My personal opinion is that it's a bad idea to take any antidepressants, or medications for anything for that matter. This is from my experience of it taking 15 years to properly and slowly wean myself off them, and get my body back into balance. Bad, bad idea. But I'm not a doctor.
"Tried But Failed" -- fantastic that you filed an adverse event report, the more people do this the better. I hope it helps reassure you somewhat to hear that 4 months after my last (and final) Botox treatment I can feel the psychological effects beginning to wear off. When I say "psychological" I simply mean with regard to the psyche, not that they are in the mind -- they are not, I know, I've been there, and I've had Doctor's give me the same line of BS. At the same time as I feel the awful side effects lifting, I can see the lines reappearing in my forehead... I never thought I would be so glad to see them. A couple of things have helped me -- 1) P5P, a coenzymatic form of B6 that for some people helps with mood, anxiety and insomnia -- I was able to stop taking Ativan and Sleeping Pills, and take P5P instead... and 2) an intensive fast with daily colonics under the care of a Naturopathic Doctor -- I felt this removed a lot of toxicity from my system. Stay well, and hang in there.
It took me 6 years of getting Botox to realize that every time within 12 hours, I experienced sudden and severe insomnia, extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and a rapid slide into depression. I have always been very even keel, not terribly moody, and sleep like a champ, so the difference is drastic and obvious, and certainly not psychological. Suspecting the connection, I began to keep "mood charts" over the last 2 years, documenting what happened to me after having Botox. The link is absolute and very clear -- it's the Botox that is causing the problems. If you search message boards, MANY other people have experienced exactly the same thing. Doctors and Clinicians deny such "side effects" are common, even real, and yet they are being widely reported all over the internet. The problem is, because we do not expect such a response to Botox, we do not directly connect the reaction. It has quite devastated my life -- leading to a misdiagnosis from a Psychiatrist, and eventually taking 5 dangerous mind-altering medications to "treat" the misdiagnosis. Of course, my "mental illness" strangely went away every time the Botox wore off, but try explaining that to a Psychiatrist! Once I realized what was really going on, I weaned myself successfully off all medications working with a Naturopathic Doctor, and a Nutritional Psychiatrist (yes, they exist!) -- and of course I stopped having Botox. I think it will be years before the true effects of Botox become apparent. I wonder if there is any link between the drastic increase in RXs for sleeping pills, anti-anxiety meds and antidepressants in the last 10 years -- and the advent of Botox during the same period. It's hard to know -- because these side effects are not disclosed by the manufacturer of Botox -- so Doctors don't know to expect or look for them. They automatically dismiss them as probably psychological, when clearly they are not. I think the key problem is people probably don't realize Botox is doing this to them, because a) they don't expect it, and b) they want to focus on the positive outcome of Botox. Until more people speak up -- and file "adverse event" reports with the FDA as I did -- nothing will change. You can file an "adverse event" report here: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm
It took me 6 years of getting Botox to realize that every time within 12 hours, I experienced sudden and severe insomnia, extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and a rapid slide into depression. I have always been very even keel, not terribly moody, and sleep like a champ, so the difference is drastic and obvious, and certainly not psychological. Suspecting the connection, I began to keep "mood charts" over the last 2 years, documenting what happened to me after having Botox. The link is absolute and very clear -- it's the Botox that is causing the problems.
If you search message boards, MANY other people have experienced exactly the same thing. Doctors and Clinicians deny such "side effects" are common, even real, and yet they are being widely reported all over the internet. The problem is, because we do not expect such a response to Botox, we do not directly connect the reaction.
It has quite devastated my life -- leading to a misdiagnosis from a Psychiatrist, and eventually taking 5 dangerous mind-altering medications to "treat" the misdiagnosis. Of course, my "mental illness" strangely went away every time the Botox wore off, but try explaining that to a Psychiatrist! Once I realized what was really going on, I weaned myself successfully off all medications working with a Naturopathic Doctor, and a Nutritional Psychiatrist (yes, they exist!) -- and of course I stopped having Botox.
I think it will be years before the true effects of Botox become apparent. I wonder if there is any link between the drastic increase in RXs for sleeping pills, anti-anxiety meds and antidepressants in the last 10 years -- and the advent of Botox during the same period. It's hard to know -- because these side effects are not disclosed by the manufacturer of Botox -- so Doctors don't know to expect or look for them. They automatically dismiss them as probably psychological, when clearly they are not. I think the key problem is people probably don't realize Botox is doing this to them, because a) they don't expect it, and b) they want to focus on the positive outcome of Botox.
Until more people speak up -- and file "adverse event" reports with the FDA as I did -- nothing will change. You can file an "adverse event" report here: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm
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