Search the Community

I am the mother of a man who has been going through a difficult and prolonged withdrawal from a combination of ssri's. The last dose was just over 12 months ago, although he had previously reinstated to get relief from a range of intolerable symptoms, following his initial attempt at discontinuing ssri's. He found that reinstating did not have the effect of relieving many of his symptoms, and therefore decided to again withdraw. I am hoping that in joining this forum that I will be able to describe how I have been coping (or not) in a supportive and caring role. My son has been following the posts on this site, although he has not yet signed up, but has encouraged me to jump in and share my perspective. And, I hope, benefit from everyone's experience. I am hugely stressed witnessing the ordeal and pain that he is enduring. He is also experiencing what we have identified as histamine intolerance and is greatly affected physically and emotionally by even the smallest quantities of foods and even herbs. thereby severely limiting what he can eat. This sensitivity is very slowing diminishing over several months' time, with taking a daily specific type of probiotic, and adhering to a very limited range of foods- ie, brown rice, cooked legumes, and very fresh vegetables and certain fruit.-and very rarely, plain poached white fish. He continues to experience traumatic mood swings, with despair and crying and screaming when he is overwhelmed. He is an insightful, loving, and intelligent man who finds that he is losing his ability to think clearly and to plan a continuing path through this living hell

Hi - My 10 yo daughter had acute stomach pain for several months (4/13 start). The GI put her on 25mg Elavil daily (7/29). She took it for 2+ months, but ultimately, it was surgery (9/23) that relieved the pain - they found and clipped an adhesion that was pinning her colon to her abdomen, and removed a normal looking appendix. The doctors won't speculate on which or what caused the pain to start or stop, however. She stopped Elavil 5 days before surgery (9/17) and had a very hard weekend, I didn't realize there would be a withdrawal effect, but her heart was racing (initial EKG was bradycardic and by the end, she was at the very high end of normal) and we were a bit panicked about the drug, and knew surgery was a few days away. As noted, surgery was successful, and she spent a couple easy weeks healing from the laparoscopy. All was great until 10/17: four weeks after stopping Elavil she got some acid and nausea. It is now 12/6 and she has constant heartburn and reflux. She has trouble sleeping, she's nauseous when hungry, refluxing after she eats. GI wants to... try another SSRI! Is it possible she is suffering form something related to the Elavil? Has anyone seen something like this? Many thanks!

I am here for my son. I told him to tell the doctor 10% But the doctor did not. He is going to go from 5 to 2.5. The dr went from 7.5 to 5 But only kept that for 2weeks. I am very concerned. My son is very passive and wants to get off this drug. He started Dec 2015. Should he be more asertive with the doctor?

I am new to this site. I can't believe I've finally found what I have needed after looking for a year. I need wisdom concerning the advisability of working (together with my health providers and the Memory Care staff) to taper my mother off of 150 mg of Zoloft. She has some severe chronic issues which the docs have all said she will just have to live with. I believe these chronic issues are side effects of the Zoloft. She has memory loss / dementia (still fairly high-functioning) , but has good blood work, healthy vitals and organs. Both the residential care staff physician and our newly found alternative care physician are willing to help me taper her off Zoloft, but both have suggested tapering methods that I don't feel are safe. Before I go any farther, I hope to receive advice on the prudence of even hoping I can get mom off this drug after being on it for five years and now being age 82. Is there anyone who can reference a similar story?

Hello I am concerned about my wife. She is to reduce haldol shot by one half. I have been on psychotropic drugs myself and know it is not so easy to get off of them. I found a web site of a clinic -facility that does drug withdrawal. This clinic is in another state. It does not seem possible to be able to go and also my wife is really afraid of being hospitalized, it is her most undesirable place to be to say the least. But after writing the clinic and asking for information about tapering off haldol one of the staff wrote me back and said that he/she did not recommend tapering off haldol at home. And if done at home then they recommend daily contact with doctor if necessary. I was impressed with the clinic because they do a whole approach Diet vitamin and various supportive therapy like counseling and that sort of thing . I also tried to go to the Pharmacy that gives my wife the haldol shot they did not have any any thing. I do not know for sure all the best ways to deal with this taper. I think that basically the haldol is a dopamine antagonist I think that means it suppresses dopamine in the brain. My wife does lots of activities that I think produce dopamine. These activities are smoking cigarettes, eating sweets, drinking coffee. Weight gain is a concern. My wife ties to spend time on her exercise bike. and does really good in that respect. SO does anybody have any direct advise I tried as I did to look through the resources page on this web site and all but so far I have not found anything that I could try. Thanks

Hi everyone, My husband is currently on 150mg of venlafaxine (regular tablets). He was taking it just in the morning but with the aim of starting the tapering schedule suggested here, a week ago he split the dose, now taking 75 mg in the morning and 75mg at night. Since this change (note: not a drop yet just a split) he immediately started getting withdrawal symptoms - fatigue, loss of appetite, tremors, body rushes, vision changes, vertigo, negative thoughts, anxiety. I'm wondering if this is because he's on just the tablets, not the slower release capsules? I'm wondering whether we should go back to the 150mg in the morning or stay at this level of 75mg (am) and 75mg (pm) until he feels well again? He says he just wants it over with and is ready to drop to the next dose but I envision that being potentially dangerous and am desperate for support in deciding what to encourage him to do. He can't even handle talking dose numbers at the moment, so I guess it's down to me to figure this out and advise him as best I can. For the record, he has been taking the venlafaxine at the 150mg dose for 1.5 years, along with a cocktail of other drugs. I might add that what's happening now is not as bad as what happened a few months ago when he followed the GP's advice to come off his quetiapine pill over a 15 day period. What ensued was SEVERE withdrawal - vommiting, the runs, crawling up the wall with day terrors, electric shock feelings, plus everything he's feeling now. It took him about a month before he started to feel better. Up until a week ago he was feeling very good. We knew this one would be another hard one to come off so we wanted to follow the 3-4 month tapering schedule we found here. Frankly, we know the GPs haven't a clue about these things. He's been on a list waiting to see a NHS psychiatrist since January 2016. He's been through 3 months of CBT therapy in the meantime... (FYI he is also still on temazepam 10mg and mertazapine 15mg at night before bed). Any advice / support / thoughts / feedback most welcome. Thanks so much in advance.

Hello! My husband was on 40mg of fluoxetine (generic Prozac) for about 3 months. Long story short (I posted most of the story in the marriages ruined by ssri's thread) he started displaying symptoms of a hypomanic state. He agreed to get off the medication. We made an appointment with his doctor and with his therapist. A few days before his dr appointment he started taking 20mg. His doctor told him that fluoxetine has such a long half life that it's basically self tapering. He advised him to skip one day, take another pill and then he could just stop. I'm worried after reading a lot that he's going to experience withdrawal symptoms. He took his last dose 6 days ago. If he starts feeling withdrawal symptoms when will they show? What should I look for? The doctor said all the medication will be out of his system in 30 days. How long will it take for him to go back to his normal self?

I am not sure if I am posting this the right way and I am not sure anything can be done to help my husband but I can tell you he is in immeasurable pain, the likes of which I have never seen. My husband (MH) had been taking Zoloft for 24 years and had cut back b/c of tinnitus and hyperacusis (nothing compared to what he is now suffering). His depression spiked and Instead of his doctor checking the current dose of Zoloft my husband was taking he instead prescribed seroquel (took for 5 months including taper off). MH had increased his Zoloft dose back to 75 mg before being prescribed the seroquel. The doctor told him he did not care what does of Z he took b/c the seroquel worked on different receptors. The seroquel did nothing to help. The increase to 75 mg Z may have helped although it is hard to tell. Where the real damage came in was in the switch from Zoloft to Lexapro. B/C there was cross tapering of 2 SSRIs, akathisia developed. MH tried to get back on the Z after just 8 days of the cross tapering but it was like that movie the "perfect storm"--he could not take it b/c of akathisia.--the akathisia would not let him in. MH did a fairly quick tapering of 7wks ending in January 2016 with no help from doctor who merely said not too fast and not too slow.The akathisia raged on and propranolol is used to combat the akathisia syx. We went to a new doctor and was a prescribed small dose of remeron which eventually exacerbated the akathisia. Then we started reading and found this site among other articles that talked about reinstatement. The Z was reinstated 8 weeks after the taper at only 6.25 mg although the ultimate dose was 100mg. After about 4 days the Z built up and the akathisia worsened, so we stopped. Then in April I found a information on this site that suggested a teeny amount so I cut the Z medication to less than 2 mg to try another reinstatement. That teeny amount also caused the akathisia to rage on after a few day build up. The akathisia continues to this day but there is of course also syx of SSRI withdrawal. MH is essentially bedridden most of the time in complete and utter fatigue. His doctor had him try mirapex but the side effects were too much and now wants him to try selegelline, a MAO B inhibitor. (doctor saying these effected only dopamine) My take is this will make the syx worse and I don't believe that only dopamine will be affected. (but I so do not trust the psychiatric world at all) If the only condition was A/D depressant w/d this would be a no brainer--a smaller amount of the Z would have stabilized the condition and we could do the slower tapering as suggested on this site. One more thing I should mention is that MH does take klonopin which does help with sleep and controlling the akathisia (he also had taken that for 24 years with no tolerance in that he does not require that his dose be raised higher and higher and is very careful to keep it at or below his 24 year prescribed amount). He is on some support groups who have said to taper off the K but I believe this would only increase his suffering. He also continues to take some propranolol when the akathisia rages. He does rock and move but not constantly as videos I have seen of fellow akathisia suffers. The akathisia manifests as he describes it as unbearable inner torture and torment although the syx have somewhat decreased since all Z reinstatements were stopped as he used to have what he described as a blow torch under his skin 24/7 and now only has this from time to time. He recently tried exercising and this has caused the akathisia to spike for a least going on two weeks now. What kind of doctor can help? In my book psychiatrists are out as I it seems none of them know how to treat the SSRI W/D co-morbid with the akathisia. We do live in the East Bay of the SF Bay Area and finally did see a psychiatrist in SF who acknowledged PAWS but he still wanted to try different medications b/c the mental anguish (presenting as severe depression) is so florid, and even suggested hospitalization. I did read a story from one of the moderators altostrata that hospitalization made her worse. I know everyone is different but I do not trust psych hospitals. We are so afraid of further exacerbating the akathisia --I do not know which is worse , the akathisia or PAWS b/c I do not live in MH skin. MH is a beautiful caring person and it is so hard to see this happening every day especially as the PAWS worsens. As I said he is suffering an immense amount of fatigue even though he is sleeping-in the fact the only time he feels peace is while sleeping. Except if he falls asleep during the day he awakens from what he calls "toxic naps". I hope I have given the full picture and am wondering if anyone here has any suggestions on what can be done at this point. MH is so afraid that b/c he was on the Z for 24 years and stopped almost CT he will never heal and we read stories of others 6-10 years out that are still in pain. How much pain is someone supposed to suffer? I used to think of myself as a strong person and I was able to handle everything for months but I am crumbling and need to find my way back to my own life--but it is so hard to watch this horrible curse and I am having trouble with intertwining our lives. thank you to anyone who can help MH.