I've been taking an anti-depressant for some years now to treat a general anxiety disorder. The disorder had caused me to worry about almost everything obsessively since I was a small child. My dad had the same problem. When my son graduated from college and decided he was heading to the other side of the world, I began to have frequent panic attacks and that's when my doctor prescribed a low-dose anti-depressant targeted for anxiety. Oh my....it was like a gift from Heaven. Finally I was able to experience just normal worrying and not be in some endless loop. It also stopped the panic attacks. Unfortunately, it also packed on a good thirty pounds on me.
My doctor and I discussed this and I switched from Effexor to Wellbutrin. For the next year, the pounds rolled off. I really wasn't doing anything different in my diet but I lost almost 40 pounds. It was heavenly. The downside was that the Wellbutrin wasn't giving me any feelings of euphoria like the Effexor had done. I didn't walk out the door and feel like lifting my arms up to the sky in jubilation nor did I get the frequent feeling that I'd like to just hug someone because I LOVED the whole world. It just kept me on a flat-line even keel. So boring. I missed those peaks of happiness.
So this Spring, I talked to my long-suffering doctor again and told her that I wanted to switch back to Effexor and explained why. We made the switch. I waited for the euphoria to arrive. It never did but the pounds sure showed back up. Aargh! Talk about depressing. Now I'm almost back to what I weighed before I lost all that initial weight. I decided that if I had to choose between euphoria/overweight and even but blah/healthy weight, I'd rather have the healthy weight.
I asked my doctor if I had to do any special weaning from the Effexor back to the Wellbutrin. She said that I was on a low-enough dosage that I should be able to just switch immediately. OK! However, she also said that I might experience some mental "pings" while my brain was making the transition.
"Pings?" I said.
"Well, she replied, "Some folks feel almost an engagment of gears in their head, like a "ping" as the drug starts to work.
"Um, I have to go to Texas and babysit my grandkids in two weeks," I told her. "Will I be done pinging by then?"
"Oh, yes," she laughed. "You'll be fine."
Today, I was changing the sheets on our bed when I suddenly felt a "surge." Whoa! What was going on? My whole body felt prickly. I glanced down and noticed that my arms were all red, like a Niacin flush. It wasn't a hot flash. I've had those and certainly know how they feel. This was different. Gee, could it be one of those "pings" that the doctor had mentioned? I had kind of hoped they would be like little heavenly moments of love, peace, and inspiration. Uh, nope!
Instead I felt like I could bodyslam an entire Slovakian hockey team which might be a problem since I don't even know how to ice skate. That's not the point. I had ENERGY (and a bit of aggression) and I tucked those sheets under the mattress in no time flat. By the time the bed was made, the flushing was gone as was the prickly feeling. Hmmm, I could get used to "pings" like that. My doctor DID up my dose some on the Wellbutrin. I wonder if I might end up with a little bit of euphoria now and then when my body finishes making the transition from one drug to the other? I certainly wouldn't turn it down. In the meantime, don't get me anywhere near a hockey rink.
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