Hi all,
I’ve been doing some diary tracking over the past four years and the only two things that are consistent are that my hormonal cycle has a 1 to 1 correlation with the most severe vertigo attacks AND secondly when I’m on an SSRI I have the least symptoms of daily dizziness and disequalibrium/bad balance.
I have also discovered that it takes about 8 weeks to improve on the SSRi and even then it is slow and gradual and subtle - which is why I’ve not made the connection previously. I also continue to have the occasional hormonal attack even on the ssri and for this reason I have not really considered them effective enough to stay on them past 6 months.
But looking back I am definitely better on them than off them.
I have tried Lexapro and I think I had the best result on that - but I don’t like some of the side effects of feeling a bit “not myself” and like life is a bit “beige”. Tried Lovan (prozac) more recently and found that I probably wasn’t quite as good as I was on lexapro but the overall feeling of being on it was better - I felt more myself. I have been on the standard low dose of lexapro 10mg and lovan 20mg at each time.
I have also been pursing some of the serotinin/ibs/food intolerance/vertigo links. This post in particular viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4226&start=15#p34838
I found taking lovan that my sensitivity to fructose/Fuctan foods and lactose decreased a LOT …90%!!. which also contributed to my general sense of well-being. But I didn’t have this result with food while on the lexapro (which is a more highly selective SSRI)
So I am now accepting that my best bet may be longterm SSRI meds - so which one???
I’d be grateful for input from people on their experiences of long term use, dosages, and side effects, (weight gain, sexual dsyfunction, and general personality stuff).
I took prozac for anxiety for about 10 years and don’t have any long-term side effects that I know of. I stopped it and then a few months later got mav- now i can’t tolerate it or any ssris which sucks bc i need them more now then ever. On 20 mg of prozac i gained a little weight but i was able to lose it through diet and exercise. On 40 mg forget it- I gained 10 lbs that I couldnt lose until I went off the drug. For me it was worth it for the anxiety help and if it helped with mav then of course i would take it. It did give me other side effect which I forget except I had constant ringing in my ears. It wasn’t that loud and it really didnt bother me too much it was still worth it to take the drug. Even after 10 years on it, when i went off it the ringing stopped. I had actually been on it for so long that I didnt realize the ringing that I had wasnt normal, I thought that was just the way things were supposed to be! As far as personality I did feel like myself but WAY more positive almost too positiive it was like a fake type of happy. But I will take that over being a total mess.
I also think it might have affected my decision making a little, its like it made me over confident or something??? I dont know how to describe it but I feel like I was more reckless on it maybe because of the inflated mood??? In that respect yea maybe it did change my personality and I definitely made some decisions I shouldn’t have although part of that is just being young and stupid!
Thanks so much for your thoughtful and honest reply. I really appreciate your insights. Did you have MAV before you were on prozac? and what are you taking now?
no mav started for me at age 27, i actually started prozac at 17. right now i am only on nortriptyline- this helps with some of my dizziness but unfortuntately has no effect on my mood. I tried another tryclic clomipramine which i was also able to tolerate but again no effect on mood. ssris are key for me but prozac, lexapro, and zoloft were all disasters for me with mav, i only lasted a month at most with them. good luck and i hope you find one that helps you!!!
I took prozac for anxiety for about 10 years and don’t have any long-term side effects that I know of. I stopped it and then a few months later got mav- now i can’t tolerate it or any ssris which sucks bc i need them more now then ever. On 20 mg of prozac i gained a little weight but i was able to lose it through diet and exercise. On 40 mg forget it- I gained 10 lbs that I couldnt lose until I went off the drug. For me it was worth it for the anxiety help and if it helped with mav then of course i would take it. It did give me other side effect which I forget except I had constant ringing in my ears. It wasn’t that loud and it really didnt bother me too much it was still worth it to take the drug. Even after 10 years on it, when i went off it the ringing stopped. I had actually been on it for so long that I didnt realize the ringing that I had wasnt normal, I thought that was just the way things were supposed to be! As far as personality I did feel like myself but WAY more positive almost too positiive it was like a fake type of happy. But I will take that over being a total mess.
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That’s strange - I was on high doses of sertraline for 8.5 years since I was 18 and diagnosed with MAV a year after I discontinued. I did have vestibular neuritis while I was on it which then seemingly activated my MAV.
However I do sometimes wonder if MAV was always more my problem rather than the anxiety and depression I was diagnosed with.
I also tried to start taking it again but it made me a lot worse. I stopped them because of side effects (involuntary teeth grinding and… ahem… shall we say other common ssri side effects). I also developed tinnitus on them which improved when I stopped but.never fully went away.
Hi Dizzyhell,
are you thinking about a link between SSRI discontinuation as a precursor to MAV??? or did you develop MAV symptoms (the vertigo in particular) prior to discontinuing the sertraline?
Hi Dizzyhell,
are you thinking about a link between SSRI discontinuation as a precursor to MAV??? or did you develop MAV symptoms (the vertigo in particular) prior to discontinuing the sertraline?
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I suppose it’s possible. It’s also possible it helped keep my symptoms under control without me knowing it.
I had probable vestibular neuritis while I was on ssris in Jan 11. I’d 90% compensated by the start of 2012. I came off my ssris mid 2012. In Feb 2013 I had nasal surgery which decompensated me. I had vrt and my balance is now okish, but the dizziness is still present because of MAV.
I think the Vn followed by surgery two years later were the main factors, but I had tough withdrawal from the Ssris. I think my discontinuation - after being on them so long - may have been a factor - albeit not a deciding one. The migraine brain likes everything kept the same, after all. I think I just put my body through too much in a short space of time. I re-started and quit smoking a couple of times during this period as well!
tangled,
Two things worth mentioning, just in case you weren’t already aware. Estrogen and serotonin do their little dance, and when estrogen drops, so does serotonin…hence PMS for us unlucky ones. Also, 90% of serotonin receptors are in the gut, so many gastro issues will be affected by MAV, SSRI’s, and life/mood/stress as well…
With that being said, it’s really trial and error. For some people, one SSRI is a nightmare (right Scott?) and another might suit just fine. For myself, I found the SNRI Cymbalta (another SNRI is Effexor) to work, whereas Lexapro was making me really uneasy. It is so subjective, but there are some things that are more commonly experienced, and you can try to gauge off of that…but again, as they say in the med world YMMV (your mileage may vary).
Oh, and Lexapro has been noted to have the potency of at LEAST twice that of Celexa (for instance, 10mg Lex=20mgCelexa)…some docs even go up as high as 4X the strength, but there’s no test to prove it…
Good luck on the search for the Holy Grail!
Hugs,
Kelley