For my depression I take what I consider a lot of medication. Ask anyone that's been there and they will tell you that it takes anywhere between 4-6 weeks for any medication to start working. That is a long time to have to suffer and in my experience sometimes the effects of taking the medicine in the early stages is worse than the depression itself. This is why so many people quit taking it.
It's sort of like this: you feel like hell, you take medicine that makes you feel like some kind of super-hell for 6 weeks, then you start to feel better. Man, that sounds pretty bad. I don't know how I ever did it. All of this and it gets worse.
I work in the pharmaceutical field. My understanding of generic drugs is that the active ingredient has to be the same in order for the FDA to let you sell in the US. Everything else in the medication is just frosting and doesn't affect the person taking it. It's stuff that helps the drug get into the system. It can effect how long or fast a medication gets into the bloodstream. And this is where the problems are.
The 6 weeks that it takes for antidepressants to work it's way out is so that the amount of medicine in your bloodstream can even out. A constant amount of drug in your system at all times. So if you switch to a generic medicine (or switch generic makers) the amount of medicine in your system gets all messed up due to the fact that the time the drug gets in your bloodstream is different.
Then you have to start the 4-6 weeks of super-hell all over again. This is where I am today.
My pharmacy seems to get a different manufacturer ever other month. One generic maker works pretty good for me. The other not so much. I had my doctor put on the prescription that the first manufacturer was best, then two weeks ago the pharmacy said they had to call my doctor. I guess it was so that they could give me the other one again.
I guess I need to find a pharmacy that only buys one generic medicine.
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