Tuesday, October 20, 2009
I'm 52 and have been living with depression in some form since I was 24. I have been managing the illness with meds and therapy, but mostly I've grown to accept it as part of me. I have to take good care of myself, which I try to do even though I've been trying to lose the same 20lbs since nursing school 10 yrs ago. I'm married and working as a staff psychiatric RN and consider myself pretty lucky. I come from a family that's genetically loaded for depression on my mother's side. I know a lot about the illness but not everything. I'm always interested in new treatments.-
Hi, Stephen - welcome to our site! Many of us have been living with depression for a long time, so you have good company. It sounds like you have it managed pretty well, which is proof that therapy and medication CAN be helpful. Feel free to read various posts here, as well as comments to them and let us know if there's anything in particular you're interested in, or come here any time for support. There are a lot of good people on this site.
Hope to hear from you again!
Stephen, here's a link to our Sexual Health web site where you might find some answers - it's a very common problem. Have you talked to your doctor about it? He might have some suggestions. I don't know what all medications you've tried, but I know that Wellbutrin does not have that side effect; however, that may not be the right medication for you. Anyway, you can ask a question or write a post there and see what responses you get, or look up the various topics they have information on.
Good luck, hope you find the solution. It seems cruel that so many drugs have that side effect, doesn't it?
Thanks Judy! I'll check that out. I take a real "chemical cocktail" which took a long time to find and all together it's quite a bit of medicine, but I think effexor is the main libido killer. I'll check out the link and thanks again Stephen