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Switching Meds Ok?

I've been taken Zoloft for 3 1/2 years. First I was on 50mg and now that I'm done with counseling, I've upped it to 100mg, and honestly I don't feel any different. I feel like I'm on an emotional plateau where I am happy sometimes but then when it's over, I just go down to a range of "ok" to "angry" and "upset." Is this normal? Is it ok to try another anti-depressant?

I'm not sure if I even have depression anymore because I'm on the meds for it, but I know that without it, I don't know if I could cope with everything.
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Avatar universal
Same thing happened to me on Zoloft. I took it for 3 years ending at a 200Mg a day dosage and it just slowly stopped working.

Zoloft is notorious for "poop out" it only last a few years for most people I talk to.

I then went to Effexor XR and it was great. I bounced right back to myself at 225Mgs a day. The Effexor also stopped working, but I got a good 4 years out of it after I bumped it up to 300Mgs a day.

It's a good 2nd line drug when SSRI's poop out.

It's a little rough to stop Effexor "when and if the time comes" but I will take 6 weeks of withdrawl for 4 good years of remission any day
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Avatar universal
Hi there,

My first question is why are you done with counselling? You see counselling is best done when you are feeling OK so if you needed to up your meds the counselling may have felt like it was not helping. The reason there would be the illness tends to negate our ability to think rationally enough to take full advantage of counselling.

That said, what you describe sounds rather like a bi polar mood swing range. It doesn't mean it is bipolar as you must have experienced either mania or hypomania for that diagnosis.

Either way it sounds to me like you need a mood stabiliser to even out those swings to something you can rely on. Ask the doc about it, you don't need to be bi polar to have a mood stabiliser.

If that isn't something you and the doc can agree on then, after 3.5 years on this med it does sound like time to change.

Is it OK? Absolutely. It's highly normal to have to change meds even if they do work for long periods. They usually reach a tolerance level and you stop getting benefit from it. The up side is you have a med you can come back to after a while if other meds don't help. Being off it for a time allows the body to adjust to being without it and it is essentially new again in X amount of time.

You're not even sure if you are still depressed. Yet you describe a mood pattern that is typical of depression.

Regardless it is worth finding out if you do need meds or not. I always take some time without meds when I change to see if I need meds at all. I do, but it takes about 6 weeks to be sure again. So I get a 6 week break every now and again. WHich is good as I can feel how I am and know meds are necessary. But I don't wait until things go through the floor. I feel the cracks opening and head for meds, so to speak.

It is useful to find out if you can cope without as many of us just keep taking them when we either get no benefit from a particular med or we don't need them.

Why do we keep taking them in such circumstances? We are afraid of what may happen. But the thing is the doc will be there and other meds can help too so it isn't a one way trip.
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Avatar universal
Hi, you need to discuss this with your pdoc.  I was on up to 200 zolof, then my pdoc put me on cellexa, now I'm on celexa and welbuterin.  It takes a while to find the right script for you, sometimes you and your pdoc have to talk about what works and what you are feeling.  Hope this helps.
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