cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/3731915

Over the past 2 decades I’ve been trying various medications to help me w/ my long running major depression & crippling ADHD. And none have seemed to work.

Recently, the doctor I’m working w/ nowadays suggested that she’s practically running out of options to offer me & that I should take a pharmacogenetics test to help her figure out what should she prescribe.

I took the (expensive) test and the results were eye-opening! The results came out a couple of weeks later w/ a detailed list of some few hundreds medications of various sorts (from pain killers to blood pressure control) along w/ their efficacy for my case. The physician’s version also included a list of suggestions and alternatives for each medicine.

In my particular case, it essentially indicated that any medication that I had tried before was supposed to be either useless or to have limited impact on my body. That part is true.

Please note that I’ve only started a new set of prescriptions since a couple of weeks ago and as such can’t really vouch for the accuracy of the suggestions.

I struggled a lot w/ myself to post something this personal. But I thought maybe there are people out there who’ve got no idea such tests exist and it might turn out to be helpful to some.

  • reedbend@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    A few years back during a grueling med search I pestered my shrink for a CYP2D6 genetic test and sure enough I’m a non-metabolizer … it’s played into a number of med decisions since then.

  • reedbend@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Thank you for posting something this personal. These communities (as a former reddit user) have been incredibly helpful to me thru stories just like this. If we can get them self-sustaining on Lemmy they will help a lot of others.

    Back to topic, I’ve not done an extensive pharmacogenetic test, but I did take one to confirm that I’m a CYP2D6 poor metabolizer, which has a huge effect on function of something like 25% of all drugs in existence! It’s definitely informed my treatment since getting that information.

    Edit: haha, speaking of ADHD I left a shorter version of this comment 2 months ago. the more the merrier…