Hello everyone,

I have recently been formally diagnosed w/depression. My doctor started me on Lexipro. Bumped recently to 20MG a day. I use Kratom Daily 3-7G rather than drinking caffeine/sugar. And I smoke  cigarettes, about 5-8 per day. Usually in the evenings. 

I am 35, weigh normally about 165lbs and I’m 6’3”. I have two kids and I’m self employed. For the last 3-4 years since my youngest was born, (Ivy 4yrs) Ive had added stress and or anxiety, but always denied to myself I had any excuse to feel this way. I feel my life could be much worse, so didn’t understand why I could be suffering from any form of anxiety or depression… Yet it’s gotten so bad this year, and for about the last 90 days I’ve almost stopped eating food entirely. 

For some reason, my stomach feels so tightly bound and knotted, that I can’t stand the idea of forcing food into it. I don’t feel nauseous so much as just the pain/discomfort that my stomach is in knots to the point that I hold my stomach and shake my legs or feet erratically in an attempt to bring some mild form of comfort to myself. 

For awhile now, I started to eat an edible THC (20MG) gummy sometimes after we put the kids to bed, due to the supposed munchies side effects, and then I can sit down and eat a small meal. Something like a couple soft tacos or a half a chicken sub or bowl of cereal… this has been short lived and the THC doesn’t seem to be helping anymore. So lately, I don’t eat hardly anything… maybe a single grilled cheese and glass of juice, but otherwise nothing.

In summary, for at least 90 days now, I eat absolutely nothing from morning till after the kids are bedded around 830pm. This huge decline has gotten much worse partly due to stresses of life and some health issues my fiancé had, but mostly my stomach tension has increased w/the addition and increase of Lexipro.

Lexipro has not cause my eating stress anxiety issue, but seems to have amplified it. I don’t feel I can go on much longer w/out finding some form of relief that calms my nerves and gut enough to be able to eat. I love food. I enjoi eating before. So this has been an increasing and now debilitating problem for me to eat for a few years now.

My question or request, is how or what medication did you find calmed your anxiety and allowed or even encouraged you to eat?

I feel like I’m slowly killing myself and I have been pretty broken up and even drinking alcohol at times to calm my nerves enough to eat but the drinking isn’t healthy obviously, and I fear the lexipro is treating my serotonin, but not calming my anxiety and gut tension effectively worsening my mental health, anxiety and depression. 

Please help.