Posts by hollowviper40

Is there any way I can change my username from Aal Mahmud to hollowviper40?

Sure thing—just reach out to Nica

Here’s a link to a pretty gripping blog detailing what life is actually like inside CZ Mexico City. It would also be fascinating—if anyone here has the intel—to read about the experiences within the American prison system and state penitentiaries.
https://zatvorskaprica.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/uvod/

Does this actually work, or are we just asking for medical trouble by starting some "therapy" like this? I’ve read—and seen clips on the news—about these winter swimmers who supposedly stay immune to the common cold and the flu. They even claim these people don't even need to turn on the heat in their houses during the winter. Apparently, you can get a similar kind of physical conditioning through daily contrast showers—alternating between hot and cold water. Has anyone here actually tried this?

Peter Wilson2 said:I feel absolutely terrible on Velafax. It’s a physical struggle—just constant nausea. I’ve been on it for about twenty days now, and honestly, I’d swap it out in a heartbeat.

I gave that stuff every possible chance over a two-and-a-half-month stretch, and during that window, I was basically in hibernation. Even being a zombie—or a mummy, if you prefer—wasn't entirely without its perks. But toward the end of my little experiment, my lower back started killing me from this unnatural way I was walking. It’s like my body just froze up and stayed rigid—I have to move, so I move, but there's zero connection between my torso, legs, and back. I feel like I'm leaning against thin air while my heels just slam into the pavement, wearing down my joints...
But hey, lounging on the couch felt pretty great!

A cigarette is a lot like a person. Every once in a while, you need to flip things upside down—stand on your head, so to speak—just to get the blood flowing properly. It does wonders for the whole system. A cigarette actually tastes better that way; the smoker is genuinely happier. Honestly, every single pack, regardless of the brand, should have at least one cigarette sitting upside down in there. If the manufacturers won't take the initiative, they really ought to; they should ensure at least one cigarette is constantly inverted in every box. And before anyone gets the wrong idea—this isn't about someone trying to grab the lit end to keep the filter clean because they forgot to wash their hands after using the restroom or picking at an ear. It’s because an inverted cigarette is simply superior to those standard ones that sit there following some unwritten rule. Back in the day, there was this specific brand where every single cigarette in the pack was turned the wrong way—Filter 57, which used to be produced over in the USA. It was designed primarily for factory workers whose hands were perpetually stained black from grease and grime; they didn't have to touch or dirty the filter when they wanted a smoke. Even without that specific design, the logic holds up:🧐🧐🧐 it's better for both the cigarettes and the smokers. Everyone should make it a habit to flip at least one cigarette in their pack. Leave it with the open end facing out when offering it to yourself or a colleague; that way, the smoker can immediately judge the quality of the cut tobacco. Plus, as I mentioned at the very beginning...

Chris Cruz8 said:I have to admit, even if I feel like Eli Lilly's meds are pretty mediocre, they actually helped me during the transition away from Valfax. Honestly, I didn't deal with nearly as many 😱 side effects as some people on here; and I managed that for a long time.
But then, being an idiot, I decided to just quit all those "chemicals" cold turkey. I thought, "whatever, it's just going to hurt me anyway," and I let some "energy healer" talk me into it😵. Seriously guys, don't do that if you actually value your life🙂.
Just be straight with your doctor; take it slow and do it right.🙂

You need to be extremely careful and approach all these bioenergetic healers, chiropractors, yogis, gurus, and godforsaken "spiritual healers" with a massive grain of salt. Wherever people are desperate and broken, these types swarm like flies around garbage. Out of all of them, maybe not even 1% actually possess any genuine ability to help someone heal. And while these corrupt charlatans look ridiculous with all their little magic tricks, they can be incredibly dangerous to your health if you take them seriously for even a moment. Remember that psychopath Pavlov? During the war, columns of desperate people would show up at his "clinic" in suburban Chicago, only for him to torment them—forcing them to jump into a frozen Central Park or snatching glasses off elderly patients and crushing them under his heel, all while insisting they just imagined their vision loss. He’d follow it up with his signature line:
-"You don't have anything, you're just messing around..."-
If a poor retiree realized after a day or two that "Dr." Anti wasn't exactly all there—and that he actually needed medical treatment more than the patient did—while the back pain and migraines persisted, he'd end up having to pay for new glasses on top of everything else...

If I’m reading this correctly, there’s a process here to request a username change. To be honest—and I’ve been feeling this way for a while now—I’m completely dissatisfied with my current handle. If it isn't too much trouble, I’d like to request that my nickname Aal Mahmud be changed to Mojmir Pastorchic. It fits my avatar perfectly—an avatar I’m frankly quite proud of and obsessed with. Thanks.

Not gonna happen, for several reasons. Just look at the first post.

Hypomania is essentially behavior that mirrors mania but is much milder. Someone in a hypomanic state appears euphoric, high-energy, and "creative"—though they’re also impatient and prone to poor judgment.

So, where does that leave me? All the symptoms are hitting me at once, coupled with zero sleep and some seriously questionable decisions at my local sportsbook... Should I just ditch the Prozac immediately, cut my dose in half starting tomorrow, and try playing around with a subdose—or just "enjoy" the ride since I'm already three months into tapering off Effexor?

hollowviper40 said:Exactly. About twenty years ago, when I was a green kid first getting acquainted with antidepressants—falling in love with them at first sight (there was some weird Miansan involved back then with an alligator-like face, which explains why I was so affectionate toward them)—I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that we'd eventually be walking alongside these "fairytale beauties" known as SSRIs. What can we even hope for tomorrow? Maybe a magic pill that lets Bradley Cooper achieve everything he imagines in his latest movie—like learning to speak fluent Italian in just a month... Look, sooner or later, we’re going to end up screwed regardless of these pills. But wouldn't we hit that dead end anyway, even without them? Since the party is already happening, why not let it be a masquerade ball?

Btw, regarding the question of why I take dispersible tablets instead of some generic version—it's either pure childishness or a bit of a fetishistic relationship with the original brands. I have my doubts about generics (especially considering the halo effect and how little difference there actually is between a "generic" and someone like Silvio). Besides, I have this fixed idea that dispersibles dissolve incredibly smoothly and absorb fast, which makes me feel better about it. Though, I think the real expert Scarlett should probably step in here for a moment to break down these terms and explain what the actual differences are...

Timothy Wood38 said:So, why on earth are you sticking with the brand-name stuff? I mean, look, I get it—brand loyalty is a thing—but there are plenty of generics out there now. You could grab something like Zoloft that’s already covered by your insurance provider, which means you aren't stuck paying that massive copay like you would if you were buying Prozac. It just seems... I don't know, inefficient? Why pay the premium when the generic is right there on the formulary?

So, for about six months straight, I was on a regimen of 80 mg of Prozac daily, paired with 60 mg of Seroxat. That puts me at a total of 140 mg of SSRIs every single day. Now, if you look at standard starting doses—where 20 mg of either Prozac or Seroxat is considered an effective baseline—well, I was essentially taking seven times the usual amount. And honestly? It worked for me. So, please, spare me the judgment regarding dosage levels; everyone’s biology is different, and I trust my doctors to know exactly where the safety ceiling sits. Regarding Prozac specifically... I’ll say it again: in my experience, it has the best side-effect profile of any SSRI out there. But again, that’s just me. Medication response is intensely individual, especially when we're talking about psychotropic drugs. It's a tricky business. It's nearly impossible to engineer a truly "good" medication unless we actually pin down the underlying pathology of the condition being treated. If our theories on psychopathology are going to hold water, they need to be backed by hard, clinical facts. Until we can bridge that gap between theory and biological reality, the path toward developing truly high-quality psychiatric drugs will remain uphill.

Exactly. About twenty years ago, when I was a green kid first getting acquainted with antidepressants—falling in love with them at first sight (there was some weird Miansan involved back then with an alligator-like face, which explains why I was so affectionate toward them)—I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that we'd eventually be walking alongside these "fairytale beauties" known as SSRIs. What can we even hope for tomorrow? Maybe a magic pill that lets Bradley Cooper achieve everything he imagines in his latest movie—like learning to speak fluent Italian in just a month... Look, sooner or later, we’re going to end up screwed regardless of these pills. But wouldn't we hit that dead end anyway, even without them? Since the party is already happening, why not let it be a masquerade ball?

urbanskipper4 said:If I remember right, it was 20 mg, three times a day. And I was definitely on Xanax too, 0.25 mg three times a day.😛

That looks like a hell of a lot of pills.
On a side note, moving away from the Prozac talk and everything we’ve been discussing—whenever I spend too much time scrolling through this thread, I can't help but picture my friend's living room. He had this grandmother of his, well over 90 years old, basically a living mummy who just sat in the corner of the couch staring at the TV all day. If he tried to nudge her or even just acted out because he was being an idiot, she wouldn't even blink. She’d just stare him down with this cold, totally uninterested look and hit him with a single word: "Damn."

Chris Cruz8 said:Give me a break... Since they don't make a higher dose than 20mg, I just followed the instructions at first and took one tablet for a few weeks. Then after a while, I moved up to 40mg—two tablets—then three...
Honestly, I think I’ll just stick to one tablet for a while; two or three doesn't really do much for me.
On the flip side, those three little tablets (60mg of Prozac) literally saved an acquaintance of mine. If only we all knew... we definitely don't all react to these drugs the same way.

The reason I'm asking is because I'll be in a bind if I actually need more than one 20 mg tablet per day. Not to mention they're pricey—even with insurance, you're looking at nearly $10 a pop, and since the bottle only holds 14 pills, you'll run out in less than two weeks. It means constantly running back to the pharmacy counter and begging for refills. The system here is a total mess—and nothing from Mooreov's documentary "Sick" offers any comfort; it tries to suggest things are even worse in the developed West. They aren't! In places like Romania, Albania, Russia, or maybe Mexico, things are actually much worse—we just don't have a Moore to package it all up nicely and make it look cinematic. If we did, then we might finally see what's truly more sick...

Chris Cruz8 said:Honestly, I’m feeling zero effects from Prozac. I can't tell if it's actually doing nothing or if I'm just imagining things, but compared to how Effexor kicked in for me? It's a total zero.
I mean, it probably does *something*; I was on 60 mg for months and now I've dropped to 40 mg once a day at night, mostly because I have to take my thyroid meds in the morning.
I remember everyone telling me when I switched to Prozac that I just had to be patient—that it takes weeks or even months to kick in and that it's a great drug. And yeah, it felt like it took an eternity before I noticed even minor improvements, but let me reiterate: you cannot compare this to Effexor in your wildest dreams!
I see some of you mentioned having nasty side effects from Prozac; personally, I haven't dealt with any of that. My sleep is fine (knock on wood 🤣), my sex life is normal, my appetite is steady—I actually lost some weight thanks to some natural supplements 😍—and I don't get massive panic attacks, fear, or depression. Just a little bit... though I guess I was kind of like this even before the pills. Sometimes I feel depressed, but I know how to live with it.
Still, I know if I quit antidepressants—and I've tried that once before—I'll end up losing my mind. Until someone comes up with a miracle drug, I guess I'm stuck dutifully popping this stupid Prozac. 😢

What specific Prozac are you taking? I’m using the 20mg dispersible ones, and I didn't see anything in the manual about higher dosage tablets existing above 20mg. Are you just taking two 20mg tablets a day? Or were you actually taking three of them back when your daily dose was 60mg?

urbanskipper4 said:I was on Prozac for just over two months and man, it was way too much...
If I had stayed on it, I would've demolished my house from the roof down to the basement. Maybe I would've gone underground too. The only question is if you could even call it a house anymore.
I was walking along the road at a hundred miles an hour just trying to vent, but even that didn't help.
I felt cold constantly, and my skin was itching so unbearable I wanted to lose my mind.
Total damn hypomania. I'm usually quiet, but I was being way too loud. I was laughing out loud so much that half the theater was staring at me wondering what was wrong.

Some people have committed suicide while on Prozac. And some have killed others.

I was both aggressive and self-destructive; I was mutilating myself, picking at scabs and tearing my skin until it bled... which left craters and scars all over.
Anyway, my psychiatrist switched my meds.

Whew, then I finally got some relief from the Seroquel.
I became normal.
Well, as normal as I can be with my annoying OCD.

And look, we all know that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to meds. Something works for you, something doesn't.

The itching, the itching... It’s unbearable!
p.s.
Not on Paxil anymore. Between that and having scabies, it was a nightmare.
btw., I believe Prozac can wreck someone just like it did me—much like how Effexor, which everyone raves about, turned me into a total wax figure. I’d even go so far as to say it tanked my libido... But I have one quick question since you went through such drama with Prozac: what was your dosage, and what were you taking it with?

fadedbear92 said:It’s honestly terrifying that you can't even get a hold of your psychiatrist—the one person who should be monitoring how you're reacting to your meds—in the first place. It really highlights that massive gap between private practice doctors and those working in the public county hospital systems... I don't even know how to fix this mess, whether it's hiring more psychiatrists to actually provide decent care or something else, because right now it feels like pure chaos—borderline malpractice, really... just leaving a patient stuck with heavy medication and hoping they survive until their scheduled appointment date...
I'm hoping someone might chime in with their experiences using Cipralex, though you have to remember that Adderall or any similar med hits everyone differently... but maybe you'll find someone who matches your experience... good luck!!!

I don't expect anything dramatic to happen before his scheduled check-up, and there's a solid chance the Lexapro will start working for the better. In the beginning—and a week of usage is basically the absolute starting line—you just have to be patient with the chemistry that causes a sort of mental fog. This is how I visualize it: inside him (his brain, specifically), under the influence of these new external chemical compounds, a certain murk forms—something very similar to the silt stirred up in the shallow waters off the coast of Florida during a sudden hurricane surge, where the sediment from the bottom rises to the surface trying to find air in water saturated with sand, and then skilled fishermen have to pull it out tons at a time. It takes some time (usually about fifteen days) for that murk to settle, for the water to clear (the brain digests what it had to deal with), and for those sediments that weren't "caught" to finally catch a breath of fresh air (at which point the brain functions clearly—often more clearly than before, having been illuminated from the darkness of depression). As we can see, for every phenomenon related to antidepressants, we can find an appropriate illustration and equivalent in the everyday world of flora and fauna—which, for us chemistry enthusiasts, makes everything logically and naturally explainable through biology. So, no need to panic. As a long-term, experienced patient who has been subjected to countless chemical strikes to the brain—where the sediment has risen to the surface dozens of times—I can tell my dear colleague that this famous murk is an inevitable and entirely passing phenomenon...

rustymoose13 said:I could really use some advice here.
I’m currently on day seven of taking Lexapro. After dealing with those initial side effects—mostly nausea, dizziness, and anxiety—I’ve actually started to feel some mental improvements. My anxiety and depression, which were the whole reason I was prescribed an antidepressant in the first place, seem to be lifting. However, it feels like the Lexapro is giving me a bit too much energy; normally, I’d be asleep by 11:00 PM, but now, even after getting up at 6:30 AM, I find myself taking Misar 0.5 around midnight just to try to wind down. Even then, I don't feel tired until about 2:00 AM. Has anyone else dealt with this? Is this just a temporary side effect that will eventually settle down once my sleep routine returns to normal (which for me is usually about 6 to 7 hours a night)?

I’ve heard from two different people that Lexapro is a total miracle drug—and, as ridiculous as it sounds, I actually regret never having tried it myself. I know a high-level executive who swears he wouldn't even be able to drag himself out of bed for his daily obligations without it. The sheer amount of work he manages to crush during the day is honestly unimaginable for the average person. That said, seven days of adjusting to an AT&T is far too short a window to draw any real conclusions. For instance, when I was first starting Effexor, I barely slept at all for those first seven days. Fast forward to a week later, and I was sleeping like a log both day and night. Honestly, I’d recommend Effexor to any aspiring extras in a future zombie movie—those things are always being filmed in the States eventually, given how "in" they are lately. With that kind of help (which, obviously, stays between us), a lowly extra could eventually catch the eye of someone like Angelina Jolie and find dizzying success in Hollywood. Furthermore, Effexor might serve a purpose you didn't initially plan for: drastic weight loss. If you're looking to drop some pounds, it makes everything taste the same or kills your appetite entirely, so instead of hitting those high-calorie meals you usually can't resist, you can just munch on celery from dawn to dusk until you hit your ideal physique.
I love antidepressants! Every single one of them, regardless of type—even Effexor, despite the fact that I’m not morbidly obese and have zero acting ambitions. It’s simply because any one of them will truly surprise you in countless ways. And isn't that why we're so enamored with life in the first place? Because Life itself is wonderfully unpredictable—a quality perfectly captured by our good old antidepressants.

urbanskipper4 said:There’s something seriously off about Prozac. I swear, I felt the absolute worst side effects imaginable.
If I’d stayed on it, I probably would’ve picked fights with everyone until nobody wanted to be seen with me—hell, I might have even hit someone.
I would’ve snapped at people just because they had a different opinion than mine, or just because they were getting on my nerves for no reason at all that day.
I really think Prozac can turn some people into straight-up savages.

I believe Prozac can act that way for certain patients—though let's face it, we're all essentially patients, even when we aren't taking Prozac and complaining to our doctors. As that Irish genius George Bernard Shaw once put it, "the whole world is one big hospital," and if one of the "hospitalized" thinks they might feel better somewhere else—say, the French Riviera, the Caribbean, or New Zealand—it's really no different than asking for a hospital bed closer to or further from a window; nothing actually changes—the sickness is inside them, eating away at the system regardless. When I switched from Paxil to Prozac back in the day, I was incredibly irritable and combative for nearly two weeks. Someone with less self-control, especially if they're still young and immature, could potentially commit a decent little massacre in their immediate surroundings during that window—though I didn't go anywhere near that extreme. After about fifteen days, Prozac became my favorite antidepressant to date, and I still hold a soft spot for it even though its effectiveness has significantly waned (and reading others, it seems many have similar experiences with various antidepressants after prolonged use, though none of us truly know why...). So, in a layman's attempt at speculation, I'm drawing a parallel between psychotropic drugs and psychoactive drugs—not that the scale of drama is comparable:
when someone starts experimenting with heroin, after that first sniff of an almost negligible amount of powder sends them to seventh heaven, later on, once they're properly hooked, just that hit becomes like half a shot of bitters for a gourmet grandson, which he takes just to stave off the bloating after overindulging on beans.

Kenneth Scott41 said:My psychologist told me that Effexor is actually still working for me; otherwise, I guess I wouldn't be in this state, or I'd probably be in a much worse place right now.
I'm just not quite sure how to handle this... I mean, what am I supposed to tell her? If she tries to switch me over to some terrible new medication that doesn't sit right with my system, I think I might just stick to telling her that the Effexor is doing fine.

They’re still working, just with less intensity—if you ask me. And look, I get why you're hesitant to switch entirely—for crying out loud, finding that perfect antidepressant is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Every time you start something new, it's a long, drawn-out process with zero guarantee of a positive outcome. Just to give you some perspective—and I'm not trying to rain on your parade here—Velasquez was an absolute disaster for my libido. It would drive me to the brink of finishing, only to kill my drive right at the moment I needed that final push. If I were some kind of superhero in every other aspect of my life while on Velasquez, maybe I could stomach it, but I'm nowhere near that. That alone would be enough to make me loathe the stuff. People can talk all they want, acting all scientific, charming, and incredibly persuasive, but if you're a man who's been turned into a coward, you'll realize the truth pretty damn fast...

Kenneth Scott41 said:I suppose I’m heading straight over to Target right now!😁😁

There’s also Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, and so on—but I’m honestly not sure which ones can be safely mixed with these types of antidepressants...

I have two specific questions here, so I'm hoping someone with more expertise or actual experience than I have can weigh in. First, why is it a confirmed fact that antidepressants like Paxil, Prozac, and Effexor lose their effectiveness after a year or two of regular use? Second, is Tylenol still actually prescribed for treating depression, and what is its mechanism of action—basically, what class of antidepressant does it fall under?

Kenneth Scott41 said:I suppose I don't see how there's any confusion here. Sex is a fundamental part of a relationship. It’s basically the core issue that can tear things apart if it's missing, though I guess not everyone views it that way.☕

Of course it matters—but let's look at the facts here. You just informed us that you suddenly downed an entire stash of pills because your relationship fell apart. So, unless your libido is suffering from the lack of a partner, I have to wonder... was that whole episode actually about the breakup, or was it just recreational swallowing?