The Forums › Forums › Tools, Techniques & Treatments › Medication › Mixing Prozac with ADHD meds: Watch it! › Reply To: Mixing Prozac with ADHD meds: Watch it!
I have seasonal affective disorder as well as ADHD, and took Paxil (a SSRI) for the depression last winter. It helped amazingly then, but I was not on any other meds at the time. This year I am taking Vyvanse, and tried Paxil again briefly, but it just made me feel sick. I learned too then about the liver enzymes, and potentially causing toxic accumulation of the medications. Instead, now I am using just a light therapy lamp, and it is working amazingly well. I used to think that it wouldn’t work for me, but honestly I never gave it a really good shot, I’d just use it “sometimes”. Now I have found that as long as I use it daily for 30 minutes to an hour, with the light shining down on my eyes from above (this is important), it works. If I even miss a day or two of doing it though, I definitely notice the depression coming on… I realize this won’t work with all kinds of depression, but I’d definitely recommend it for SAD, and it may possibly help with some others. When the light is shining at just the right angle into my eyes, I can actually feel the serotonin releasing now.
Just a note though, if you have bipolar disorder, make sure you ask your doctor first, as it can trigger manic episodes (though some studies have shown it can even successfully treat bipolar depression safely if used later in the day – using it first thing in the morning is more risky).
There is also a study being done right now at the hospital where I work, where light therapy is being used successfully to treat fatigue in cancer patients 🙂
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