What Doctors Don't Tell You* ‘We lowered the dose of medicine and two weeks later Julia called to say that the bottom had fallen out: `I’m a witch again.’ She felt lousy – pessimistic, angry, demanding. `I don’t feel myself’. Julia resumed taking the higher dose of Prozac. Within two weeks, she felt somewhat better; after five weeks, she was ‘almost there again’, with many more good days than bad. She said work had been torture on the lower dose of medicine’ (Listening to Prozac, Viking, New York,1993).
* ‘I have been on Prozac since just after Easter. At first the 20 mg worked great, then the effects tailed off. Now I’m on 40 mg and that worked great, but once again, the effects have tailed off and I’m getting seriously depressed again’ (Internet 15).
* ‘My wife has been taking Paxil on and off for about two years in varying doses . . . Usually within 48 hours after starting the Paxil she will completely pull out of her depression, even if she was severely symptomatic. ‘The problem is that, after a while, it seems to stop working . . . She is currently at 60 mg Paxil a day taken in two doses. She is also taking Klonopin 2 mg/day in four doses. Just yesterday we started adding 50 mg Doxepin at bedtime to try to jumpstart the Paxil’ (Internet 16).
* ‘After taking Prozac for two years, all of a sudden it quit working for me. I was on 20 mg for five months when it quit working. Bumped me up to 40 mg with no effect . . .’ (Internet 17).
Steve Taylor
Elliott Dacher MD
Dr. Judith Orloff MD