Tianeptine/Stablon in the UK...

If you can't be bothered with reading my backing story then skip the green bit.

After trying several SSRIs and an SNRI I realised that they were making me feel worse, more lethargic with a "**** it." attitude, normally this is a good thing for people who are suicidal or self harming or OCD but for me, i needed exactly the opposite of what these antidepressants seem to achieve, so i decided to try tianeptine, the only known SSRE. As expected, it is working quite well, I haven't been on it for long but I certainly feel more energetic than I was and whereas I always taken 1-2 naps per day I don't feel the need to take any now.

Problem is, this anti-depressant is not licensed on the NHS so I have to order it from the internet, which I would rather not do for various reasons such as possibility of receiving counterfeits, poor customer services (as is common with online pharmacies) and expensive cost, especially because of shipping costs.

So I am wondering if I can get this on private prescription instead? And how much that may end up costing...

Unless you have good private insurance that covers mental health well (and most private insurance in the UK doesn't) it would probably be substantially more expensive to get it privately prescribed. Private psychiatrists are often £100-350 per appointment, then if you don't have private insurance you'd be paying the full cost of the meds anyway.

My suggestion if you don't want to pay for Tianeptine is to try getting an NHS psychiatrist appointment and trying either Moclobemide or potentially trying Reboxetine or Nortriptyline/Lofepramine if your GP will prescribe either (GPs can normally prescribe Reboxetine and I've had Notrtiptyline prescribed before by a GP).

Serotonin meds made me apathetic like they did for you too, not a problem with the tricyclics (aside from Clomipramine) or Reboxetine.

I was very close to going to the GP and asking for reboxetine but didn't get round to it. I have requested moclobemide once before but been refused it (my GP had never even heard of it though), got some with my order today anyway so will be testing that out soon. That's another problem, GPs seem to be very reluctant to refer me to a psychiatrist because my depression is not severe. But it is treatment resistant with all the tools available to GPs so surely that should be reason enough for a referral. I've also managed to get my hands on wellbutrin XL for a fair price which I am looking forward to trying and works out cheaper than the tianeptine since I only have to take it once per day.

You can't really put a price on your mental health though I guess, if a drug not licensed on the NHS works for me better than anything on the NHS then I am prepared to spend the extra money.

What was your experience on reboxetine and nortriptyline by the way if you don't mind me asking? I've only ever heard of 1 review on nor-triptyline, and recall the person saying it was pleasant & activating, which seems quite strange considering it's the active metabolite of amitriptyline which makes me tired as hell and was actually prescribed amitriptyline as a sleeping aid a while ago so it's interesting that it seems to do the opposite of amitriptyline.

Please be aware that this drug's effectiveness may be from improving brain plasticity rather than from the SSRE effects originally assumed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine#cite_note-mp09-4
My mum's anxiety and depression has proved incurable with the drugs used in the UK and tianeptine appears to have a different mechanism. Where did you purchase Stablon and how much did it cost?

Please be aware that this drug's effectiveness may be from improving brain plasticity rather than from the SSRE effects originally assumed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianeptine#cite_note-mp09-4
My mum's anxiety and depression has proved incurable with the drugs used in the UK and tianeptine appears to have a different mechanism. Where did you purchase Stablon and how much did it cost?

Additionally, valproate and lithium especially are supposed to help plasticity. Although one theory at the moment is that all antidepressants affect this to a degree which is why they take a while to work.

Doesn't lithium make you gain weight though?