Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The cold, hard truth and a new pill
I saw my psychiatrist first thing this morning and I explained to him my frustration with the weight gain. He gave me a weak smile and said "Unfortunately, paxil is the biggest weight gainer of the SSRI's. It messes with your metabolism. One of my patients is a marathon runner and no matter how much he trains, he has slowly been gaining weight." Greaaaaat. If a marathon runner can't lose the weight, what makes me think I can?? I did mention to him that I had done some research and found that omega-3 and vitamin E have been found to help increase metabolism and thus promote weight loss. This may very well be a bunch of bullshit, but the doc said it definitely won't hurt me to try. He also suggested switching to a different med. Whoa, hold on now, I've been down this road before and I did not like the ride. I've tried effexor (it gave me brain zaps), I've tried zoloft (god awful dizziness) and I've tried remeron (another huge weight gainer and made me feel like I had taken a handful of sleeping pills). Oh and then there was cymbalta which made me feel unbelievably nauseous and caused horrible insomnia. Besides the weight gain, paxil has been my miracle drug, it gave me back my life! So instead of stopping the paxil cold turkey, he suggested taking it with another SSRI, lexapro. In terms of weight gain, it is supposed to be the most neutral of anti-anxiety, anti-depressants - no weight gain, no weight loss. Naturally, I'm nervous, but I'm up to the challenge. I currently take 15 mgs of paxil and will add in 10 mgs of lexapro. I usually take my meds in the morning, but until I know how my body will react to the new pill I'll take them at night. I really don't want to have to deal with unpleasant side effects at the office. I'm not counting of lexapro to be some magical weight loss pill. As soon as I got home from work I put on my exercise clothes, turned on the exercise channel and had my butt kicked by a very scary, very ripped woman for 40 minutes. And I'm trying to be good about what I put in my mouth (we'll see how this goes as the holidays draw closer). All I can do right now is take it one day at a time.
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