I'm getting medication...

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After a few years of depression and life going nowhere - which it still is - I am finally getting medication. It is for my depression and anxiety. I am all for the possibility of getting better, but one thing that puts me off wanting to take them is the list of possible side-effects I was shown by my psychiatrist. Diarrhoea, headaches, stomach aches, shaking, and the very worst, most horrific of all... vomiting. I have an insane phobia of that, and I haven't puked in 5 and a half years. So if I were to puke now, the shock would kill me. I know I sound very silly, and I was told these symptoms were incredibly rare, but has anyone got any reassurance for me, from experiences with medication?

Yeah, I went on lexapro a week ago and already feel the edge taken off of my anxiety.

The patient information sheet should list all the side effects, with the percentage of people in trials who reported them. They report everything, even where there is no evidence that the drug is the cause, because they are legally obliged to. I have taken several depression medications and never had any nausea or vomiting, and it was listed as a side effect on every one - this is a sample table, for Effexor: http://www.drugs.com/sfx/effexor-side-effects.html (nausea 37%, vomiting 6%).

However, if you expect a particular side effect, then you are more likely to experience it - especially an anxiety-related side effect like nausea.

i'm on escitalopram since four years and the first weeks i had some side effects like nausea and head aches but those went away eventually. Now i have almost no side effects. You should just try to get through the first weeks. Maybe it's the body that needs to get use to the medication or something like that.

You might have all those side-effects (not likely, though), or none at all. I've been on a lot (like about 10) antidepressant trials over the years, and I never found those lists of all side-effects (in greater than 2% of a test population, IIRC) to be useful in predicting which, or how many side-effects I'd have. You can't really know until you try it.

I understand this totally. This is why I was scared to go on medication. That was 5 years ago and now, I have no major anxiety any more and, best of all my fear of vomiting has all but vanished! It sounds like you have emetephobia, the fancy pants name for a fear of vomiting. It caused three years of agoraphobia for me and nearly ruined my life.

I personally have only had good with medication. I'm surprised that your psychiatrist actually showed you the list of side effects. Mine refuses, knowing that I will get every single one if I read them, and instead monitors me AFTER I have taken the medication to check how I am doing. I have been on citalopram (cipramil/Celexa) for 5 years now. Initially it helped A LOT, now I am ready to come off it. The only side effects I have got with the Citalopram is gastric reflux, which is a pain in the... gut... but is not serious and I take another pill to calm my stomach so this isn't a huge problem. All of my other 'physical' problems disappeared when I started taking Citalopram.

Once you start taking the medication, that is the time to start treating your fear of vomiting. The Citalopram helped me to put it in perspective, realise that I was NOT going to die if I threw up and when, eventually, the time came and I was ill again, I was fine about it. Now I go out all the time and don't worry about my stomach! Obviously it's up to you whether you go ahead and take the meds, but I would recommend it, especially if your psychiatrist thinks it's the right thing to do.

Hope that helped

I was on anti-depressants and never got any of those side effects. Actually I can't remember any side effects. Two weeks after taking them my anxiety had decreased and any sign of depression was gone. It was more of a hormonal thing anyway. I miss being on those meds. The effect wears off though.

I tend to throw up when I go out drinking. You really can't avoid throwing up when you get sick. You can avoid meds all you want but you'd still get something like food poisoning.

As for the meds I'm on that's another story, but on a low dose I'm doing much better.

I'm very sensitive to almost any medication now because I was pumped with meds like a guinea pig since I was young. Now most medications (In general) give me tremors and all kinds of bad physical and mental effects. However I found Bupropion to work for my depression without giving me any noticeable side effects. However I've had doctors alarmed of the current dose I'm on as it can cause health problems with blood pressure or the heart or something I think.

I guess vomiting could occur and may be alarming for you, but there are more side effects to be aware of. Most anti-depressants make me feel mindless and I hate it. As in a few made it so I couldn't form coherent thoughts for hours at a time. Some just make the depression worse.

Also not to speak of the odd side effects, but I noticed you're male and you should know many anti-depressants can cause sexual side effects. If you have any you want to let your doctor know immediately. I had some pretty bad effects from one which at the time I didn't care because I'm kinda asexual, but it lead to the most painful (near crippling, and I have a extremely high pain tolerance) infection I've ever had in my life

Er... I don't know how to explain that any better without getting detailed and I'd rather not speak about that here. I've had alot of bad experiences with sexual side effects and anti-depressants though. If you care to know more maybe discuss that with your doc even though it's awkward. Your doctor would likely know more about the different possibilities of the specific drug you'll be on and would likely be more helpful. It's your decision, but I would at least make it a priority to ask if you start to experience anything unusual in a bad way

However, you might not experience that at all I guess. I didn't experience this until later in life and it happened when I stopped taking my medication and tried going back on it. Once I tried going back, most medications that had worked for me in the past ended up giving me these problems. I'm guessing my chemistry changed so I'm thinking the likelihood of side effects just depends on your chemistry. Sadly meds are very trial and error. I've never had a medication just work on the first try, but maybe I'm just unlucky

Also, I guess something I noticed about anti-depressants or any mind altering medication is that if you're a bit masochistic you'll probably just take a medication along for a ride. Don't... if you experience something you really don't like then let your doctor know immediately, and they should understand and try something new. Too many times I felt so depressed and something made me feel worse and I just felt like I deserved to feel the problems or something. It's not such a good idea to do that. I'm just mentioning that I guess in case you have severe depression

It's a problem I had with experimenting with medications and it wasted many opportunities and screwed up some important years of my life. Like I was pretty messed up most of my high school years even though I'm pretty intelligent (because of experimenting with medications and letting them harm me). So colleges think I'm fairly stupid when if they let me in I could probably blow some of them away

I'm an artist so I want to go to an art school for drawing, but now I'd likely have to go to community college and show a decent gpa (wasting a couple years of life) before I could be accepted to an art school... which they don't demand a very high gpa