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About SurvivingAntidepressants.org


Altostrata

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SurvivingAntidepressants.org provides volunteer peer support for psychiatric drug withdrawal, while tapering and after you've quit.

 

(This site offers information to empower you to talk with your doctor. For medical advice, consult a knowledgeable medical caregiver.)

 

Taking a harm reduction approach to psychiatric drugs, we recommend reducing your dosage to the lowest effective dose for you, minimizing your drug burden for the sake of your general health. Many will continue to wean off psychiatric drugs entirely.

 

While some people may be able to quickly stop taking psychiatric drugs without serious discontinuation symptoms, others cannot. Slowing the taper usually makes quitting more tolerable, reducing the severity of withdrawal symptoms. Gradual weaning can take many months and much patience. If you are tapering or thinking of going off a drug, visit our Tapering forum for information.

 

If you wish to ask questions, please register and start a topic for yourself in the Introductions and Updates forum. This topic will be your case history, where you can track your progress.

 

For a minority, antidepressant withdrawal symptoms may continue after stopping medication, for weeks, months, or years. This can be distressing, debilitating, and even disabling. Those who quit without tapering off ("cold turkey") or taper too quickly are more likely to develop prolonged post-acute withdrawal syndrome (PAWS). We offer support for recovery from PAWS, which can be very slow and frustrating.

 

Gradually tapering off the medication is the only known way to reduce the risk of prolonged withdrawal syndrome. Don't risk the integrity of your nervous system -- unless you have life-threatening side effects from a drug, do not risk suddenly stopping any psychiatric drug.

 

If you decide to go off psychiatric drugs and you are taking them to control certain symptoms or habits of thought, you will need to take responsibility for learning non-drug techniques for managing those symptoms. If need be, we may urge you to seek coaching from a psychotherapist or other counselor.

 

We do not offer general mental health support. If you are in crisis, please seek face-to-face help immediately.

 

Pertinent discussions

- Rules and guidelines

- Will my screen name be recognized? Compliance with European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 

- Intro to antidepressant withdrawal syndrome

- Tapering multiple psych drugs? Taper the antidepressant first

- Important topics in the Tapering forum and FAQ

- Want to ask a question? Become a member

 


IT IS RECOMMENDED TO READ THIS SITE ON A COMPUTER OR TABLET. CELL PHONE USERS MAY MISS IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Surviving Antidepressants is entirely volunteer and supported by member donations. It is not affiliated with or funded by any medical or religious organization.

Edited by Altostrata
updated

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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  • 1 month later...
  • Administrator

MISSION OF SURVIVINGANTIDEPRESSANTS.ORG

 

Surviving Antidepressants is a site for peer support, documentation, and education of withdrawal symptoms and withdrawal syndrome caused by psychiatric drugs, specifically antidepressants.

The participants on this site have all experienced or are experiencing difficulty in withdrawal from psychiatric medications. We offer peer support to those who are similarly suffering, drawing from our personal experiences.

(No posting on this site should be construed as medical advice. For medical advice, consult a trusted medical caregiver.)

This site is also a research project. The personal stories on this site are documentation of an iatrogenic condition -- suffering caused by medical treatment -- that is almost always ignored, misdiagnosed, or denied by the medical establishment. Given the widespread prescription of antidepressants to tens of millions of people worldwide, withdrawal syndrome probably affects hundreds of thousands if not millions -- including newborns and children.

Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome can last weeks, months, or years. It can be distressing, debilitating, or even disabling. It may be adding to an increase in what is termed disabling mental illness.

With our documentation of antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, we hope to educate the medical establishment about this problem. Case studies are essential; they are evidence understood by doctors, the psychiatric industry, and government regulatory agencies. The have already informed numerous articles in major publications and scientific papers.

Our hope is, eventually, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs will be prescribed rarely, and only in cases of extremely severe mental illness after less invasive treatments have been tried.

Please join Surviving Antidepressants in its mission to support, document, and educate about psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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Allow me to clarify:

 

Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome can last weeks, months, or years. It can be distressing, debilitating, or even disabling. It may be adding to an increase in what is termed disabling mental illness.

 

Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome is almost always diagnosed as relapse, unmasking, or emergence of serious mental illness, calling for treatment with more drugs. Usually additional medications make it worse, and the person becomes sicker and sicker -- again an iatrogenic (treatment-caused) condition. At the extreme, a person might become disabled.

 

In this way, antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, as well as other adverse effects of psychiatric drugs, may be adding to the numbers of psychiatric disabilities all over the world. (This is described in the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker.)

 

An iatrogenic condition need not be a permanent disability. Recovery is still possible, but if the symptoms are from an adverse or paradoxical reaction to medication, the medication has to be gradually withdrawn for recovery.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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  • 10 months later...
  • Administrator

This site was started in March 2011. Altostrata is the site administrator and owner. She runs the site with the help of amazingly dedicated assistant administrators and moderators who have become knowledgeable about tapering. We are all peer counselors -- none of us offer advice as medical professionals.

No one profits from this site. We are all volunteers. The site is funded by contributions from its members and guests.

Many of the charter members had been participants for years in other antidepressant withdrawal forums.

SurvivingAntidepressants.org was started with these intentions:

  • To provide ongoing support and information for people tapering from antidepressants and those suffering from the ignored iatrogenic condition of prolonged withdrawal syndrome.
  • To offer good information about tapering and withdrawal syndrome, with reference to scientific research if available, rather than the usual messy mixture of myths and truths found on the Internet. This information may be used to discuss treatment with health providers.

    Hopefully, proper tapering techniques will become widely known and withdrawal syndrome much more rare.
  • To collect case histories of tapering and iatrogenic damage (see the Introductions and Updates forum) attempting to follow people through the recovery process.
  • To inform physicians and find effective treatments for withdrawal syndrome, reform psychiatry, and change medicine.

We follow a harm reduction philosophy in that tapering or recovery be tailored to the individual to minimize discomfort and symptoms. In tapering, 10% reduction per month is suggested as a starting point, to be speeded up or slowed down as the individual can tolerate. This protects sensitive individuals -- which could be anyone. No one can predict whether he or she will be vulnerable to severe withdrawal syndrome.

We have no position on the decision to discontinue or resume medication -- that is entirely up to the individual. However, if you think the drugs are controlling certain symptoms for you, in order to go off successfully, you will need to take responsibility for learning to manage those symptoms without drugs.

 

Taking responsibility for your own health and behavior is key to going off psychiatric drugs. If you cannot do that, and the symptoms are hampering your life, perhaps going off drugs is not for you. This site provides support for tapering and withdrawal symptoms only, it is not a general mental health support site.

 

The deepest hope of all of us is that, in time, we'll all recover, many fewer people will be suffering from adverse reactions and iatrogenic damage from psychiatric drugs, and this site will have done its job.

 

If you are new to this site, please go to the Introductions and Updates forum and start a topic for yourself. This will be your topic to record your journey.

Edited by Altostrata
updated information

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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Alto you do a darn good job with this site, which is probably the best support site on the Web. Recently I found a new Dutch support group, although absolutely well meant it adviced the reader to "reduce paroxetine slowly by skipping a tablet each few days"... As long as this "information" still circulates on the Web, much work has to be done. I wrote the owner of this site a mail and now she advocates the 10% reduction rule on her site!

Though all good information came too late fort me and many others, recently I feel a vaaset amount of further recovery, now at almost 4.5 years and prepare for re-entry on the job market. Next week my first application appointments are planned... fingers crossed!

Alto thanks for the good work. And I am sure that we will heal and emerge as very wise human beings!

10 mg Paxil/Seroxat since 2002
several attempts to quit since 2004
Quit c/t again Oktober 2007, in protracted w/d since then
after 3.5 years slight improvement but still on the road

after 6 years pretty much recovered but still some nasty residual sypmtons
after 8.5 years working again on a 90% base and basically functioning normally again!

 

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Agreed,

you do a damn good job Alto!

Best board I've come across and I've hit just about every one in the last 8 years!

xo

Everything Matters: Beyond Meds 

https://beyondmeds.com/

withdrawn from a cocktail of 6 psychiatric drugs that included every class of psych drug.
 

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Thank you so much for those kind words.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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Damn good- amazing - phenomenal -

I still cannot grasp the magnitude of it all and I've only been on 1 site -

Plus Gia's incredible journey -

 

I hope I can one day do a fraction of what you have -

Pristiq tapered over 8 months ending Spring 2011 after 18 years of polydrugging that began w/Zoloft for fatigue/general malaise (not mood). CURRENT: 1mg Klonopin qhs (SSRI bruxism), 75mg trazodone qhs, various hormonesLitigation for 11 years for Work-related injury, settled 2004. Involuntary medical retirement in 2001 (age 39). 2012 - brain MRI showing diffuse, chronic cerebrovascular damage/demyelination possibly vasculitis/cerebritis. Dx w/autoimmune polyendocrine failure.<p>2013 - Dx w/CNS Sjogren's Lupus (FANA antibodies first appeared in 1997 but missed by doc).

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I consider myself blessed that this is the only site in which I became involved (although due credit goes to Benzo Buddies, which seems to be a good, supportive website - I just don't need that kind of support). The factual information I've found here has been invaluable, and so has the friendly and gentle help.

 

May I be able to pay it forward someday soon.

Psychotropic drug history: Pristiq 50 mg. (mid-September 2010 through February 2011), Remeron (mid-September 2010 through January 2011), Lexapro 10 mg. (mid-February 2011 through mid-December 2011), Lorazepam (Ativan) 1 mg. as needed mid-September 2010 through early March 2012

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." -Hanlon's Razor


Introduction: http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1588-introducing-jemima/

 

Success Story: http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/6263-success-jemima-survives-lexapro-and-dr-dickhead-too/

Please note that I am not a medical professional and my advice is based on personal experience, reading, and anecdotal information posted by other sufferers.

 

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i'm still feeling very let down by my Dr. i can't always read much in one go but knowing i'm not alone is a great comfort to me,thankyou for just being here x

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Brilliant, ground-breaking site.

 

Very important and absolutely vital.

 

So important to have somewhere that recognises prolonged withdrawal too.

 

Many, many thanks.

 

 

I came off Seroxat in August 2005 after a 4 month taper. I was initially prescibed a benzo for several months and then Prozac for 5 years and after that, Seroxat for 3 years and 9 months.

 

"It's like in the great stories Mr.Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer."  Samwise Gamgee, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers

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  • 2 years later...
  • Administrator

I want to thank, very deeply, everyone who has donated to SurvivingAntidepressants.org since it started in March 2011.
 
I wanted to let you know how your generosity has helped hundreds of thousands of people.
 
It has helped SurvivingAntidepressants.org fulfill its mission as described above.

 

Currently, this site receives more than 600,000 pages views per month. Since SurvivingAntidepressants.org started 3 years ago, the Tapering forum, Symptoms and Self-Care forum, and Introductions forum, which can be found through Google and other search engines, each have been viewed about one million times.

 

In the Tapering forum, these topics suggesting ways to go off specific drugs have been viewed the most:

*To my knowledge, this is the only compendium in existence of ways to go off Pristiq
 
I like to think that all of those page views mean that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have become aware of the need to taper gradually off psychiatric drugs and saved themselves a world of hurt from too-fast tapering. I also like to think those people have discussed this information with their doctors and, slowly but surely, are helping the medical profession understand a significant risk in psychiatric drugs.
 
As we go forward, my hope is that SurvivingAntidepressants.org can reach out in other ways to educate patients and physicians. Donations may also go to these projects.
 
Thank you again for your donations, our only source of funding. You have helped SurvivingAntidepressants.org to be a beacon of good information that doctors often lack, and saved many from injury.

Edited by Altostrata
updated

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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  • 3 years later...
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Recently, I have had some requests for statistics about this site. To date, we have about 10,000 registrations, with about 300 current active members.

 

The following is from Google Search console for survivingantidepressants.org, showing  where our members come from, over the last 3 months. The US, Canada, UK, and Australia are prominently represented -- but we have members from everywhere in the world. (See "Check in" topics: SurvivingAntidepressant.org members near you)

 

180201_countries_search.google.com.png

Edited by Altostrata
updated

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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More information about how many people are searching for tapering and withdrawal information:

 

180201_totals_search.google.com.png

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

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And what people are looking for, over the last 3 months:

 

180201_top_queries_screenshot-search.google.com.png180201_pages_search.google.com.png

Edited by Altostrata
updated

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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  • 1 month later...
  • Administrator

Latest statistics:

 

- 11,424 registered members since founding in March 2011
- Currently, about 150 new registrations per month
- 3,000 registered members visited this last year
- 5, 796 case histories in the Introductions forum
- Since 2011, most viewed topics regarding Tapering (views include unregistered Guests):

  • Tips for Tapering Wellbutrin (500,000 views)
  • Tips for Tapering Lexapro (312K)
  • Tips for Tapering Pristiq (276K)
  • Tips for Tapering Effexor (246K)
  • Tips for Tapering Cymbalta (243K)
  • Tips for Tapering Prozac (224K)
  • Tips for Tapering Celexa (187K)
  • Why taper by 10% of my dosage? (147K)
  • Tips for Tapering Lamictal (131K)
  • How to make a liquid from tablets or capsules (130K)
  • Tips for Tapering Seroquel (130K)
  • Tips for Tapering Ability (113K)

- Estimates of “engagement” for last 6 months from https://www.similarweb.com/website/survivingantidepressants.org#overview

  • Total Visits 88.76K
  • Avg. Visit Duration 00:15:01
  • Pages per Visit 7.14
  • Bounce Rate 29.29%

 

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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  • 5 months later...
  • Administrator

FYI: This site has

 

- Nearly 13,000 registrations

- About 300 active members at any one time

- 30,000 unique visitors a month

- Most members are from English-speaking countries, with about half from US; about 25% from UK, Canada, and Australia; 5% from Sweden; 20% from other countries including in Asia and Africa.

- The Introductions forum contains about 6,000 longitudinal case histories of psychiatric drug tapering and withdrawal syndrome.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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