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💜 My Introduction topic is here: manymoretodays: off many years of many medications Simply honored to be writing this. And kind of have tears in my eyes, as I begin.......the good kind. The oh wow kind, the unbelievable understanding of my most excellent, and wonderful good fortune for all that has come my way in some 30 years, and well, even before that. A little bit of the oh wow, I wonder if......or what my life might have been......tears too though. I am now 5 years and 10 months off my last psychoactive prescribed drug!!!! Last drug off was Trileptal/oxcarbazepine. Used as a "mood stabilizer". It's actually a drug developed for seizures I believe. I never had seizures. Lucky me on that. I started my “psychiatric career”, somewhere around 1988 or thereabouts. At the tender age of around 30 years, I believe. At that time, I was thriving, by all outward appearances. A newlywed, and we had recently bought our first home, and I was in graduate school and working in my chosen career. I think I was, well I was just me really, and was struggling a bit, sometimes really down.....yet, I could always pull myself up to get to work most days. A lot of strange changes around menses. I would suddenly pop on out of a low down, somewhat perceptually changed funk, when periods came along. And well, hearing all the hype about the new “cure” in the form of Prozac, as well as being privy to what was in medical circles at the time, I wandered on in to a doctor, an Internal Medicine doctor, no less, as I had heard they were really good and I hadn't really had any need for doctors, up to that point, in my young adulthood. I had however, prior to leaving my home state, in the U.S., had a pretty good case of mononucleosis, the second half of my senior year in high school.......I had completed all the work, and was working away to earn some money for college, when that hit. Recovered. Continued on. To college and beyond. I didn't mention my doctor visit to many, or if any.......I'd be surprised. It still all felt so very hush, hush to have any problem with adapting to life. And sheesh, now I was about to be branded with my first, of many labels of “diagnonsense”. And thank you, who ever used that term first. So......henceforth, some kind of mental defective. First trial of an AD(antidepressant), I think was of the Tricyclic class. Oh my gosh, dry parched mouth to the extreme, and totally anxious fearful was the result of that. And on to the Prozac, I believe next. Well, not too long into that experiment, I began to have some flickering flashes of suicidal ideation. So, that was all swell and seemed to prove that I was even more mentally defective and got me a referral to a psychiatrist. Possibly, a few more drug trials with me. Then I lost my job. I mean they were nice about it and all, and I honestly have to take some responsibility for my part in that job loss. I got to stay employed at the same place and all too. And well, I took that all pretty hard, to say the least.....turned inward a lot. So...... then on to my first horsespittalization(hospitalization). Highly recommended by my then therapist. And even switched psychiatrists.......to her hubs. Geeze, the one I had prior was good too. I felt like a amoeba under a microscope with the new one. I cooperated though, on all levels. I mean I was really “mentally ill” right? Last I heard, that shrink was trying for more fame and fortune, doing some pretty invasive brain stuff. We hung out though, for a good while......in that doctor/patient way. Me being scrutinized, and he knowing all. Horsespittal back then. Like a country club really.......back in those days. And I had good insurance. The place wasn't so crowded as most psychiatric wards and hospitals are now. We did all kinds of therapeutic things. And I think a got another diagnonsense there. I found it in my chart, which they did let me look at. My shrink, didn't disclose that one to me though, the diagnosis. Kind of weird, eh? Left that place, after a couple of weeks, on an MAOI AD. Oldschool stuff. Lot's of interactions, with food stuff, and other medications and what???!!!! Why???!!!! Stayed on it for far too long, if you ask me. I was at first a bit super charged on that drug(my problems were magically over and I had a lot of energy) and then........ pretty docile on that drug, gained a fair amount of weight, and then managed to bring it down again. Kept on going with most things, doing all that was expected of me and all. Did a lot of therapy...... Just kept getting my prescription filled and taking my doses. I think it was the brand Parnate, seems like I was on another MAOI too at some point......maybe Nardi. I did, however, a few years into it.......have the dreaded tyramine reaction. Treated with nifedipine, under the tongue......2 doses. I think I could have stroked out, glad I did not. Horrible occipital headache that had me crawling on the floor and I managed to get to the phone, call my shrink, who had me take my pulse(rapid it was) and remind me to take the nifedipine he had prescribed for "just in case". Sun/son was a baby and napping after lunch. I had both aged cheese and sausage at lunch.......I never was great, nor was it reinforced for me(the dietary and drink restrictions), with the dietary restrictions. I guess they thought since I was in graduate school, and in the medical profession that I would be good? I mean I don't know. Anyway......I thought I was a goner with that reaction though. I could not even stand up the pain in my head was so bad. Nifedipine helped......probably dropped my BP(blood pressure) a lot. My pulse went back to normal. I called my then husband home from work, and crawled into bed. Next day off to work maybe? I don't remember, likely or maybe it was a day off. I had gone to PT work with my then baby dear Sun/son, my MAOI baby. He's doing good, well, at age 30 now. Both of us have some just "on the edge of" idiosyncrasies I think. I don't really know any more what my "before" was truly like. And he is okay, for all purposes. My favorite person ever. Fast forward here to 1999, now that was a big year. I was still on the Parnate. Not doing horrid, but into that weird drug induced change of persona or something. A little dulled mentally. I still could get pretty down and out, and didn't really have a clue what to do......but fake it? By now we had moved, and I had a shrink closer to home. AND once again, a job loss......good enough......I wasn't bringing in a whole lot financially to the now merged practice I was part of......so a lay off really. I took it hard though. But decided to get off my MAOI at that point. I knew this wasn't right somehow. Taken off that over 2 weeks, and started on a little dose of Zoloft then, after 2 weeks. Oh my heck ahello. WD(withdrawal) set in. Only I didn't know that, and if my doctor did, they were not telling me. Urgha. And on and on I went......for awhile. More drugs, multiple drugs at once and of course diagnoses to match up with the drugging. The second shrink, well......at one point as I was walking out the door he says, "Hey, I'm almost certain you've had some childhood trauma". No further exploration with me. Nothing. Wow. O....kay. I kept that to myself even. For already I was branded and labeled and.........you know the drill. Felt like a nothing nobody in that system of care. Anyway.....I've since pinpointed the trauma(s). Won't go into that here. Mostly thriving now. Do work on things, with the pros every now and then. And with myself. So, next up........ I latched on to being bipolar. Read everything I could. Checked the DSM bible. Version III, or maybe IV......I don't know. And it did not add up. Because.....at that time, it was still in there.......these ups and downs, and that if they could have been caused by drugs/medications that the diagnosis should be questioned. I also drank and smoked and had dabbled with "recreational" psychoactives from the time I was a teen. Happy to report -clean and sober for over 6 years now. And....an ex smoker of tobacco now, again. I'll make it though. It does strike me now how extremely fortunate I am, given it all, to still be alive and most days grateful for it all as well. I can't live on consistent persistent anger. I do struggle to feel anger and it sometimes comes out wrong. Not dangerously so. It wasn't allowed for me, as a kid, to learn healthy expression of anger. I was the youngest child, and very much the observer, of all things good and bad. When I got here I was 6 months or so off Lexapro AND remedicated with 2 drugs, and had a lengthy decades long history of medications/drugs. So May of 2015. Was I 58 years old? I think so. And had a passing knowledge now of WD and tapering. An Icarus guide. Was reading Beyond Meds. Was also a certified peer in my state and was getting into the peers helping peers movement. Met some like me too. Much help. Much appreciation for those friends. Some here still, some gone now. I had tried some naturopath things while on drugs and also to come off them. Drugs being prescribed medications. That wasn't great and cost a fortune. Okay, so I'm here now. Learning more. And then even in my early acute WD state, was able to come to the conclusion that reinstatement would probably not be for me. I based it on the time since off Lexapro, and the other drugs I was on, and somehow reached the right decision for me. Oh, of course it would have been nice if the knowledge was there, at the hospital I went to, to give me a mini-dose of Lexapro.....after my too quick tapering. But it was not. I even had my liquid Lexapro with me at that time. Acute WD for me was......well indescribable....yet, I'll try to sum things up a bit. Total psych hospitalizations for me over what I call my psychiatric career were 5. All were voluntary. After a drug change of some type. Off one, on another or what have you? Some likely adverse effects from my prescribed drugs. Drug history: Started with psycho meds circa 1988 I think 27 or 28 total. AD's, antipsychotics, antiseizure mood stabilizers. Lithium, lamictal ,benzos, and stimulants. Some med. for narcolepsy once(Provigil,) Gabapentin........probably more. Ask me?......I probably was on it. Haphazard W/D's by Dr. recommend or uneducated self. 10/2014- off Lexapro--had been on highest dose 20 mg., then 10 mg, then 5 mg. for a couple of years, went from 5 mg. to 3 mg. liquid and then CT in hospital(voluntary). I got out of the hospital on a combination of low dose adderal salts x1/day and trileptal 150mg. x2/day. 5/28/2015-off Adderal salts 2.5mg. (I had been on that since hospital 10/2014) 12/2015---just holding, holding, holding, with trileptal/oxcarb at 75 mg. 1/2 tab at hs. My last psycho med ever! 12/16/2016- tapered down with the oxcarbazepine, split the dose into 2, 12 hours apart, tapered at 2 week intervals near the end, and then jumped at 24 mg total dosage to 0. Withdrawal symptom history: And I will go to page 2 of this for that. I am not a sailor, pre Sun/son I did Windsurf though. Still have my sails and board in the garage too. Soon to get donated or something. I hope.

My first experience with these drugs was back in 2021 with my first psychiatrist. I was put on topiramate and Brintellix. No problem getting off of them when i felt like i needed to. He let me speak for a good hour or more. Spoke to a neurologist in late 2022 because i developed brain heating in response to frustration. He didn't even let me speak at times. Haldol + Neuleptil seemed to work at first but then noticed they were just putting me to sleep. Not the cure i needed. Had 4 days of akathesia after being suggested to drink heavy alcohol while the drug was still circulating ( I thought it didn't because the last cycle before the occurrence i have took the day before ). Went to another psychiatrist, and after a " Careful check " of 5 minutes i was told i'm depressed and i should take Cipralex 20 mg ( 10 drops at first upping the dose by 2 till i reach 20 ), Depakin 250 mg ( 2 envelopes ) and 1 Quetiapine 100 mg for the night. The reasoning was that supposedly Cipralex would make me feel euphoric and Depakin and Quetiapine would have me stabilized. He told me that this stuff doesn't have side effects and it's " Light ". After the first week i felt my depression worsened to a point i never had reached before. Plus i had eye pain, blurred vision, diarrhea, cognitive malfunctions, couldn't think and speak properly, heavy depersonalisation and derealization, feeling like i had a flu, gained weight, ate more, and problems with erections/orgasms. Psychiatrist told me it was my depression coming back. I asked him if those things are supposed to make me feel better why would that be the case and why have i never felt this way prior to the " Medication ". I was left on read. Looked up on internet and started reading about the millions of horror stories related to antidepressants and such. My friend had my same exact symptoms, including the eye pain that was confirmed by my eye doctor to be brought in by the antidepressant ( He asked me if I'm taking them even before i could say anything ). In a week i knew more than he does ( Implying he doesn't know what he's doing, which i heavily doubt ). Since i intuitively knew i was poisoning my body, even before i searched on Google, i let go of his " Trust me "s and tapered off everything in 1 week: Cipralex from 20 drops to 10 for 2 days, then 5 for 2 other days, As for Depakin took 1 envelope in the last 3 days of that week and cut quetiapine completely in the other half of the week. I was told to take Cipralex at 2pm, Depakin at 8pm and Quetiapine at 10pm. In total, i took 3 weeks and a half of everything, including taper, more or less. The first week was more or less fine. However, the withdrawal symptoms started to kick in after then. Astonishingly high levels of depression, nightmares in which i would feel extremely depressed ( Didn't even know something like that could happen, aswell as such levels of depression ), stopped sleeping, would have 5 minutes of half a sleep and wake up panicky, and quickly developed into high anxiety/arousal. Can't feel emotions like i did, hardly can laugh and everything, i'm more uninhibited because i'm searching for those chemicals i lost and can't find them, and when i try and remember something or something really emotional hits me i can barely cry and the rest of the feeling mutates into yet another panicky feeling. I just know this is farmacological as much as i knew akathesia was. I'm starting to develop some tremors, too. Several important occasions were ruined for me because i was either too ill to go or i would get almost a panic attack because i wanted to go home, where i had no rest anyway. I'm smoking 10 to 15 cigs a day just to try and feel something/calm the anxiety with not so good results, and i was never a heavy smoker. I went there for my akathesia and he told me if i didn't take my new cure i would still have akathesia, which i strongly doubt. I feel like akathesia is next door again now, really, because i stared pacing again, not at that level, for now. I spoke with the psychiatrist again and i told him all about this. He said it's all about me and what i had prior to the medication, didn't really make sense through the whole thing and could hardly hear what he was hastily saying, didn't seem to know what ssri means and he told me that " SSRIs boost serotonin ", which is not true, even implying depression has anything to do with serotonin and it's about a chemical imbalance which actually seems like these things gave me. I basically told him he should work on his ego and that he doesn't know anything about what he prescribes and he's comparable to an angel of death. He told me there is no such thing as withdrawal, you can't get hooked on antidepressants, avoided the " Why am i getting worse if that's my depression " question. He admitted to have given me a horse dosage/cure. He says this stuff doesn't change anything in the brain even tho the meaning of ssri literally points to the opposite direction of that claim. I also asked him if they don't change anything what's the point of taking them in the long run. Again, no answer. He said i'm going against " Science " ( More like a cult ). I also have him recorded. Max i could do was review him 1 star and possibly sue him. Anyway, i didn't tell him i already tapered off, and he gave me a 2 week taper, obviously. All of this got so bad i got suicidal thoughts and i had to take quetiapine again, and that's all i take, after trying xan for 2 days and it was doing nothing except giving me itches, had no trouble stopping it fortunately. Still feeling bad and nothing like before the cycle. Still can hardly concentrate and everything. Everything still overwhelms me sensory wise but i have little to no emotions. Got a little bit of cognition back again. I developed hard tinnitus. I had a dream in which i felt the dissociation it gives me. I'm taking it one before bed and one or two throughout the day, split. Its sleeping effects are fading and i'm having windows and waves. I'm feeling new bad sensations everyday but quetiapine keeps me from getting too low, for now. It seems like my body is asking for more except when in windows, in which i feel empty but a bit more chill. What do i do ? What's happening ? Is it the deadly cocktail that was given to me and i tapered off too quickly ? What am i withdrawing from ? Is it the haldol + neuleptil even ? Should i go back to antidepressants ? I have no intention to take any other neurotoxin whatsoever. Only taking quetiapine makes everything seem flat but i don't wanna take antidepressants that make me more depressed again.

Hi everyone! I am in need of help figuring out how to wean down from my SSRI. Was originally diagnosed w/ bipolar disorder in 2012. Have been off mood stabilizers for several years but still on Lexapro. I don’t believe I actually have BP, just a long history of family stuff and difficulty with changes over the years.

I believe I’m experiencing rapid cycling. Manic episodes alternated by depressive episodes. I’m thinking it is caused by the fairly high (for me) dose of Effexor. I'm on 112.5mg. One moment I will be very restless and terribly anxious and within a few hours, I am deeply depressed. (It can take longer; it can take up to a day for the depression to come back.)I’ve had an antidepressant (Paxil) induced episode 21 years ago. The psychiatrist put me on mood stabilizers, and I stayed on them for the next twenty years. I went off Lithium about a year ago, with the help of a psychiatrist and naturopath. I tried to go off Effexor, started mid 2018, but didn’t know about this group yet and I went off too fast and ended up in Psychiatry in April/May 2019. I reinstated after that, but I haven’t stabilized yet. It’s been a tough road. Now what do I do? My dose of Effexor is too high, it is maybe the cause of me going manic. But it’s not advisable to withdraw when one isn’t stable yet. I’m not sure what is best. Do I stay on my current dose or withdraw? I sure hope I won’t go into a full blown manic state! I prefer not to go back on Lithium though.

75% of med students are on antidepressants or stimulants (or both) Posted on September 4, 2017 by Pamela Wible MD http://www.idealmedicalcare.org/75-med-students-antidepressants-stimulants/ "I’ve been on an antidepressant since being premed—18 years now. Little did I know it would be impossible to wean myself off and that my entire class was using Adderall.” I haven't posted an article in years. Please edit as needed.

I've been tapering off of Lamictal for about 5 months now, and won't be done until September 22nd. I'm tapering 25 mg every 2 weeks. I've experienced some withdrawal symptoms with other meds, Effexor being the worst, but coming off of Lamictal is one of the worst things that I've ever experienced. I've put in the time and effort to have bettered myself in order to be stable enough to get off of these medications, but the mental and emotional symptoms are intense. The endless physical side effects just make the emotional parts worse. I have a good support system, but I'm finding myself still wanting to talk to others who have experienced similar situations. I put together a list today of my withdrawal symptoms currently. I'm basically housebound right now, and it is beyond hard. My Current Withdrawal Symptoms: Physical Withdrawal Symptoms 1. Nausea/Vomiting 2. Diarrhea/Constipation 3. Migraines 4. Vision Changes 5. Body Pain/Foot Pain/Muscle Pain/Neck and Shoulder Pain/Stiffness 6. Tooth Pain 7. Bone Pain/Joint Pain/Cracking/Rubbing 8. Gagging/Vomiting from smells, tastes, textures, etc. 9. Easily out of breath/hard to breathe/chest pain 10. Overall weak/low endurance 11. Cold Sweats/Hot Sweats/Hot Flashes/Temperature regulation problems 12. Crawling in my skin/body is uncomfortable 13. Cold symptoms – runny/stuffy nose, sore throat 14. Extreme Fatigue 15. Off-balance/fall/run into things/hurt self often/dizzy 16. Malaise 17. Restless limbs/body 18. Metallic taste in mouth 19. “Brain Zaps” 20. Chest pain/tightness 21. Sensitive skin/Bruise and Bleed easily 22. Sporadic Appetite Emotional/Mental Withdrawal Symptoms 1. Anxiety 2. Unease/Nervous/Paranoid 3. Moody 4. Irritable 5. Anger 6. Rage 7. Depression 8. Crying 9. Emotional Lability 10. Jittery 11. Memory Loss 12. Concentration Issues/Can’t think straight or function 13. Confused/Disoriented 14. Easily scared/gasp from fear 15. Strange/vivid/intense dreams/nightmares Has anybody experienced anything similar to these symptoms?