Luvox and Anafranil

[Persona_Is_Life]

Hello,

I started Fluvoxamine a year ago to finally address my OCD and to minimize some of the issues insomnia was giving me. A little while after the first dose (50 mg), it felt like something wrapped itself around and gently tugging on my brain. I was drowsy and calm for the first 20 minutes or so and didn't sleep a bit that night, nor the one after. At the time I was already sleeping a few hours every couple of days (worst was after 3 in a row) so I had assumed Luvox just had no effect on sleep. I tried melatonin. I could expect a good 3 hours for two nights in a row than none the following. Repeat. A few months later I showed up at the pdoc's office. Exhausted beyond belief and struggling through yet another semester of school. She upped my dosage to 100mg and instructed me to up it again after 2 weeks to 150, because I still wasn't sleeping, my hands were scrubbed raw and bloody, and I was an anxious wreck. Luvox stripped away my anxiety (or my theory that it numbed me to the anxious feelings I had), my motivation, and my coping skills. Three weeks before finals, the work was piled up and I didn't care. My insomnia at that point had reached its worst. I tried to take a nap in my friend's dorm and ended up in the ER because my limbs were doing strange movements, my body was hyperventilating and screaming, and I had no control over anything. When my body calmed down, I couldn't speak. ER doc thought it was Bipolar, ended up discharging me with an insomnia/fainting diagnosis, a script for Ambien, and an insistence that I see a shrink. My psych put me on Trazodone, which was a great relief. I stopped Luvox at 200 mg around mid-November because I realized that it made me care less about all the wrong things. The semester ended before Christmas and I'm still submitting schoolwork. I started sleeping better, way better, actually a little too much. I'm constantly tired and struggling to stay awake throughout the day.

Yesterday I saw my psych and we decided to give Clomipramine a try. Took my first dose last night and that same gentle, wrapping feeling came around. Then came the insomnia. I feel awful. I've read so many things about this drug, and it seems like it would benefit me in many ways. Not just the OCD, but also my panic attacks, and in some sources helps with Narcolepsy and sleep paralysis.

Luvox and Anafranil are typically very sedating, yet have almost an entirely different effect on me. I usually have to flip cold medicines around (i.e. diphenhydramine in the daytime and pseudoephedrine in the nighttime) but I don't respond in a paradoxical manner to every drug. I'm wondering if something more activating would settle me.

 

 

[jt07]

I never took Luvox, but I was pretty drugged out and sedated on Anafranil. I'm sorry that you find it too activating. My only advice would be to give it time. It might turn out differently from the Luvox. They are quite different meds. In a few weeks you will be able to make a more accurate judgment. If it gets really bad then call your pdoc.

[Persona_Is_Life]

1 hour ago, jt07 said:

I never took Luvox, but I was pretty drugged out and sedated on Anafranil. I'm sorry that you find it too activating. My only advice would be to give it time. It might turn out differently from the Luvox. They are quite different meds. In a few weeks you will be able to make a more accurate judgment. If it gets really bad then call your pdoc.

No need apologize. I'm just surprised is all. I wonder if the less sedating ones might give me the effects Luvox and Anafranil were expected to. I wonder if it would be better to take it in the morning as opposed to bedtime. I have Trazodone to take as needed but I'm not sure I should with already taking Wellbutrin and Anafranil.

 Thanks for the encouragement! I'll stick it out.