Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Lexapro --> Pristiq

I had a very scary medical incident last week. On Thursday afternoon, I experienced a blinding white headache and I thought I was going to die. Seriously, it was that bad. I was thinking aneurysm or stroke. After contemplating a trip to the ER, I decided to hold on and see if it would pass. The headache finally subsided to tolerable about 2 hours later after I took a couple of Ibuprofen.

Because of this, I made an emergency appointment with my doctor on Friday. It gave me the opportunity to get off of the Lexapro, too. I've felt lousy since I started it and I was falling into an emotional hole. I'm weaning off the Lexapro now and starting Pristiq which was described to me as a "cleaner version of Paxil." Paxil had worked for me but, if you'll recall, I was experiencing some intolerable side-effects when my dosage was upped to 20 mg to overcome stress stomach aches. It has been 5 days and so far so good.

I had an MRI on my brain yesterday and I'm not sure when I'll hear from the doctor about the results. I'm fearful of what it might show.

4 comments:

more cowbell said...

Sounds like Frozen Brain! Or Economy Induced Migraine. Good thoughts, G...

michael sean morris said...

Hopefully it'll just be a drug side-effect...

Breenlantern said...

Keep us posted, G. You're in our thoughts.

Anonymous said...

Maybe that head-pounder was an allergic reaction to something -- let us know if everything is okay.

I don't think creatives do well on Lexapro -- glad to hear you found an alternative. I'm sure some of that springtime sunshine will help too -- I know you NYers get all giddy about this time.

mary