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I've been long time ago diagnosed with Borderline disorder but then they decided to make this less radical and now its only Anxiety/Depression disorder. Since year 1994 I have been prescribed benzodiazepines and was on them for 23 years. I managed to get off them over the period of 1,5 years some 5 years ago. It wasn't an easy one, some really horrible days were there to endure. I used dry cutting and microgram scale in my end game. From year 2013 I was prescribed Citalopram 20mg and Mirtazepine 30mg. They were introduced to help manage anxiety and help me sleep. I have successfully reduced both few years ago to half of that - Citalopram to 10mg and Mirtazepine to 15mg. Then furthermore, I decided to wean off Citalopram, so cca 1,5 years ago successfully reduced it to a quarter a day - 2.5 mg per day. Beginning of this spring I felt like I should progress further with Citalopram, but I was really lazy and underestimated possible withdrawal symptoms. I gradually over the course of 4-5 months started to space doses, so started to take 2.5mg each second day, then each third day etc, until recently each 5th day. You will probably say this was very naive approach because of the half life of the medicine - i might have this way continually discontinued it and re-introduced it every 5 days. On parallel with this, I started to have gastro issues for the first time in my life, for which I believe they are not because of withdrawal, although they coincide with it. I have for 2 months low grade fever, nausea and heartburn. I am scheduled for stomach endoscopy. On citalopram withdrawal side, my anxiety increased greatly, panic attacks were returned full force, ocd which I also suffer from started to be more noticeable, also headache and feeling dizzy / unsteady on my legs - almost difficult to walk. Of this panic attack and dizziness are more difficult to bear. I'm not able to battle on these two fronts at the same time, so I think I will just re-instantiate to 2.5mg a day, and once I'm back to normal, attempt to do a more proper taper. My GP (Ireland) approaches this in a very shallow way, she just tracks what I do but disregards these symptoms and only accepts headache as valid withdrawal symptom. At least she is not forcing upon me some unrealistic taper. I do not plan to do anything with Mirtazepine for a while, as I noticed I can't sleep without it. I also have underactive thyroid, which sometimes generates its own symptoms, but for now I am not on medications. Looking for any reflection or advice regarding my Citalopram experience.

Hello, I am new here. I had been on Escitalopram for many years until some life altering events happened Fall of 2021 and 1st 6 months of 2022 when I became severely depressed. I was crosstapered from Escitalopram to Mertazapine in June 2022, I have also taken zopliclone for sleep since about 2007 or 2009. The mertazapine has not worked well for me and doctor has me crosstapering from mertazapine to Escitalopram now. I went from 30mg Mert to 7.5 in 2 months (Dec 1 - Feb 1) and I am on 10mg of Escitalopram for about 10 days and 5mg for about 10 days before that (so 3 weeks). I had bad headaches start in November and trouble sleeping, that was before I started tapering or adding in the Esc. The headaches have gotten better but have them almost daily, the insomnia is awful. I plan on staying at 7.5 mert, 10 Esc until I stabilized. I started only taking 3.75 zoplicone when i go to bed and take the other 3.75 when i wake up during the night in hopes i can go back to sleep. Only done this for 4 nights now. I take clamazapham sometimes, maybe once a week to help get me thru, doc wants me to start taking that instead of zop to sleep but i dont want to make any more changes and am afraid i will get withdrawal from zop. I am so confused. I am really struggling - please someone help guide me....it seems like everything i try it backfires....

Hi, everyone, I write because I am really very desperate. I come from Germany and about 3 months ago I lost my life ... It happened when I re-dosed a small amount of fluoxetine according to the instructions of a German forum and then reduced it. (see my signature). Since that day, I have been unable to sleep and run my little business that I built so hard for myself ... Regarding fluoxetine: I took it for 9 years and was doing very well with it (except for the muscle pain). I am now so far that I would say, I am taking the fluoxetine again ... Do you have a suggestion for me???? Warm greetings from Germany Swiffy

Hi, My husband takes Mirtazapine 15mg every night, along with two psychotic drugs (Trifluoperazine & Olanzapine) for his agitation/yelling and Vortioxetine 10mg (every am) and recently Prozac 20mg. His problem was insomnia but after being put on benzos & antidepressants, it became more complex - one thing leads to another, and he has very bad daytime agitation/constant yelling, memory loss, confusion, low mood, unable to function etc... He has just started Prozac 20mg two weeks ago, to aid with tapering of Mirtazepine. His doctor agreed on 50% cut but he suffers bad withdrawal after 1 week. Previously, he was able to taper off 45mg Mirt to 30mg then to 15mg without much difficulty. So now he is on 25% cut on Mirt. Q: Is this too much considering that he is on Prozac which should help with the tapering as we understand. We are really tired of this journey as his problem was simply Insomnia and it became so much worse after he is put on these potent addictive drugs and we realised that we were trapped! Would really appreciate all your kind advice. Thank you so much!