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Local journalist's warning on
Prozac
03.03.08
A DERRY journalist has
bravely spoken of her personal experience of taking
Prozac following last week's controversial report
doubting the drug's effectiveness in treating
depression.
Claire Allan who is also a novelist, felt compelled
to speak out about her own illness fearing people
would come off their depression medication too
suddenly.
The 31-year old author sank into a depression four
years ago when her son Joseph was just six months
old. Claire had just returned from maternity leave
to her job as a reporter with the Derry Journal and
said "things started to unravel".
"Routines changed at work and I just lost the
ability to cope. It was - get the baby up, get him
home, get him into the bath and give him a bottle. I
didn't sit down until around 9pm and I was wiped
out. Exhausted," she said. |
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Claire tackles the
issue of depression in her first novel 'Rainy Days
and Tuesdays' which was published by Poolbeg last
year and which also features Inishowen in the
storyline. She was recently in Dublin doing
promotions for the paperback edition coming out this
week and spoke to the Independent about her battle
with depression four years ago.
"I was a professional career woman. I had always
achieved what I wanted to achieve. But now I was
half a working person, half a mummy and there was
nothing left for me. |
"It was a constant
battle working out who I was. One day I was having
lunch with a friend. I just sat there and cried. She
said 'I really think you should see someone'."
Claire said her doctor diagnosed depression and told
her to take a month off work and to rest. "She put
me on Prozac and said 'we need to get your mood up
quickly or it will get ten times worse'." Claire
said the drug helped her and within two to three
weeks, she "felt the cloud lift". "I got more energy
and I started to fall in love with my son. I felt
like a mummy should. Before, there had been no joy."
But after six months of feeling well, Claire came
off the Prozac without her doctor's guidance. "It
was horrendous. I felt worse than I had before. I
cried and cried and had suicidal thoughts. That is
why the report worries me," she said. She took
Prozac for a further six months in tandem with some
counselling. These days, she feels well. She has
taken Prozac since and says it does lift her mood
but doesn't work in isolation. "You have to change
your life too. But I have accepted that sometimes I
need it just as I would take insulin if I was a
diabetic."
Claire yesterday told InishowenNews.com that she is
looking forward to the publication of the second in
her four-book deal with Poolbeg - 'Blue Line Blues'
- due out in September.
If you have any concerns about depression, more
information can be found at
www.aware.ie
or
www.samaritans.org . |
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