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I have had the good fortune to confer with some of the top brain researchers in the world this past 4 years. Michael M. Merzenich who has had several PBS brain specials, Robert Sapolsky at Stanford, Daniel Amen (also many PBS brain specials) Malcom Lader in the UK and many others. Off the subject of exercise but Dr. Merzenich is considered the father of neuroplasticity research and he told me to study primates brain ability to heal they give them SSRI's then stop them. OK Exercise - none of these experts had a clue on how to heal a drug damaged brain. The one common theme was aerobic exercise. There is a great book out on this called SPARK on this. There is also the work of the Cooper Center on the benefits of aerobic exercise for anxiety and depression being better than medications. For the first 3 years I could not do any more than walk - any strenuous activity made me critically ill. I still walk a lot and more if I am in a wave (which seems to be continual) but now I have been able to do some 10 mile bike rides. Has anyone else found benefit/determent to exercise??

Hi all! New here, but I have been lurking this forum for a few weeks. I will share my story... I will first note that don't really have a medical history of anything except for lots of physical stuff - sprained ankles, torn muscles, broken bones, herniated discs, etc as I WAS an athlete (now I'm mostly house and bed bound). No history of chronic illness, auto-immune, mental illness except some anxiety and bouts of insomnia here and there. I don't think I've ever even had a panic attack. 30F. August 2022: I got LASIK. Sept - Oct 2022: Moved cross country and LASIK outcome (had residual prescription) made me really stressed, so I wasn't sleeping well. I took one Xanax pill 0.25mg (smallest dose) before bed on and off for a few weeks. It wasn't really helping my sleep and made me feel really fatigued during the day so I stopped. Developed light sensitivity along the way. Nov 2022: I was (mis) diagnosed with cornea neuralgia, and given Nortripyline for eye pain. I now realize my pain was caused by an ointment I was instructed to use, not nerve damage. Light sensitivity might have been caused by Xanax, unsure about that one. Two days before taking my first dose of Nortrip, I took 0.25mg of Xanax to help me sleep again. That was the last time I ever took Xanax. Then for the Nortrip, I was instructed to take 10mg every three days, titrating up to 50mg. I took 10mg for four days, and was relatively fine. Looking back, I had some side effects like POTS, constipation, and inability to feel my bladder was full. On the fifth and sixth day, I went up to 20mg. My feet started tingling. I was instructed to bump back down by my doctor. Went back to 10mg. Tingling went away. Thought I was supposed to go back up, so I did. Back to 20mg for two tdays and then tingling came back along with crazy limb jerking. Like, both my legs flew up a foot in the air while I was in bed. I messaged my doctors, wasn't given clear instructions, so I quickly tapered down to 10mg and then 0mg out of fear. I thought I'd be fine because I was on the medication for 11 days. Did an intense workout, which triggered all the symptoms I had on the medication the next day. Kept working out because I wasn't sure what was going on and doctor said it was ~AnXiEty~. Since then, all went downhill and I have developed a laundry list of 40+ symptoms, including tardive dyskinesia (I was inspired by moderator's WiggleIt's story, hence named myself MoveIt). The TD started when I took a Zrytec. I immediately had an adverse reaction to it with stabbing pains all over my legs, got a big brain zap, and then my legs started moving by themselves. Over a few weeks it progressed into full body flails and vocal spasms. A week or so later, I took a melatonin and made it worse, my hands started opening and closing. Now I seem to be acquiring new "movements" every 1-2 weeks. I have involuntary full body flails, tongue sticks out of my mouth, eye blinks, hands open and close, feet tap, ,face scrunch, lips purse. My other symptoms have been getting worse as well and my threshold to triggering them is getting smaller. I am finding I can't even walk fast without triggering a "wave" and then feeling like I have the flu + hungover + extra noise sensitive the next day, similar to CFS I guess. Almost all my symptoms are physical (for now...). Now I realize my nervous system is super fragile and am careful with medications and supplementation. In case helpful, here's the list of my symptoms as of today. I am sure I am missing some... Insomnia Flickering lights when eyes open, like I’m blinking Hypnogogic Hallucinations Flashes of light before sleeping Arc flashes in peripheral of eyes (checked with retina doc twice, nothing wrong) Strobe light effect in dark Light / Noise sensitivity Tinnitus Random ear noises, such as car crashing or fluttering Ear pain Brain zaps Randomly feeling bouts of terror when falling asleep Stop breathing while sleeping Chest tightness/pain Cortisol rushes Heart palpitations Can hear heart pounding Tingling Pins and needles everywhere (including in mouth and tongue) Burning patches Stabbing nerve throughout body / face Muscle pain? Or dull nerve pain, unsure Tremors Hypnic jerks Dizziness Jaw jerks Constipation Inability to feel full bladder Missed every menstrual cycle Exercise intolerance Headache Fatigue I haven't really seen anyone on here with similar dosage or reactions like me. I see patterns if I combine stories like WiggleIt's, those with ADR, and those with exercise intolerance. I can't even say I can 100% relate to windows and waves. I will have a random cluster of symptoms anyday, nothing seems constant except for the tingling and the progression of symptoms. I'm also not even so sure I had an adverse reaction because I am now learning the side effects I had were actually normal on the medication, and that a lot of people "push through" and it eventually subsided. I am also unsure if being on Xanax so shortly before had some adverse effect. Also did I "kindle" myself with the Xanax by taking it on and off before the Nortrip?

Hello everybody, First, I aprpeciate this resource! I started with panic disorder 5 years ago. I was started on Zanax in the hospital, and I am still angry about it, or at least about having zero information about what I was getting myself into. Thankfully I quit after a few months on it. The insomnia was terrible but my sleep recovered to a tolerable pattern after a couple of weeks. I also started Lexapro at 10 mg while I was still taking Zanax. And I started running and exercising three times a day for an hour each. I am still convinced that the exercise made it possible for the panic attacks to completely resolve after a few months. but then I had a new panic attack after months of not having any. My doctor increased my Lexapro dose to 20 mg and stayed there. I have also been getting very good treatment for my C-PTSD/developmental trauma (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems/parts work) and a I am doing much much better. I want to quit Lexapro because I think I no longer need it since my anxiety/panic has resolved, and because it has the side effect of giving me GERD which I also have to manage with medication. And also because my sleep patterns could never recover to a fully normal pattern. I now learned that SSRIs interact with the circadian rhythm, and Lexapro in particular does so negatively. So, I blame my sleep problems on Lexapro. I started using the sleep app RISE, and realized that my circadian rhythm, isn't much of a rythm at all. I feel like I will only get back my normal sleep after quitting Lexapro. All the more reason to get off of it. I am super upset at the doctors for increasing my dose to such a high amount, now that I read that lexapro is so much more potent than other drugs at similar dosages. 20 mg is called "hefty"! a 5 mg increase would have been much more prudent and I am not even a doctor! I started by shaving off a small amount from the 20 mg a few months ago. I used a roughened glass nail file, that I could be very precise and gradual with. I finally reached a 25% reduction, and since I started having insomnia symptoms, I started looking for more information and found this forum. I read some of the posts and just asked my doctor today to switch me to the liquid version, so I can continue a more smooth and precise tapering process. I referred her to this website so she can also benefit from this information. I plan to increase my dosage a little bit again to see if the insomnia resolves and then I will stay there for a couple of months. I also started having stomach pain, and now I wonder if it is caused by the taper. That is hard to tell given my food sensitivities. I have gone back to exercising more again, since it was so helpful a few years ago. I am following the RISE app which makes working with the circadian rhythm very easy. I plan on being very patient with myself otherwise, and this website resource is incredibly encouraging and reassuring. I also take Melatonin for that. What I learned from this website so far that is an eye opener is the 3KIS principle, and is how incredibly important it is to be stable in all aspects of health. I didn't realize that before. So, I will make sure that my exercise and supplement and med schedules as well as sleep (or time in dark and in bed, at least) are totally consistent. Which is hard when sleep is hard to come by, but now I am that much more motivated to actually lean into it with trust and patience. Given that I am struggling with sleep, I wonder about CBD. I have never tried any form of cannabis before. It may be a bad idea to combine a tapering with CBD which is new to my system and it violates the 3KIS principles, but I thought I'd ask to see what experience people have, if any. Thank you all!!

Hi there! I'm rather new to the community and have not posted yet since starting my withdrawal from Effexor. It's been a little over a month from when I went from 75mg down to 9.375mg a day (one quarter of 37.5mg pill). The initial decrease was not too bad with the occasional lightheaded-ness and night sweats. At this point, my symptoms are gone and I intend to decrease again very shortly once I figure out how that can be done smoothly. The only symptom that still seems to be prevalent is my intolerance to exercise. I'm used to exercising regularly (3-4x/week, an hour at a time) and now can barely stand 15 minutes of normal exercise. I'll get very dizzy, cold sweats, and have vomited on occasion. I assume this is due to the withdrawal as nothing else has changed. There's a lot of info out there and I know many people have found supplements that help in certain situations and was wondering if anyone has had similar symptoms and found relief in some way. I've gained about 10 lbs since starting Effexor in January, 2017 and want to get this unneeded weight off as soon as I can as it impedes my ability to continue practicing aerial silks. Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you, Brenna

Hi friends, I'm grateful that this community exists. I'm now 29 years old, and feel that life has offered me a precious opportunity to try again: to live in the ways that are most meaningful to me, and to reduce my dependence on a synthetic molecule and anything else that doesn't nourish me. I was first prescribed Luvox at age 16 during what was later diagnosed as a long, recurrent viral illness (mononucleosis). At age 20 (2006), I switched to Effexor, at a dose of 75 mg XR. I've long recognized that very little is known about the effects of long-term antidepressant use, and I have aspired to take care of my body and mind as naturally and as gently as possible. I have tried twice now to discontinue Effexor. In both instances, I tapered over ~6 weeks and experienced significant withdrawal symptoms including 'brain zaps', but felt that I had the resources and momentum to weather these initial waves of difficulty. Over the course of the next 3-6 months, however, I found myself becoming increasingly depressed, sliding down a slope without the resources to gain a foothold; and experiencing waves of anxiety that often felt overpowering. After the most recent effort (November 2014-June 2015), I restarted Effexor, and found that this time 225 mg was necessary to re-establish balance. Given the history of relapses, my most recent doctor has recommended that I remain on the current dose at least 9 months (or 6 months longer) before beginning to taper. I see wisdom in that approach, as I am still finding my strength week by week, and I will be driving across the country in 4 days to relocate from Indiana, where I grew up, to the SF Bay Area. I hope also to begin work at a start-up that I regard as likely to be meaningful and challenging ("I hope", because I am told to expect an offer in the next couple days), and I want to take the long view on this, only taking each next step when I feel strong, steady, and ready. During both of my previous attempts to discontinue Effexor, I lacked professional guidance or a community walking this path with me. I know that reducing and eventually ending my dependence on Effexor will require all of my resources, and many which I have yet to develop; and I have learned how vitally important it is both to lend support to others and to accept and receive it. Sometimes it is clear to me that each of these actions, each direction of giving and receiving support, contains the other. When I am able to clearly, I know also that every breath, every step, and every action taken with awareness is an opportunity to develop the internal resources necessary to walk this path myself and to support others. There are very few things of which I feel certain; actually, if there is one, it is probably this: nothing is of greater value to me or to the world this path of healing and transformation. Thank you for sharing with me what has been most powerful, meaningful, and effective for you in this journey. Please let me know, also, how I can support you. In allowing me to listen and perhaps to share what this life is teaching me, you give me a great gift. I am happy that we are walking this path together. In gratitude, Michael * * * I initially included this in my signature; I'll include it here, and link to it from the signature. Incredibly important and valuable to me in this process has been vigorous exercise (running, racquetball, biking), yoga, and especially a daily mindfulness practice (2009-present). My intention is to bring it into every part of my daily life, so that I may act from a real understanding of what brings happiness and pain to myself and others. I regard this practice, cultivating this intention and capacity, as the basis of the solidity, clarity, and capacity to generate joy which will make it possible to rely less and less on Effexor, and to live as I wish to live. I also know that this will likely be a long path, and that I will have to grow a great deal along it. My practice has been inspired and sustained by the writings and life of Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) and the Plum Village community. So often I am lost in my intellect and my thinking struggle to return with a physical and whole-hearted presence to life in this moment. I have been moved by the simplicity and power of Thay's teachings on cultivating a joyful awareness of the body, and mind learning to sit, stand, walk, eat, and do the tasks of life in awareness. During my last attempt to discontinue Effexor, I was an aspirant to be a monk at PV, but was unable to continue for the time being. My deepest wish is to live each day guided by the intention shared by the monastics, and some day to be strong enough to join them.