I have depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance with low mood. How to elevate my mood?

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

Considering your other symptoms and other medicines, I would suggest you to take tablet Escitalopram 10 mg once at night after food and raise the dose of Mirtazapine to 7.5 mg at night. The current Mirtazapine dose you are taking is a very mild sedative dose only. It happens due to reduced levels of certain neurotransmitters such as serotonin which reduce the stress handling capacity of the brain. Medicines will help with your problem by correcting this chemical imbalance.

I hope this helps you.

Thank you.

Hello,

Welcome back to icliniq.com.

Clonazepam is to be reduced by 0.25 mg every three weeks. You can make four parts of this and stop taking one part every three weeks. Escitalopram 10 mg is the adult dose for depression and 5 mg is the pediatric dose. If you first reduce stepwise, it should not aggravate. And if it still does there are other medicines that can be tried instead of Clonazepam since it is more addictive habit-forming and will worsen your anxiety. No, it will not increase the morning drowsiness at all. You have to take night medicines about 1.5 to 2 hours before sleeping since it takes that much time to act. The action lasts for 8 hours or so. So if you take it at say 8 PM, then you will fall asleep by 10 and wake up by 6 or 7 AM. Just wait three weeks for the Escitalopram to take effect and then can think about something if the drowsiness and fatigue have not reduced.

I hope this helps.

Thank you.

Hello,

Welcome back to icliniq.com.

Using Clonazepam leads to dependence. That is why its effectiveness will reduce over time and it will also aggravate your mood disorder. Hence it is better to stop it. Also, more importantly, what time are you taking the night medicines? It is to be taken 2 hours before bedtime since they need some time to act. I would suggest you stop Escitalopram and instead switch to Venlafaxine 37.5 mg in the daytime since it will help reduce your sleepiness and to continue Mirtazepine 7.5 mg at night. Also additionally you can take Quetiapine 25 to 50 to 100 mg for helping you sleep instead of Clonazepam. Try first with 25 mg, then raise the dose as needed. It could be worthwhile to consider adding Lamotrigine 50 mg as a mood stabilizer since it will help with long-standing depression or dysthymia.

I hope this helps.

Thank you.

Hello,

Welcome back to icliniq.com.

Please continue the Venlafaxine 37.5 mg as it is. You can also take 75 mg if you wish after three weeks, as Venlafaxine is an activating medicine and will not cause drowsiness. The drowsiness is due to the other medicines (Clonazepam and Mirtazepine). I would suggest you take half a tablet of Clonazepam at night instead of the full tablet. Take Mirtazapine as it is for now. Make sure you take night medicines earlier, at least two hours before bedtime, as it takes a while for medicines to start showing effect. So taking early will also help with ending the effect the next day morning early and you will not feel that drowsy. After one month, I would like to stop Clonazepam, make Mirtazapine half a tablet (as it can cause weight gain), and raise the dose of Venlafaxine a little to 75 mg to compensate for the reduction of the other two medicines.

Please follow up if you have any other queries.

I hope this helps.

Thank you.