All posts by Darkmyroad

pharmacology

Depression and Grapefruit

6 Comments

Just say no to grapefruit

I remember when I first starting taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication that I was told I couldn’t eat grapefruit anymore. While this didn’t leave me suicidal, it certainly puzzled me then as it does now.

So in the interest of the depressed grapefruit lovers everywhere, here are a few articles that examine the issue:

Grapefruit and Drug Interactions

Grapefruit May Sabotage Meds

Grapefruit Juice and Medications: A Potential for Adverse Events

Basically grapefruit has a bad interaction with a drug metabolizing enzyme called the CYP 3A4 enzyme. It makes it so that effectiveness of certain medications is drastically reduced.

Why grapefruits and not other citrus? I don’t know. But apparently, depression and grapefruit don’t mix.

Bummer.

-DMR

depression, faith

Lent and Depression

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Lent

 

Lutherans often joke about how Lent is really their season. Self-denial, self-deprecation, and the like seems to go along well with some strands of Lutheranism, especially those of a more pietist strain. Self-denial, of course, is not pietism. But the way self-denial is practiced today more often resembles the pharisees and their inheritors, the pietists, than it does anything else. Continue reading Lent and Depression →

anxiety, depression, pharmacology

Coming Down (going off depression medication)

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Do Not Feed the Fear

So I have now been on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication for over two years. My current cocktail (zoloft/sertraline, welbutrin, and clonazapam) has been fairly steady for over a year. Things are going well for the most part, so I am starting to wean myself off of the medications.

The concept is both exciting and terrifying.

When I started taking all of this stuff, I was in a very desperate position. There were few options. It was medication or check myself into a hospital. I’m glad that I made the decision to go on this medication, as it has allowed me to live and regain some semblance of normalcy.

Having said that, there is no doubt that you also lose something by taking anti-depressants and anxiety medication. The lows aren’t nearly as low, but the highs aren’t as high, either. The anxiety medication makes it so that I don’t feel claustrophobic, but it also just makes you a little dulled to the world around you. I feel like I have been tired for two years, and that I don’t even remember what it is like to be fully awake.

I am excited to start the process of going off of them, but I’m also scared. They have served as a safety net for a long time. They are one of the earthly causes to my ongoing healing. I don’t want to go off of them, because I don’t want to go back to where I was. But I don’t want to stay where I am, either.

So there is the dilemma. I can’t stay where I am, but I can’t go forward either.

Well, actually I can. By the mercy of God, I can start this process of going off medication. The absolute worst thing that happens is that I go back it/them for a time. I am baptized. My inheritance is sure, and my future is as certain as Jesus’ death and His words, “for you”.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

-DMR