So for somewhere around a year now, I've been taking Remeron for my depression. It seemed to work for a while, but now I'm just not getting much "lift" from it. I'm getting sick of sleeping all the freakin' time, and I've gained a good amount of weight (I needed some weight, but I wanted to stop 7 pounds ago...). It has been good for my anxiety, which I'm scared to lose, but I just don't do anything but watch TV anymore. My motivation and energy have never been so low.

My doctor keeps wanting to up my dose (I'm on 60 mg now) but I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. I had mentioned before that I would like something available in generic, but she seems to have passed that over cause she said she'd like me to try Pristiq. My insurance has a much higher co-pay for non-generics and I'm financially scraping the bottom of the barrel as it is. I'm starting to have bad feelings like she's pushing this drug for reasons that don't have my interests at heart. Is there any good reason why I should be willing to shell out the extra cash for Pristiq?

Commented on pristic on another thread, Pristiq is a metabolite of effexor. Effexor metabolizes into pristiq in the body. Supposedly taking the effexor out of the equation and just using the metabolite lowers the chance of side effects and a lower dosage. Personally, I dont really see a good reason to not try the effexor first. If it doesnt work you can just switch. Zoloft and Celexa are also available generic if you wanted to try the ssri route.

Ugh...so I talked to my doctor today and she seemed irritated that I wanted to try Effexor instead, but she wrote me the prescription anyway. Now that i've been to the pharmacy and back twice I find out Effexor, while available generic, is not on my "preferred" drug list (even though the internet thingy through my insurance said it was. Customer service on the phone says the internet is incorrect...) so it's just as expensive as Pristiq. And I didn't know about the thing from Wyeth that will help with your copay for Pristiq till now.

So now I have to call my doctor again, with my tail between my legs, and get what she intended in the first place. :( I think I'm more upset about this than I should be.

Just needed to vent that.

Thats pretty retarded. Some of these insurance companies are just whack. Anyway, I hope it works for you.

This post has been edited by maintainin: Jun 24 2009, 09:15 PM