashamed of. After all, would you feel ashamed of taking insulin for diabetes?

Meds are a tool that may be useful. They are not a cure-all and they are not universally necessary. Neither are they poison to be avoided at all costs.

I've had a minor positive effect from Lexapro, and no effect other than somnolence from Zoloft. All in all, I am unimpressed, but I'm lucky that I didn't get any truly bad side effects. Apparently, we are known for those when it comes to psych meds. I really think doctors in general should be briefed about this tendency towards hypersensitivity and paradoxical reactions. It can be harmful when they don't take it into account. Even typical folk can have this problem, but autistics seem to be much more prone to it; and a doctor who assumes that he will see only the common side-effects and only the usual response is overlooking the diversity of human biochemistry.

I was taking Fluvoxamine (Faverin) myself, for a couple of years - which I personally felt was wrongly prescribed for me, because at the time, the psychiatrist had diagnosed me with OCD, although it was actually more of continuous 'Worrying Thoughts', and not physical symptoms like adjusting or arranging things. And like the Ponies (the originator of this Topic), family and the psych felt it was 'Anxiety' - and I too hadn't been diagnosed with Asperger's at the time, an 'early phase' (as with many other people here in the forums).

But I continued with it, the Fluvoxamine, even after leaving that particular doctor (crazy bills!), for fear of becoming anxious again, also not knowing about other SSRI's (thinking that I was taking the right medication all along) and some fear of suicidal feelings that might occur after I had read a brief description of what could happen if you stopped taking an SSRI or discontinued.

Sometime this year, I decided that I was frustrated enough with feeling tired all the time throughout the day, and totally Not feeling any sense of myself anymore (Emotional Numbness) - so I decided to take it into my own hands and reduced the dosage with time.

Only problem was that, I had never been off an SSRI before and I had reduced it too fast (having wanted to be over and done with SSRI's forever at the time), afterwhich I started getting Dizzy and Electric Jolts whenever I moved my eyeballs in any direction & I also started experiencing Asthenia (overall weakness in the body). Moreover, even after the apparent/general two weeks that it takes for the body to get used to the decreased level of SSRI, I started feeling "Out of Reality" and I was lightheaded and not thinking straight. I could function well, but things just didnt' seem right after that. For those who have experienced the Electric Jolts when you moved your eyes and feelings of unreality, how did You cope?

To conclude, I feel that it's possible that my feelings of depression/worrying thoughts that I have with AS may have resurfaced after I stopped taking the Fluvoxamine - but when I first started feeling "spaciness" and "feelings of unreality" I got scared because I thought I was simply losing it, plus I couldn't concentrate on anything - which recently a psychiatrist told me it's such because the depression overhauls other feelings.

I am however on Prozac now (just started) and hoping that it'll help me lift my spirits and also concentration. If it doesn't work. I don't know what will.

Wow, That is a tough one to beat. Hopefully in the near future, doctors will be more "educated" on this as we progress in society - as of course with all generations, there's progress and new methods to teach. But yea.. that's quite a debatable point, especially assuming that doctors are willing to be open to the possibility of 'other' side-effects they're not familiar with when treating.

My doctor prescribed me with anxiety meds. They help out alot and making me seem more normal and socializing more than i used too.

The electric-brain-zap thing -- I've heard of 2 ways of helping that (but didn't know about them at the time, so I haven't tried these personally):

1) Benadryl/diphenhydramine -- don't know why it works.

2) a single capsule of prozac -- it has a very long half-life and so leaves the brain slowly enough not to cause the brain-zap thing.