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Hello, I have been trying to stop taking Cipralex three times since 2017. My medications were two - 10mg Cipralex a day and 2x0.5mg Fluanxol. I started taking it slowly as my psychiatrist suggested - 2/3 days 2.5mg, then 2/3 days 5mg, then 10mg. At 10mg it was the first time I felt heart palpitations - I am an active athlete and never had heart issues. The first time it was not actually Cipralex by Lundbeck, but Lenuxin (which contains again escitalopram). I remember that I did not know, and my psychiatrist did not tell me there were going to be withdrawal symptoms. I started forgetting to take the 10mg tablet and started skipping days. I was feeling some mild withdrawal symptoms like headache or fatigue, but overall, not anything too debilitating. I stopped the medicaments successfully back then (summer 2018) I was one year of any medicaments until the summer of 2019, when I experienced some stressful situations. I had anxiety with panic attacks mostly and some stomach problems. Back then my mother forced me to start taking the pills again, although I was strongly against it, but at that time I was trusting my mother, because she had experienced severe depression in her twenties as well. Summer of 2020, I started a relationship with a girl. It was again a year since I have been taking Cipralex 10mg and Fluanxol 2x0.5mg. I started what I considered slow tapering - I started taking half the dose of both pills (5mg Cipralex and 1x0.5mg Fluanxol). After a month or two things were overall fine. Then I stopped the fluanxol and was left with 5mg Cipralex. I tapered again half (from 5mg to 2.5mg) and was feeling good, so I started skipping days. It was year 2020 (winter) and I started feeling anxious, I started sweating at night, had tremors, nausea, developed agoraphobia. Then I also started experiencing sleep issues and decided to go back to 5mg and when I got back to 10mg I had restored my sleep. Continued taking Cipralex and Fluanxol until 2021 (winter) - 1 year again on medication. I went to my psychiatrist and said that I want her to make a tapering plan for me. She said 4 months on half dose (5mg Cipralex) and 3 months afterwards on 1/4 dose (2.5mg Cipralex). After that to go to consultation again. I did as she said, and everything was good. Then (April 2022) I went on consultation and asked how I can stop taking them completely, so she said: 1 week - 1 day take 2.5mg, 1 day skip; 2 week - 1 day take 2.5mg, 2 days skip; 3 week - 1 day take 2.5mg, 3 days skip; 4 week - 1 day take 2.5mg, 4 days skip; 5 week - completely stop. I did as she said and started experiencing withdrawal but continued with the taper. Stopped Cipralex completely at the beginning of May 2022. Then three months of hell started. I experienced severe withdrawal effects such as daily headaches, fatigue, nausea, stomach problems, electric shocks (in the head), anxiety, depression (I never had until this moment). But the withdrawals that were unbearable were two - insomnia (could not sleep for days or have had 1-2 hours broken sleep) and vomiting (everything I ate, even though I tried anti-vomiting oral solution - I vomited that too). When I contacted my psychiatrist after the first 2 weeks, she said that it is not withdrawal anymore, rather than that the previous anxiety/depression I had has returned so I need to again go on medication - I refused and wanted to try everything. I was so fatigued due to lack of sleep and stomach/vomiting issues that I could not do sports (which I know helps a lot). But although was tired, my body refused to rest (could not sleep). I tried everything to improve my sleep, because I thought otherwise, I can die without sleep + it worsened the anxiety, fatigue, concentration - mint + valerian (drops), lavender scents, relaxation music, passiflora, 4-7-8 breathing, nothing helped. At one point it was so bad I was considering smoking weed and drinking alcohol (which is totally not me!). I went to another psychiatrist, and he prescribed me Tritico (trazodone) - 25mg for sleep. I slept 7-8 hours every day for a week! But then after that it just stopped working for me. I tried increasing to 50mg, then 75mg, then 100mg, but again could not sleep. Afterwards tried Tritico XR + Xanax 0.25mg, but that did not go well for me. Although there were some hours I slept fine, I felt with 0 power and was lying in bed for days, so I stopped taking it. My psychiatrist was going to prescribe me a sleeping pill (Essognu), which I know that can cause very easy dependence, so I refused that option. My girlfriend left me, because she could not handle it. I could not work, because of the sleep and vomiting issues. I was almost going to be hospitalized. So, for the 3rd time I was forced to go back to Cipralex, Fluanxol + Agomelatine (Valdoxan) for sleep. I decided to stop these things that are killing every emotion in me, I cannot feel happiness nor sadness and I want to try everything (even if I manage to lower the dose of the Cipralex and continue to take it forever - even that will be great!). And here I am after 3months (from September 2022, now December 2022) - my sleep returned and my stomach issues + vomiting are nowhere to be found, but I have heart palpitations and daily headache again. I stopped Fluanxol and Valdoxan and am only on Cipralex 10mg, but I need your advice: 1. How to taper it correctly - in Bulgaria there is no liquid version of Cipralex, I can order from a friend in Germany. Have tried to dissolve the pill with water and to take it via 10ml syringe, but it seems it is faster distributed in my body, and I feel strange. 2. How to cope with the two things that forced me to get back on antidepressants - insomnia + vomiting. Please give me your advice. Thank you sincerely!

Hi everyone, Nice to meet you all. Didn't want to begin with such a long winded post but really need some guidance. Over the last 8mo I've had a whirlwind experience. THC overdose, subsequent panic disorder diagnosis, and a cocktail of drugs. The Dr put me on 5mg Lexapro back in May. About 2wk later I became severely derealized (couldn't recognize parents) and suicidally depressed. I have never had depression before. I dropped the lexapro CT. Following this I was referred to a psychiatrist who switched me to Zoloft min dose, which had a similar effect. I dropped that CT as well after about 3wk and was given 25mg seroquel. At first I began with 12.5mg and worked my way up, and things seemed to go ok for a month. Then I progressively began to derealize again, became severely depressed, hot flashes, panic attacks, obsessive thoughts, burning skin, paranoia, etc while taking this drug - all of which were extremely magnified starting 2wk before my menstrual cycle. At one point, I split the dose into 12.5mg morning+evening to see if it would help but it did not, so I returned to evening dose 25mg after a few days. Through October I titrated and am now at 0mg seroquel as of Nov 1. My titration "plan" included going down by 1/6 of the tablet every 5-7 days with an oil suspension. I could not go slower due to the extreme effects the med had on me. I took .25-.5mg of Ativan intermittently throughout the month to lessen the intensity of the panic attacks (last dose Nov 10). My cycle is due Nov 20. I am having unbearable depression waves, no sex drive, no interest in hobbies, constant derealization, constant burning skin, no appetite, hot flashes, panic attacks, brain zaps, the list goes on. I can't work again. These symptoms did exist throughout all of last month but they are now incredibly magnified again. I can say however I noticed a slight overall improvement going *off* the seroquel, as I am now able to enjoy music slightly, enjoy videogames slightly, open my work laptop get out of bed, think a bit clearer, and the DPDR has lessened maybe 30%. So, what is this? Medication induced PMDD, withdrawals, or what? Did I screw it up more with the Ativan? Can someone give advice as to what my next steps should be? Thank you for reading.

ADMIN NOTE 17 March 2019 A scientific paper has been published based on the hypothesis put forward in this topic, see Horowitz, 2019 Tapering of SSRI treatment to mitigate withdrawal symptoms NY Times article about Lancet tapering study: How t Quit Antidepressants: Very Slowly, Doctors Say VIDEO CLIP: Mark Horowitz explaining SERT occupancy To search for a serotonin transporter occupancy study for your medication, google the generic name of the drug with this search term: 5HTT occupancy 5HTT occupancy of duloxetine (Cymbalta) Takano, 2005 A dose-finding study of duloxetine based on serotonin transporter occupancy The site, academia.edu, requires login. (Thank you, MMarie) Image of duloxetine dose-occupancy and dose-plasma concentration curves 5HTT occupancy of Anafranil (clomipramine) and Luvox (fluvoxamine) Suhara, 2003 High levels of serotonin transporter occupancy with low-dose clomipramine in comparative occupancy study with fluvoxamine using positron emission tomography. 5HTT occupancy of citalopram, fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine and venlafaxine Serotonin Transporter Occupancy of Five SSRIs at Different Doses (thank you, panic27) Link to study on occupancy vs. dose for clomipramine compared with fluvoxamine Link to image showing 5HTT occupancy curves for clomipramine and fluvoxamine The Last Psychiatrist has an amusing essay on SERT occupancy with this illustration for citalopram: Plain language explanations of SERT occupancy from brassmonkey and from Scrountz Hi, I thought I'd share this as it's quite relevant, not 100% sure if this is the right subforum, will post in both this and research. PDF of American Journal of Psychiatry article or Summary and excerpts from study in the Journals forum of survivingantidepressants The pretty pictures are from page 4 onwards in the PDF. (Admin note: Pretty pictures here. See this post for graph of "perfect" 10% taper of previous dose with 4 week holds) What these fellows did here, was attempt to measure serotonin transporter occupancy at various doses for 5 different drugs. (Zoloft, celexa paxil, effxor and Prozac, not in that order). They fit curves for both the oral doses and blood concentrations. Long story short for anyone who doesn't know, SSRI’s ‘work’ by binding to the serotonin transporter protein (SERT) and stopping it doing it’s normal thing (reuptake of post-synaptic serotonin), resulting in serotonin hanging around for longer. Now a couple of interesting things: -at minimum therapeutic doses in every case, there was about 80% SERT occupancy. That shocked me personally. Even the minimum doses are locking down 80% of your brains reuptake ‘capacity’. Higher doses do more but it’s obviously not linear – they actually have plotted curves, and they’re quite a good fit statistically, particularly for the blood concentrations. Really good in fact. Point here though is that there’s a long way between 0% at no drug and 80% at the minimum dose. -the curves man, look at the curves. This gives a fairly good indication of why some people find tapering necessary. You NEED a percentage taper just to get a linear decrease in SERT occupancy. Linear decreases in dose will actually hit you with exponentially increasing drops in SERT occupancy, particularly drops between the minimum therapeutic dose and 0 Basically, this paper provides a real basis for percentage reductions in dose when discontinuing SSRI’s. I realize I'm kinda preaching to the converted and telling people what they already know, but it seems there may actually be a real reason why some people find it necessary to do these percentage tapers to get off SSRI's. Caveat: I have no idea what the relationship between SERT occupancy and post synaptic serotonin is, it’s probably not linear since if it was higher doses would have basically no effect, but this is nevertheless very interesting to look at. They were only looking at one part of the brain but pointed out it correlated strongly to elsewhere. GRAPHS - both graphs start at 100mg dose for the period 1 January 2019 to October 2022. Note the difference in the "jump to 0" dates. The following shows a HYPERBOLIC taper of 10% every 4 weeks. This shows tapering from 100mg to 0mg, but the curve would be the same for any starting dose. The following shows a LINEAR taper of 10% of starting dose every 4 weeks.

Hello Lovely Humans, I am a 36 year old woman. Prior to the experience laid out below I was (and fight to still be) a very happy, high performing human with a successful engineering career. Well now I am much gentler on myself to not be so high performing. 🥰 In early August I had friends visiting while we were renovating our house. I was also dealing with a highly stressful job. That’s when I had 4 days of bad insomnia which was very unlike myself (typically 1-2 days per month). While they were visiting I asked my primary doctor for a subscription for 5 Ambien tablets. I had taken one of my mom’s before a couple years ago and it knocked me out. I figured that they could just help me through my friend’s visit and that would be it. The weird thing is this time I was waking up 1-4 hrs after taking the 5 mg tablet. Desperate for more sleep I would take another 5 mg. Early on I attempted to go a night without it and landed in the ER with a panic attack. This started a (luckily short) stint with Ativan. Over the course of the next month I used the Ambien nightly and the Ativan as needed and things got worse. I started to experience suicidal ideation which got more intense over time. Needless to say this was beyond terrifying. I’ve never even experienced depression let alone SI before in my life. Desperate for some answers I scheduled a psychiatry appointment since I had only been seeing a primary doctor. I told him my symptoms as well as that my mom is diagnosed bipolar. Within 5 minutes of hearing that my mom is bipolar he diagnosed me with that as well. He prescribed me 100 mg of Seroquel. This was September 7th. Those first few weeks I was elated to feel like myself again and get 10-11 Hours of sleep. However after reading the side effects profile of the drug I became worried. (Doctor only told me possible weight gain was the only side effect-which luckily I haven’t experienced). Additionally I just didn’t quite identify with being bipolar and I had this nagging feeling that the Ambien was the cause of the suicidal ideation. That coupled with the high stress I had been carrying for a while. I decided on November 1st to start tapering. So far so good. I’m at 75 mg. Sleep is still great (average 8.5 hours-keeping a daily spreadsheet that I hope to turn into some fun graphs by the end). My biggest issue is a stiff neck. I am doing lots of stretching, chiropractor, and massage. It seems to be slowly alleviating but I am hoping this doesn’t worsen after the next cut. Any guidance on this would be appreciated. All things considered I’m doing ok. I’ve been able to get short term disability for the past 4 months and really focus on how I want to rebuild my life. I even started skiing again after blowing out my knee (acl, mcl and meniscus) 2 years ago. So I am no stranger to a long term healing process. The year before that I broke my wrist! Hopefully after this taper I can get a little break for a few years haha! 🙂 Thanks for reading my story. This site has been so valuable as I start this scary journey. Appreciate all the moderators' time and energy!

Hi everyone. I've been reading this site for the past few months ever since I gratefully stumbled upon it and finally made an account. In early 2018 I successfully tapered from 30mg citalopram down to 20mg by cutting a 10mg tablet. I went down about 2.5mg/month. I tried a couple of times to go down to 17.5mg but the symptoms were intense and I realized it was too difficult to get a consistent amount with cutting the tablets so I decided to stick with 20mg until I found a more consistent way to taper. I read about the dissolve method working successfully on a post on this site and decided that would be my route. I bought some 10cc syringes with .2mL gradations. Last night I tried my first dose at an 8% taper - 18.4mg. I'm feeling worse than i'd expected/hoped considering it was such a small difference, but I have historically had a rather sensitive system. I'm starting to question whether I'm really meant to go down, if this is a sign I should keep my current dose. My life certainly isn't in a particularly solid place (though it's relatively stable). But I know it will only become more difficult the longer I'm on it, and I've seen only marginal if any benefit from taking it. Looking to document my process and experience here and contribute to this supportive community as well as find guidance about how to approach my own path.

Hi all, I am a Finn, 60 y.o., and therefore my English is not so good and accurate. However, I already have found useful advice here. My sleeping apnea was treated with Triptyl 12 mg for ten years. Then I got a proper diagnose and a CPAP machine in Jan.2020, but, my sleep did not recover. The doctor first ordered Lyrica+Escitalopram for a better sleep, but, this did not help at all; it only worsened the poor sleep. After that she compelled me to take Agomelatine 50 mg with Ketipinor 100-400 mg, and told me that I have to take these if I ever wanted to sleep. These drugs were safe, they did not cause any problems, and they were easy to get rid of. I quit Agomelatine by myself in Feb.2022, and started to think that the cause of poor sleep were now the Ketipinor. I never took more than 200 mg, and lowered the dosis from 200 to 100 in 2021, and from 100 to 50 in 2022. I paid some visits to a sleep clinique in 2022. They adviced me to quit Ketipinor rapidly, in one night. This gave me the withdrawal symptoms, and, I returned Ketipinor thinking I could not cope without it. However, on Jan.3rd 2023 I lowered to 25, by myself. I got panic reactions and poor sleep, but, now I knew these were withdrawal symptons that would ease during time. Now, I visited the psychiatrist of the sleep clinique, and he gave me instructions to deal the 25 mg into 4 pieces, and, drop 1 piece every fortnight. With this support, I lowered the dosis to 18 on Jan.20th. Now I go with 18 mg. However, this speed might be too heavy for me. Any help is appreciated.

Hello! I have been taking Effexor for quite a few years. I wanted to start to try to get pregnant with my husband and would like off the medication before trying to conceive. So I began my own research. I came across shocking information about withdrawals! I landed upon a Facebook group for tapering off Effexor and began my journey tapering (see signature) 5% drops every 4 weeks. after reinstating a small amount after a regular 5% decrease (counting beads). I experienced extreme symptoms. Usually I would deal with some nausea and dizziness for a few days after a drop, but this was much more. Trembling, crying, depressed, extreme anxiety and fear, unable to eat. It was so traumatic! Lasting several weeks gradually getting better. So I reinstated 10 beads and leveled out. And experienced a few bad waves monthly until finally levelling out. I have since been good. Functional. I have been able to drop a bead at a time. But at this rate I’ll never come off. I feel stuck. I feel like I won’t be able to ever get off this medication. I don’t know what to do or where to turn. Do I attempt larger drops? Do I give up? I feel so stuck! Each bead drop, I’m ok, generally some brain fog, maybe some heightened anxiety. But I fear going to fast and getting sick again. Any help or guidance would be so appreciated! I take 200mg magnesium, 1000mg omega 3 and tumeric. thank you fellow warriors!

Good morning. I have spent the last week stalking this website and thought how wonderful it was to have such a support system. So here I am. As you will see, I haven’t been on mirtazapine for very long. I was desperate at the time and needed relief like many of you have stated. I still wasn’t feeling great when upping the dose to 11.25 mg but refused to go any higher. I started seeing a functional doctor back in Aug and it turns out, I have an over active thyroid which has pooped out my adrenals. So here begins the healing process. I was put on wholefood supplements. Meaning, each ingredient has come from a whole food source. I have been off refined sugar, junk food for 3 and half months. The withdrawals from that was fun! I have been feeling better, ups and downs but I felt like I needed to be off mirtazapine in order to heal properly. If that makes sense. Knowing to decrease slowly I thought that 16% would be a good start. Nope. Within 4 days I went into withdrawals. Anxiety through the roof, nauseous and upset stomach. I immediately took my original dose and have been doing that for 6 days. I am still not 100% and I just feel exhausted, sick to my stomach in the mornings. It comes and goes. Appetite way down and little waves of anxiety. I am looking for support during my process. My husband is sweet but hearing “it will get better soon” is not helpful. I practice mindful meditation, yoga, journaling. My head is in the right space, but my body is rebellious. Can is take longer than a week for your body to build up to the dose you reinstated? I’m assuming so as every body is different but it just feels nice to hear it. To conclude this novel. Once I stabilize, my functional doctor will guide me with a taper where we will start at 2.5%. I’m thinking after the holidays so my body has time to be still. Any advice will be great. I would also like to journal my way through this here in hopes to help not only myself but others as well.

Hello Everyone, Let me introduce myself. You can call me Sebas (38), i'm from Amsterdam. Hope my English is okay. I was diagnosed with anxiety issues around 2004 and then started using Seroxat, I believe it's called Paxil in the US. I'm aware by now of all the problems this medicine is causing. In other words, i've read a lot, and i mean A LOT about it. I can almost graduate about the subject After several attempts to stop, I found out in 2015 or 2016 about the 5-10% reduction rule. That helped me from 20 mg (10 ml) tot 12 mg (6 ml) in about 1,5 years (estimated). I'm using the fluid suspension and some squirts for accurate dosage. From 6 ml down to 5,8 took me 5 weeks to feel allright, then i stabilized for a week and went back down from 5,8 tot 5,6. All the usual withdrawal symptoms occur during tapering periods such as illness, nerve system problems, visual, fatigue, stomache cramps and also i'm countering eye circles. Since the last dosage (from 5,8 tot 5,6) i've been feeling bad for 9 weeks already. Especially my stomache and my energy. So i'm now wondering what to do, wait (and wait...), go back to 5,8, go back to 6,0 of try to switch to another AD. Cause this one is really @#$%&* mainly cause of the fast half-life period. I've read about a cross tapering method. I asked my doktor for a psychiatric consult about it. Or...could it be my body (and mind) is telling me this dose is beneath the minimum that i just need for my personal wellbeing. I'm familiair with magnesium, omega 3/fish oil and multi vitamin for support. I'm looking forward fto exchanging some knowledge. Bye Sebas

Hello I am 53 monthe out from a xanax CT withdrawal. It has taken me this long to begin finally feeling myself again. Complete hellish experience. Finally getting moving past brain fog. I am still on 150mg venlafaxine XR 150 daily and three weeks ago, started tapering by 10% every 4 weeks. So far so good. I wanted to make my first site post and make some friends here during my taper. I will add my info to my signature shortly. Wishing all peace in their journey. Hingie

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I found this site two years ago when I first became aware that there were other methods of "getting off" of SSRIs besides the typical schedule suggested by primary care doctors. I was thrilled to discover a community chock full of resources to taper. I was on a dose of 10 mg of citalopram (brand name Celexa) at the time, which is below the standard therapeutic dose of 20 mg. I stayed on 10 mg because it seemed to give me enough of a mental/emotional boost with less intense side effects, and I had dealt with more troublesome side effects of other SSRIs at higher doses and was fed up. That's not to say the 10 mg had NO side effects - they were just a bit less bothersome. I have been on and off SSRIs since I was about 17 years old, and I am now in my 30's. I've had years where I wasn't taking them, but inevitably I would go through some kind of mental health crisis and desperately ask my doctor for meds again (or they would, of course, offer it after ascertaining I was depressed again). In the last two years I've come to wonder how much my mental health struggles are present in my brain without meds, and how many relapses *may* have been in fact caused by having started SSRIs in the first place? I can't know that answer for sure, but I do know - and have always known - that I am NOT ok with the idea of taking SSRIs for my entire life. To be frank, the side effects, even at lower doses, are unacceptable to me. Some of the side effects I've experienced depending on the SSRI: Blurry vision, hot flashes/heat sensitivity, sexual dysfunction (every single SSRI I've taken), dry mouth, trouble sleeping, trouble waking, anxiety, daytime sleepiness and lethargy (sometimes so bad I had to drink a lot of caffeine and felt it distressingly difficult to concentrate or accomplish anything), increased/voracious appetite leading to significant weight gain that I am still struggling to lose, jitteriness/restlessness. Family have told me that these are a small price to pay for not feeling suicidal. That when it comes to sexual dysfunction vs. despair, choose the lesser of two evils. And while this seems obvious on the face of it, I'm not so sure those are the only two choices. I have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, OCD, and I'm being evaluated for ADHD next year. OCD in particular is quite difficult to manage without medication. But difficult is not impossible, and earlier this year I was doing well off my meds for a while, until work stress triggered emotional issues in me (although it could have been a long term withdrawal effect, and I don't really know, so this time I want to monitor more closely and support myself better). This is my third attempt at tapering and this time, I am joining this community as a member to really commit but also to closely monitor my symptoms and do this the right way this time. Glad to be here, and thanks for reading.

Hello, I'm new to this forum and I'm working toward tapering off of 225 mg of venlafaxine. I am a 70 year old male, that has been very active and health conscious. My weakness has been depression. I previously had two periods of feeling depressed that involved obtaining an antidepressant from my general practice doctor. I would get to the point of feeling spacey and or lethargic, then do talk therapy to get back off of the drug. These where phase one antidepressants, and I would taper off slow over say 4 to 6 months without noticeable side effects. These events occurred between 2005 to 2008 per notes I still have. I retired from Highway Engineering March 1, 2014. Many emotional events piled upon me during the next five months. The stressors where; retiring and adjustment period, daughter coming home to live with us and get a divorce, a vicious son in law (being divorced), one or two other more minor stressors that I do not recall, and a huge spiritual crisis in which I felt I had not lived as graciously as God would have wanted me to. In July 2014 I became fixated on thinking about all these things. I sat in a stupor for days, lost 15 pounds, thought the devil was speaking and accusing me of my wrongs and tempted me to deny God and just die. My wife asked me If I had thought of suicide and I admitted that I had. She called 911 and got help. They took me to a hospital and put me on suicide watch till they could transfer me to a psych ward for treatment. I was confined for a week and given many medications. I also had a physical problem that they dealt with. I was released to an out-patient psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told me he would take me off all the previous medications except for increasing my dose of venlafaxine to 225 mg. I have been on venlafaxine for four (4) years. In May 2018 I stopped drinking all alcohol and also stopped experimenting with legalized cannabis. I quickly felt a bit more energy. I put this energy toward searching the internet for information about venlafaxine and antidepressants. I have learned much, but still want to keep learning. My Psychiatris agreed to allow me to get off Venlafaxine October 4, 2017, after telling him repeatedly about my desire to and why. He reduced my venlafaxine from 225 mg to 150 mg. The short of it is that I did not make it, and went back to the full dose. After learning more about how to decrease slowly, I am ready to try again. I have sought the help of my general practice doctor, who is supportive and has reduced me to 187.5 mg. Since I know that a 10% reduction is better, I cut open a 37.5 mg capsule, counted the beads, and took 40% of those beads, 15, and added them to the 187.5 mg, for a new total of 202.5 mg. I'm also taking daily notes of my physical and mental state, and dosage. I will see my general practice doctor monthly. I will be also talking to my Psychiatrist about my plans. I plan to start talk therapy also. Does anyone have any advise or comments?

Hi All. I have been looking at this site for a while now before joining. I am glad to meet you all, and thank the moderators and members for the support and comfort they give to others. My main reason for joining SA at this time is to connect with others who are going through withdrawal and tapering. Although I have some friends who have been wonderful and supportive, they do no really understand what withdrawal is like and how scared I feel about starting to taper and everything about WD, once I have stablized on reinstating Citalopram. I need to accept my situation, but some days I feel so frustrated and afraid. I am so keen to feel and be positive, as I feel having the right mind set can really help. This has been made harder the last few weeks by having a very sick parent, and has caused a lot of ongoing stress after getting to a much better place.

Aka Remeron, Remeronsoltab, Avanza, Axit, Mirtabene, Mirtaz, Mirtazon, Norset, Promyrtil, Remergil, Remergon, Remeron SolTab As with other psychiatric drugs, we recommend trying a 10% taper of mirtazapine per month, based on the last dosage you took. If you get withdrawal symptoms from a 10% taper, go down by smaller amounts. See Important topics in the Tapering forum, particularly why-taper-by-10-of-my-dosage A very common withdrawal problem with mirtazapine is rebound insomnia, which reinforces the need for very gradual tapering. From FDA information at http://www.drugs.com/pro/mirtazapine-tablets.html From Malhi, et al 2003 Dual-Action Antidepressants: Mechanisms of Action and Clinical Use Per http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00370, Half-life is 20-40 hours. Mirtazapine tablet dosages are 7.5mg, 15mg, 30mg, and 45mg. The "orally disintegrating" version melts in the mouth and is widely available as a generic or brand-name Remeron SolTabs. Reduce by splitting tablets Request that your prescription be filled with the lowest dosage tablets or combination that includes the lowest dosage and split them into quarters for the smallest decrements. (A quarter of a 7.5mg tablet would be 1.875mg.) If you are very sensitive to dosage reductions, you may wish to weigh tablet fragments, see Using a digital scale to measure doses Reduce by titrating a liquid A liquid is easier to measure in order to taper by small amounts using an oral syringe. Unfortunately, mirtazapine liquid is not widely available. In the UK, mirtazapine liquid is available from Rosemont Pharmaceuticals in Leeds. Ingredients of the liquid are here: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/31587. Shelf-life after being opened is 6 weeks. Ordering information is here. Make your own liquid from a tablet To taper, many people make liquids from mirtazapine tablets themselves. While water solubility of mirtazapine is "slight" according to http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00370 you can make a suspension of it yourself with a tablet and water or a pharmaceutical liquid such as Ora-Plus. See How to make a liquid from tablets or capsules (to see the links to the documents mentioned, click on the gray arrow in the upper left of the quote.) Refrigerate the DIY suspension for up to 5 days, then discard. Have a compounding pharmacy make a liquid for tapering Compounding pharmacies can make a liquid from the tablets. You will need a prescription written for the customized drug preparation. The only drawback is this can be quite expensive. While your pharmacy may say the liquid is good for a month, people have noticed potency decreases over that time: Please note the do-it-yourself liquids are kept for less than a week. Reduce by making a liquid with the "orally disintegrating" tablets You may be able to dissolve the orally disintegrating tablets ("Soltabs") in water and use an oral syringe to take a measured dosage. I couldn't find any reports of doing this but, since the orally disintegrating tablet is designed to dissolve in saliva, it seems likely to work. After making the liquid, I would take the dose immediately and discard the rest -- do not count on it keeping for any length of time. For instructions on how to make a liquid, see how-to-make-a-liquid-from-tablets-or-capsules If you do this and it works, please let us know in this topic. Using a combination of tablets or capsules and liquid Rather than switch directly to an all-liquid dose, you may wish to take part of your dose in liquid and part in lower-dose tablets or capsules, gradually converting to all liquid as you get to lower dosages. This can be very convenient and reduce any problems switching from one form of the drug to another. If your doctor prescribes liquid and tablets or capsules at the same time, most likely, he or she will have to indicate "divided doses" in the prescriptions to get the drugs covered by insurance. Cut up or crush tablets, weigh fragments or powder with a digital scale In principle, this would be a more precise way of tapering than cutting up tablets: Cut up or crush the tablet If crushed, make sure the shell fragments are evenly distributed in the powder Weigh the tablet fragments or powder for a dose with a digital scale If powder, put the powder into an empty gelatin capsule to make it easier to ingest Tapering mirtazapine and venlafaxine or "California rocket fuel" This is a combination of mirtazapine and venlafaxine (Effexor) that has some popularity among psychiatrists, but also can have dangerous side effects. If you are taking this combination, you probably will want to taper the Effexor first with the hope that the remaining mirtazapine will maintain sleep. See About going off mirtazapine plus venlafaxine (Effexor) aka "California rocket fuel"

Hello, im confused about what to post and where. So please bare with me. Im 41 years old, female and have been on quetiapine and escitalopram for 12 years or so . I have been skipping doses of the lexapro for the last year. I naively thought this was ok to do. My anxiety, panic and ocd has been incredibly bad i assumed it was just my illness getting worse( bpd, adhd, anxiety, ocd, ptsd) the meds no longer working . At their peak i was taking 20 mg escitalopram and 75 quetipaine. but naturally tapered over the years. I thought they were working but now im convinced they are making me worse. Im worried i have kindled myself from skipping doses of lexapro. As i said i have been stable on 25 mg of quetiapine that i take regualry but for over a year have been skipping doses of 10 mg of lexapro, i may only take 3 tablets a week. I had the realisation i wanted to come of the meds starting with the lexapro, i went on holiday recently ( 2 weeks ago) and took 1 , 10 mg pill in 8 days I Was feeling sick so the next week took 5 mg only 3 days a week and found this site. Ive since realised skipping doses was a terrible thing to do. i have now decided to take 5 mg every of the lexapro every day . The sickness and headache subsided but im feeling high as a kite And manic. im not sure what to do im trying to find a psychiatrist but its taking ages. Please advise 🙏🏻🙏🏻

I am a 32-year old female and have been on anti-depressants since I was 14. I have had diagnoses of Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar 2, Depression and Cyclothymia. I have been on Venlor, Wellbutrin, Citalopram, Prozac and a few others over the years. The only thing that seemed to improve my depression and mood swings was to introduce Lamotrigine (a mood stabiliser). I am currently on Lamotrigine (200mg) & Vortioxetine (10mg). I am eating healthily, exercising regularly and sleeping well. I would like to come off my medication to have a child but I am concerned of the effects, due to having been on medication for so many years and being in a very demanding job (will I even be able to?). I have been stable for a few months and had a depressive episode earlier this year after the death of a family member. I have done a lot of research and understand that it may work to taper off the antidepressant before the mood stabiliser but has anyone had experience with tapering off these 2 drugs Lamotrigine (200mg) & Vortioxetine (10mg)? My psychiatrist says that tapering can be done in a month but this sounds crazy given the time I’ve been on them, I was thinking micro-tapering would be better.

Hi, I just joined and wishing to learn to be away from drugs. I tried to stop my medicine voluntarily but experienced withdrawal symptoms. I resumed medicine but with a low dose of 30mg Cymbalta. I have been taking various medicine since 2011.

Hi, I have been taking fluoxetine/prozac for the last 11 years and I recklessly tried stop it cold turkey earlier this May but was immediately hit with a barrage of withdrawal symptoms like diarrhea/gi tract malfunction, brain zaps, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, derealization and emotional blunting. After being bedridden for a week and searching up what to do I decided to reinstate the med at half dose and see from there. Since then I have been tapering down but at a pace not considered appropriately slow. Three months now and I’m down to 2.5mg per day. Symptoms that appear to has disappeared are the brain zaps, nausea, and diarrhea. But I seem to have gained new symptoms like heart palpitations and skin numbness. The anhedonia/emotional blunting is still as bad as ever and the fatigue is still affecting my daily life. Imsomnia seems to be improving to the point I’m able to at least sleep 5 or 6 hours now as opposed to the beginning where I would have whole nights of no sleep at all. The slow rate of improvement is really making me concerned about recovery. Did I make mistakes that are preventing me from healing? I fear that my disastrous attempt at cold turkey may have done damage to my central nervous system. Is there hope for a full recovery?

Hey everyone, so I decided I'm not going to take my monthly antipsychotic injections anymore. I had it with the side effects and my psychiatrist wasn't supportive to taper me off slowly (he thought I should be on them forever). I know it's not the best decision considering the risks, but I have faith in God and my capability to overcome any side effects. I'm thankful that I didn't face any major withdrawal effects so far (except for whole body soreness for a day or two which was acceptable) and I hope it continues that way. It's almost 2 months from my last injection and the half-life of Invega Sustenna is 25 - 49 days so I definitely crossed it. I don't know if it helped, but I am taking Ratfish liver oil 15 drops twice daily. Now, I wanted to know if it would be a good idea to start taking a natural dopamine/serotonin reuptake inhibitor (Catuaba) to down-regulate my already up-regulated dopamine/serotonin receptors. The reason I suspect they up-regulated is because the Invega I was taking acts as an antagonist at both dopamine and serotonin receptors. I would like to start healing my brain to return to my former intellectual/cognitive state before starting the medication (I suspect I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar to begin with). The extra dopamine could possibly help with the motivation/focus issues as well. Do you think I'd be overloading my brain at this stage? Would the Catuaba cause me to go manic? Any thoughts are welcome (including how to overcome/bounce back/heal after stopping antipsychotics)...

As you scroll down this link to the medicating normal website you will find links to different resources that are available most seem to UK or Australia. https://medicatingnormal.com/psychiatric-drug-withdrawal/

So I have been tapering off antidepressants for the last year by myself and I am looking for some support. I first was given Lexapro 20 mg about 6 years ago for an anxiety disorder. At the beginning it worked wonders (or so I thought) but after 2 years I started to experience major weight gain and sexual side effects that were unbearable and I decided to get off my medication. I was not informed of any potential withdrawal and ended up tapering way to fast and experienced extreme withdrawal. I ended up going back on the Lexapro and stabilized. After about 4 months I decided to try and get off again but this time I tried a slower taper. I tapered from 20 to 15 mg successfully and then tried from 15 to 10 but the withdrawal was too much. I went back to 15 mg but side effects were really taking a toll on me so I decided to add Wellbutrin. I experienced severe anxiety and could not continue on the Wellbutrin. I tapered off Wellbutrin and the next 2 months were complete hell filled with extreme anxiety. I also started to notice a weird tightness sensation in my stomach that disabled my movement. After 2 months my doctor recommended mirtazapine in addition to the Lexapro. I started to feel great after the addition of the mirtazapine but then after a month out of no where I started feeling extremely anxious and my stomach tightness increased 10 fold. I tried to stay on the medication as I was terrified to go into withdrawal again but after 6 months of the mirtazapine I could not continue. I tried to taper slowly off the mirtazapine and again experienced severe withdrawal and decided to see a psychiatrist (the worst thing I have ever done). She put me on Rexulti in addition to the Lexapro and mirtazapine and I experienced the worst restlessness I have ever felt but the anxiety was slightly reduced. I read online that the restlessness goes away after a while so I continued with the rexulti and the restlessness eventually went away. I then tapered completely off the mirtazapine and my stomach issues resolved slightly. I was still experiencing sexual side effects so my psychiatrist switch me from Lexapro to Vibryd. She told me there were no side effects but I ended up experienced the worst weight gain and sexual dysfunction I have ever experienced. At this point I was so angry and disillusioned I told my psychiatrist off and decided to get off everything. It has been about a year of slowly tapering and every little bit of medication that I get off of the better I feel. That being said I feel as if I am deteriorating mentally. When I do tapers now I start thinking that I am permanently damaged and become suicidal even though I eventually start feeling better every time. I am currently in the middle of a taper and I am feeling pretty hopeless. When I taper I experience a loss of coordination, blurred eye sight, extreme anxiety, stomach tightness that I have started to notice in my spine, suicidal thoughts, slurred speech, headache, and extreme anger. These symptoms describe a condition call Ataxia and I am beyond worried that I have acquired a permanent condition. I know I start to feel better but when I am in severe withdrawal I can't help but worry about permanent damage. I just haven't had enough time of feeling good over the last 6 years to confidently know that I am not permanently damaged. These guys need to pay for what they are doing to people. I hope that this information is used to put a stop to this horrific system.

Hey all, first post here. I am so glad to have discovered this site. For 3.5 years I’m sitting here wondering what’s wrong with me and why doctors keep telling me it’s all in my head (I KNOW I’m not fabricating this stuff) only to discover my symptoms are legitimate, validated and real. And shared by many other fellow survivors. I spent many years feeling alone and hopeless. Not anymore. So yeah, I was on very high doses of a hormone that has anti-depressant effects for 6-7 years. After coming off 3.5 years ago, my cognition/ concentration/ brain function and memory were destroyed. No energy, have severe insomnia, tinnitus, anxiety. Live in constant brain fog, derealization/depersonalization, had to quit school, work, lost friends and relationships… basically stopped living. Don’t recognize myself or my life anymore, let alone friends and family. My naturally outgoing, extrovert, colorful and comedic personality became dry, flat, apathetic, anhedonic, agoraphobic, introverted, recluse. I feel brain dead. And dead, in general. Also noticed extreme sensitivities to foods (usually high histamine/fermented/high fodmap) which could send my brain on a trip equivalent to LSD. I have tried everything but nothing really works. What worked last month doesn’t this month. There’s 0 stability. I find I’m sensitive to most supplements. Currently on a decent regime- including fish oil and magnesium. I went to so many doctors (to no avail). They put me on various ADs (which I think made everything worse.) Couldn’t stay on more than a few months. But I find myself torn. Seems that when I’m on them, I want to be off. And when I’m not on them, I want to be on. It’s like I have 0 capacity for decision making and executing functioning. I’m currently tapering off Zoloft. I don’t know what else to do anymore… So 3+ years like this with very little improvement. I need help. I don’t know what to do, where to go, where to turn. I feel completely lost. I had goals for my life and now I consider it a success if I get out of bed and make food. Tell me. Does it ever get any better? Or is this just my life now? Is there hope for me? Should I go back on ADs or try and heal without them? Please help me. I need to hear a success story. Thanks for reading and for your advice. I value it so much. Blessings.

Hi All: Thank you for this WONDERFUL resource! I am so excited to start my first post. In 1994 or 1995 at about the age of 28 I started taking Venlafaxine for immense, longstanding depression with concomitant anxiety. I can remember having severe and debilitating depression with concomitant anxiety since I was about 10 years of age. Back to 1994/1995 (+/-). After taking Venlafaxine for a while, the depression abated and has never come back. Unfortunately, I never ceased taking the drug, even after I felt better. I have been on it for many many years. You can do the math. Yikes! Ultimately, after a 10 month up-titration to 75mg (maybe in 2015), I lost my libido. It was low but not lost. It has not come back. My poor wife. In 2017 and 2018 (I believe), on two separate occasions, I attempted to taper. Each time counting beads from the capsule over a 10 month period, but I went too fast. As a result, I suffered bizarre, horrific and terrorizing anxiety and panic attacks, especially related to communicating with others. I would have this unreasonable idea that I offended someone, or that they misinterpreted something I said, or that they were mad at me, or that they thought I talked their ear off, etc. The emotional reaction I had was almost a sense of terror and panic. Very bizarre. I knew it was the withdraw. I had never ever been THIS crazy, even before starting the Venlafaxine. Please note, when I tapered I also had all the other "fun" side effects - electric shocks, brain zaps, tinnitus, etc., etc. But the worst was the social paranoia, by far! After these 2 unsuccessful tapers(2017 and 2018) things changed in my body/brain. I lost the periodic, positive feelings of excitement and joy, also I noticed I became flat (had almost no feelings of love, empathy, sympathy, or sadness, etc.). Thankfully I don't suffer from depression anymore. It stopped way back in 1995+/-. The depression didn't even come back during my tapers. Now I just suffer ftom moderate social anxiety, GAD, sexual disfunction, lack of excitement, and a feeling of "flatness." In the past I was able to down-titrate to 18.75mg with "tolerable" discomfort; unfortunately, back then I didn't wait to stabilize before further down-titration. I tapered again before I felt better. This compounded my WD symptoms....And, I kept tapering and tapering, thereby compounding the WD symptoms more and more. I am now trying to taper once again. Its been 2 days. This time I am titrating down to 18.75mg and holding there until I feel better, only then will I decrease very slightly and slowly (10% decrease per each down-titration). This time I am not drinking any alcohol or eating sugar. This time I am exercising much more. This time I am more strictly sticking to my whole food plant-based diet. This time I am taking: Multivitamin/multimineral D3 B6 Magnesium potassium Coq10 Choline Inositol Theanine Tryptophan Tyrosine N-acetylcysteine (NAC) Omega-3 Probiotic One of my VERY FEW good qualities is that I have good logic skills and I am a good "researcher." I am intellectually curious. I have seen Medicating Normal (a movie about psych drugs, as most of you know). I have done tons of research of MANY scholarly articles (for many many years), and I am NOW ready to do the taper CORRECTLY this time. I have read many of Alto's articles and many SA posts. They are amazing and informative. Fyi, Venlafaxine Extended Release is my only "psych" drugs. No benzos. No other SNRI/SSRIs. No anti-psychotics. Nothing. I guess I am lucky for that at least. I own and operate a successful business. I Have a beautiful family. I have great family relationships. I Have a 3-year post-graduate education. Don't know if anyone wanted to know all this, but I guess it adds some color to my situation. OK. Enough about me. I want to give ALL of you a very very heart-felt thank you! I truly appreciate what Alto and the members have done by setting up, running and managing this forum. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Hugs and love - The TaperShaperVXR Pls forgive typos and bad grammar. I am writing this from my phone. 🙂

As I said I’m new and so grateful for this website, it has really helped me when I’ve felt low during withdrawal symptoms of antidepressants, I’m 4 months into being off venlafaxine and it’s definitely not been easy! As an understatement! Still really struggling with these effects but wanted to ask about lansoprazole, Im actually not sure how long I’ve been on it now but I would guess a couple years now at the least, I was put on it because I have really bad nausea but now I think it’s purely from anxiety. I’ve seen multiple things pop up online lately about how you are not supposed to be on them for more than a couple months, yet no doctor has ever once even checked up on me about them since I was put on, typical! So now i really want to get off them, it’s not helped my nausea and I just want to be off all medication, im only 20, 21 end of October and just hate living around medication that doesn’t even help me. Because of really struggling with antidepressant withdrawal I really want to lower any chances of feeling rubbish coming of lansoprazole and don’t trust any doctors opinion now to be honest about tapering time, so would love to know what anyone here would recommend, I’ve counted 61 beads in each capsule of lansoprazole and was wondering if taking one out each day would stop withdrawal symptoms I’m only on 15mg and I know people might even say that’s way too excessive going that slow but I don’t care as long as I don’t have to feel worse, or would people even recommend longer?

Hi everyone. I am hoping to get some much needed (and very much appreciated) advice on my situation. As you see, I had been on Sertraline for almost 2 years, or around the two year mark, before I began a too fast taper in 2016 which lead to my withdrawal syndrome in September 2016. My doctor had me taper in 6 weeks completely off Sertraline, jumping off at 25mg and not even tapering the 25mg, just cold turkeying the 25 per his instruction. Well, I was feeling some withdrawal symptoms, I just didn't realize what they truly meant, and my doctor had told me not to worry 'they will clear up in a few weeks" well they didn't really clear up, but actually got worse two-three months later. I want to make this as short as possible so it is easy to read, but long story short, I ended up reinstating Sertraline at 12.5mg first week, at the same time tapering the 30mg of buspirone my doctor had tried to test out on me for almost two weeks. Each week, he upped my dose of Sertraline during my reinstatement, until I reached 57mg and my body rejected anything above the 57mg. However, I did not know anything about withdrawal or tapering back then, and realize that I was put on way too high of a dose for reinstatement. This has me very scared and very anxious, I try hard not to be, and most of it is likely neuro related, but I wonder what I can do if I feel it's too high? I've got the anhedonia, but I've had this since December, and it actually was brought on more or less by my doctor trying to put me back up to 75mg, maybe that was just a coincidence, but I am not so sure. Each adjustment of the sertraline left me with worsened insomnia, worsened panic, trembling and what I can only describe as body jolts every morning for four months straight. And trying to sleep at night I felt like I was having seizures almost, where my body would jolt me awake just as I was drifting off to sleep, heart would be racing, fear and panic would run rampant and worsen in the morning. I still have mild teeth chattering every morning and especially when the anxiety or stress comes on. I reinstated pretty quick, where I reinstated as soon as my withdrawal symptoms started getting worse, I didn't wait it out even though I really wanted to. I didn't want to go back on the medication after what it had done to me, but didn't know what else to do. Then, everyone I trusted, my doctor especially, had me convinced I had developed several new mental disorders in a matter of three days. I was so so scared, and my anxiety was through the roof. I really stressed myself out a lot trying to figure out "what was wrong with me" because I did not know at the time. On top of that I had the professionals I trusted assuring me it was my "symptoms coming back" (they actually said that right after I already told them I never ever had these symptoms before in my life, not even one of them.) Then I happened to find SA, during my research into my symptoms and the ssri I was taking. I learned a lot in one night, and my jaw dropped. My gut had been telling me all this time it was the drug, it was withdrawal. But I ignored it and listened to the "experts" instead. HUGE MISTAKE!! Now I am stuck in a situation that makes me fear for the future, and not sure what I can do now that I am back on a higher dose. If I would've known better, I would not have allowed my doctor to titrate me up so high. I would've sat at the lowest possible dose, even the 12.5mg. My withdrawal symptoms had really settled down a lot for the last two or three months now though. My appetite came back, libido came back, depression lifted almost instantly upon reinstatement, the anxiety and panic took a while to lift but that has really settled down a ton and only sporadically (maybe lasting a second or two) I'll feel a blip of panic and anxiety (typically when under a lot of built up stress), and my biggest gripe for withdrawal symptoms as of now is the anhedonia, but even that was beginning to lift where I'd get moments of joy or contentment or my interests peaking through the veil of anhedonia. My sleep actually went back to normal in the last week or two, and I haven't been waking with the dread or anxiety for the past three months now, and I have been feeling pretty good except now I got back into this wave and I think it's because I'm stressing over tapering and my dosage after what I read last night. I read on SA someone said that being on too high a reinstatement dose can permanently damage your brain, where you will never heal from it. So I am really scared... I really need advice or wisdom on where to go from here. At this point, I worry I'll always feel this way and I'll never recover any further than where I currently am. I'd be fine if I felt somewhat normal, where I could handle the withdrawal symptoms temporarily until they pass, and I do admit that on my better days I certainly can handle them. But I feel like reinstatement was pointless or worse for me than just muscling through the withdrawals after what I read about high dose reinstatement. I feel like A) it's going to take forever just to stabilise on this dose and B it's going to be painful trying to taper when the time comes, due to that I may have permanently damaged my brain with my reinstatement. I guess what I am wondering now is, do I stay on this dose and wait for the anhedonia to completely go away, or how do I know when I am ready to begin tapering? At this point I am just feeling very confused and afraid about my dose and tapering in the future. I feel lost. I'd really appreciate any help! Thank you!