DOSE:

50 mg

oral

Pharms - Doxepin

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

An experience with doxepin psychosis

I cannot remember the exact dose, but I think it was 50mgs.

I have bipolar, ptsd, ocd, and am slightly on the autism scale. Medications used to have very strange effects on me in my teenage years, and some still do now. For example, gabapentin and pregabalin both caused hypomania in me as a teen; although now as I am older they behave as they should (I suspect it was because I was more of a rapid-cycling bipolar as a teen). I am on pregabalin currently, along with baclofen (for benzo addiction and some pain issues), clonidine, seroquel XR, and the occasional dissolvable olanzapine (called zyprexa zytis).

So I guess this experience happened in 2019 (according to the messages I sent on fb) so I had just turned 22. I thought it was longer ago but I think I had tried it one other time as a teenager and had a similar experience. My doctor had just removed my benzos scripts because I was very addicted to them, and said I should try doxepin instead. (Eventually I went back to benzos, and then completely discontinued them in april of 2020).

I was very hesitant because the only other time I tried it, I remember having very strange thoughts, bordering the realm of psychosis. And no help for sleep. Just a very weird feeling like I was off in another world.

Another strange thing is that trazodone, another tricyclic antidepressant, did similar things. Didnt do anything for sleep, dried me out, and put me in a weird depressed mind state. My body does not react well to tricyclic antidepressant! Bipolar+antidepressants (especially tricyclics) do not mix!

But, I had no other options for sleep at the time so I said screw it I'll try it again, maybe it wont be bad.

WELL, it was horrible. The exact same problem I had the first time I tried it happened, I felt like I took 700mgs of dph (and yes, I have done a dose of dph that high once just out of curiosity, never again). I remember my vision would strobe really bad, and my conscious mind started to drift far, far away. After an hour I was completely out to lunch and psychotic, trying to text one of my friends became impossible. The texts looked like this (with added commentary in parentheses):

"Bear with me I'm major side effect"
"Just. .emea"
"Rely not"
"I think you're tying to scote" (lol)
"Cause you dknt want to talk to one of your best friend"
"I did the same thong" (best one)

I dont know when I went to sleep, but I think I was up pretty late. Didnt help at all for sleep, didnt remember sending any of the texts until her mom contacted my mom and said I was saying shit that didnt make sense... I hate tricyclic antidepressants. They never make me sleep and always mess up my mood. I think they should have more of a warning with those older antidepressant if you're bipolar. Extremely unpleasant. Seroquel XR works great for my sleep now.

Exp Year: 2019	ExpID: 114850
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Oct 17, 2020	Views: 2,100
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Pharms - Doxepin (204) : Difficult Experiences (5), Depression (15), Health Problems (27), Alone (16)