This is a serious question and I really don't want opinions from anyone who hasn't been on them before.

Which ones have you experienced and have there been any really odd side effects?

I ask because several months ago my Doc perscribed me some generic low dose welbutrin and it caused all the major veins in my body to become extremely visible in a matter of days. I tried to explain it to the docs but they told me to keep taking it. OF COURSE, I stopped immediately. But i am just curious if anyone else has had atypical symptoms to antidepressants.

Which ones and how bad was it?

I think the worst i had was when i would wake up violently during the night and throw everything around me - bed covers, pillows, anything on my bedside whether it was a clock or glass of water - across the room against the wall. Then i'd roll around on my bed lashing out at everything, hitting the bed and the walls, and then grab a pillow, curl up under the duvet (wherever it was) and fall asleep again.

I also got very angry and had a very short temper with absolutely everyone.

I really can't remember which drug that was. After i did that twice i stopped taking it. I think i took it for about a week. It took a couple of days to kick in, I was then really short tempered for a couple of days, then i did the wake up thing two nights in a row and i came off it. I still woke up the next night but managed to calm down.

I'll find out what it was if i can and post it back. I've taken so many different anti-depressants that i can't remember which was which, so i don't want to post up the wrong one.

I've taken a few different kinds. Can't remember ever having any really strange side effects.

But right now I'm on Bupropion, which is a substitute for Wellbutrin. It's the first time it's the first time I think I've ever had any side effects from an anti-depressant.

For a while after I started taking it.. I was having a problem with dry mouth, dizziness, along with some other problems. My doctor said it was all normal, and should go away over time.

... and it has, for the most part. But I still get sick at my stomach if I don't eat something right before taking my meds.

Taking anti-depressnts never really worked for me much. It took about 2 weeks before they had effect, and I noticed when I came off of them the depression came back twice as bad. However, considering you dont come off them they do help.

My girlfriend was on them before she left me. She left me for someone else who made her come off them and she became suicidal. But I couldn't talk any sense into her, she only cared about what he said.

Never experienced anything physically harmful about anti-depresants, just mentally but its different for everyone. I stopped taking mine, I'm trying my best withouth them. But lately I've been considering going back on them again. There was a warning with mine saying they can cause depression to get worse or cause blackouts. They also made me very tired all the time.

Sounds like they did work for you, if when you came off them the depression was twice as bad! I would have stayed on them!!

There's so many different kinds and your brain's chemistry will react differently to different types of them.

Sometimes, it won't seem like any pills will work at all. Some people say it is all in the mind, but the drugs really do make a difference if you're on ones that work for you. Maybe you won't notice, but people around you do. My ex knew exactly when i missed a pill without me saying a single thing about it.

Welbutrin made me halluciate. The walls were breathing and everything else looked like it had bugs crawling just beneath the surface.

Prozac made me so sleepy that I couldn't function at all. If I stopped moving, I fell asleep.

Zoloft was my happy drug. I couldn't feel anything other then giddy while on that. All my emotions came out happy. The stronger the emotion the more happy I became. My best friend committed suicide and I responded to the ambulance call. I just couldn't stop giggling the entire time.

I stopped taking everything at that point. It was years later that I was put on SAM-E by another doc and that worked better then anything else for me. It was more of a mood stabilizer and is over the counter so insurance won't cover it. But it worked well when I needed it.

The first encounter I ever had with Welbutrin, I didn't follow the directions properly...you were suppose to take one a day for the first three days, and then take 2 normally. Well, I started off on 2 right away and it caused me to hallucinate as well. I couldn't shut off the lights in room with out the darkness coming alive. I also started having auditory hallucinations which was really scarey.

Paxil made me so lazy I just didn't want to be alive anymore.

I was reading all your posts as I finally decided to post a questions to you guys, a question I'm asking myself over five years now, don't really know if it fits here, but I get a try.
My best friends takes them, and I always had the impression it's a sort of stupid placebo effect.
Many years I'm asking myself if I should try to see a doc., but often I'm to scared to realise that happiness on anti-depressants is just a fictive emotion, I know I have to do something, and at the end I don't want to. So I even stopped to see my psychologist. Anyone an advice. Sorry if I pop in this thread with this questions a bit aside the issue. NF.

Each person is different and any doctor that isn't trained in the psychology field shouldn't be perscribing such medication.

I think that you can get more from working with a psychologist then a physiatrist. I've never met a physiatrist that I thought was sane. I worked in an emergency room for 9.5 years and spend 6 years before that working in full care facilities.

They don't give you any answers, but they ask you questions that guide you into finding your own. They ask you uncomfortable questions but there are some that are over the top.

But that would be the place to start. Setup an appointment and go see them. Give it at least 3 visits before you make a judgement on being comfortable with them. If you still aren't comfortable with them, tell them so and then consider going to someone else.

I was prescribed some when I was a teen. I don't know why because the psych said I was a sociopath with depressive tendencies even though I felt pretty much happy the whole time. I think he was doing too many of his own medications
I never took them except for one time when I drank. I cannot remember which ones they were but I would suggest you NEVER drink with any of them.
I was so damn drunk on those pills and vodka I hallucinated being in the bathroom at my friends house but instead I was pissing in the corner of his room. He said I even made flushing noises

Anyway, I do not think the medications work, they do not take care of the root of most peoples problems who suffer from depression. They only disguise it.

In a nutshell...

I was diagnosed with this, that and the other thing depending on what point and what healthcare professional I was speaking with.

So as far as meds go, I've had SEVERAL over time and each time I saw no improvement. Side effects ranged from feeling actually worse to sleep problems to feeling very blunted/numb. I was on Wellbutrin at one point and I didn't get the veins thing that you described but I got some other weird side effects.

Going back to my original point of being first told one thing than another, I decided that I couldn't possible have every problem in the DSM, so finally after dealing with all that nonsense for years I decided to seek alternative methods of dealing with this and also strongly committed to therapy. I've never felt better than I do now.

I'm a believer that a lot of meds are Bandaids for the real problems. Too many people just have the whole "Oh--don't-want-to-have-to-look-at-myself-or-change-just-give-me-a-pill" attitude and then wonder why things don't work out and instead of dealing with themselves they scapegoat the meds as "they're not working; give me something else". I wholeheartedly agree with Axantha on his points about going to a therapist. It does work if you are willing to do the work.

Don't take these poisons. Doctors are paid millions every year to ignore common sense stuff like telling people to just fucking stop acting like a cry baby and instead prescribe billions of dollars worth of mind numbing poisons. Either every human in the last 2 decades has turned retarded and depressed etc or we have always been the same way. I think its absurd how much they drug us these days for common things and yet they cant make my fucking chest cold go away any faster. Its bullshit. Its legal weed or coke.

People need to stop relying on crutches and just look deep inside and find the strength they need there.

Its like all these little boys who are being drugged with ritalin by their docs and mothers because they *GASP* are rambunctious and active... you know... like little boys.

Exactly. I think that they went from being very seldomly dispensed drugs restricted to rare cases to being sensationalized and dispensed like candy. Personally, in the cases we see them being used today, I think they are very expensive poisons that do fuck-all. The fact that they give them to kids is equally upsetting.

I've been on so many growing up that I can't remember half of them. Some were anti-depressants, others were anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers. However, out of all the medications they've ever had me on, I would say Seroquel was the worst. It was like they shot me with a tranquilizer. I was OUT.

They decided to keep me in the hospital for the first week when they put me on this medication. I could not move. The nurses would have to pick me up and carry me to the random offices for blood tests and to the cafeteria. I was frickin' OUT.

When I got home I got curious to see what would happen if I took two or three of them at once. In retrospect, I don't understand why I would be so curious and DUMB. If one made me tired, wouldn't two make me twice as tired? I found out the hard way by waking up three days later on the floor in the bathroom. Even then, I never understood how people would actually take Seroquels to get high. I hated them.

It's the worst ever. At least for me, anyway. But medications effect everyone differently. I was on Welbutrin as well. While my doctor prescribed it to me for depression, my father's physician was prescribing it to him to help cut back his nicotine cravings. Some of the doctors around here have called it the "miracle" drug. Honestly, it didn't do me any good. While I was less agitated than normal, I was still a miserable little kid when I was on this.

If your veins are popping up everywhere, I would suggest hydrating yourself. Some medications can dehydrate you. I never dealt with dehydration when I was on Welbutrin but Lithium had similar effects on me.

The only thing I suggest is don't take yourself off medications on your own. Just stopping can cause your seratonin levels to go a little hay-wire and you might be worse than you were before they'd put you on the medication. I was a prime example.

You should tell your doctor that you don't want to take that medication. If they say to keep taking it, you tell them to change the medication or you're going to hire a different doctor. End of story. There are hundreds of thousands of doctors out there. Why go to this one if he/she isn't going to work WITH you?

That aside, I personally have no faith in prescription drugs. I was on them for five years. They never helped. I only got serious weight gain or risk of liver failure from Lithium and such. I have learned to live without medications and function decently. When I feel an episode coming on, I will sometimes seek alternative means as well.

Hoped that can help.

I have never had any faith in anti-depressants. In my opinion all they do is keep you drugged and tired. I'm not speaking from experience, as I have never taken any, because I have always believed this, but I will still say how I feel. They are prescribed if the doctor thinks they are needed, now first of all he doesn't feel the feelings you have, so he has a tough decision on his hands trying to choose if he thinks you need them or not. Sometimes I think they just give you those to get you off their back, it is less a responsibility than getting you to see a therapist for which I believe can provide better forms of treatment. We all have our own views on anti-depressants, but I have always believed and probably always will believe that all they do is tone you down, to such an extent where most of the time you just want to sleep, rather than actually solving anything. The only true solution to overcoming depression is a total change of lifestyle. I would never trust medication.

Medication helps if you keep with it. If you come off it suddenly it is the worst thing you can do.

The best antidepressant is the sun.

cocane always worked really well. i miss it sometimes.don't suggest it though. coming off it's a bitch.

guess what?

every adult today is depressed. every kid today has ADD.

remember when adults worked through their issues? remember when people used parenting skills to make sure their rugrat kids weren't chasing every shiny fucking object in the room? nope, now we just give them pills.

too depressed? have a pill. too hyper? have a pill. too fat? have a fucking pill.

the modern day pill has become the band aid for the social retard. i'm not saying that real people don't have real problems, but shoving milligrams worth of drugs down your throat isn't the answer... yet it's the first line of defense for doctors.

i'm with six on this one, if you feel depressed go hang out with the sun. that stupid fireball can do wonders in your life.