Horns85: Lexapro withdrawal

[Horns85]

Thanks, Greentrain. I have not tried any supplements yet. I was reading through the mag threads but there is so much info, I wasn't sure where to start. You think mag glycinate is a good starting point? Is there a particular brand you would recommend?

 

Our bedroom is very dark. Before I was at least sleeping till the sun came up around 6:30 but recently it has become 4-4:30a.

[Horns85]

It seems a little crazy that tapping on these acupressure points helps clear some of that morning hangover / haze but I really see the benefits. Keep an open mind!

 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gffKhttrRw4

I like that! Thanks for sharing! How are you doing, doing better?

[greentrain]

I've used this one for years but if you want one without fillers Pure Encapsulations is a good brand.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00013YZ1Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1421688402&sr=8-1π=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=41PvQNQFKXL&ref=plSrch

 

I still have lots of symptoms, my gut is destroyed, and many days I can't identify with my thoughts/ emotions. But I have a lot to be grateful for as well. Check out my signature! There have been many symptoms that have improved tremendously. I try to welcome the new symptoms because I know they are leading me to place of balance as they unwind the effects of the drug. And I know that like everything they are impermanent.

 

I am on my way back from a trip with my family that was busy and 6 hours from home. I could not have done this 2 months ago. It wasn't easy but I'm proud of myself for re-engaging in this way even if it meant eating all of my own food and having to sit out some activities and be with my intrusive thoughts.

 

I hope to come out on the other side of this chemical chaos in place of radical self-love, and gratitude. May you, as well.

[Horns85]

Thank you, Greentrain. You're outlook is something to be admired. Thank you for all your help and your posts have helped me tremendously. Here's to both of us coming out of this much better than we went in!

 

How much of the mag would you start out with? What time

Of day do you take it?

[greentrain]

Try half or a third of Mag before bed. Titrate up to a capsule or two. Everybody needs a different amount.

 

I found high doses of Vit C helpful for those cortisol surges I'd get throughout the night with heart racing. Vit C is water soluble so you'll know when you hit your tolerance level when your bowels are affected. Maybe give it a try once you find a good dose for Mag.

 

Thanks for passing the long car trip with me. I'm glad I could help. Let's keep in touch.

[Horns85]

Thanks. I will start w/ a half and go from there. 

 

I am glad I could help pass the time! Thank you for taking moments from your day to help a fellow sufferer!

 

I will absolutely stay in touch. You seem to be about 5 months further along than me in this journey. 

 

Sidenote--If any of my posts seem a little all over the place, I apologize, as you probably have experienced, my brain doesn't seem to work all that well right now!

[ikam]

I bought powdered magnesium, but I don't know when is the best to start taking it...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00J03ZH88/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I know, I will need to start from mini-doses...

[julianfrancois]

I tapered off lexapro around the same time as you horns85. i was much faster tho. i went from 10 to 5 over a few weeks and then nothing. i was fine for a month or so minus the slight brain fog and twitching and slight tremor. however 3 and a half months after i suffer from those intrusive thoughts and waking up early in the morning around 4 am with intense intrusive thoughts and anxiety. I find that meditation beginning by counting breaths helps a lot. I'll end up on like breath 280 before im able to really relax and just focus on my breath and then i drift off into sleep again. also every night I take melatonin. i know its not good to supplement for sleep but it really helps with my akathisia when winding down. 

[Horns85]

Slept a little better the rest of last week. Still awoke when the sun came up with intense anxiety(cortisol), but slept a solid 6 to 6.5 hours. No waking at 4am. Anxiety is unrelenting due to my life being more stressful at the moment and WD making it seemingly impossible to deal w/ any kind of stressors. Very frustrating! Mondays always seem to be the worst and gets better as the week goes on until the dreaded Sunday night. Can't wait for this anxiety from hell to remit at some point.

[Horns85]

Can anyone explain to me why stress is SOOO much more difficult to deal with during WD? I am having a stressful week, but things I used to be able to deal with(mostly work related) make me incredibly anxious and stress me out like no other. Once I am back into a calm state I feel like I just ran a marathon. It's the craziest thing. Thanks in advance.

[ikam]

I think this is because our autonomus nervous system already deals with WD. Any extra stress just adds to the load...

[Horns85]

Thanks, Ikam. Makes sense.

[Petunia]

Can anyone explain to me why stress is SOOO much more difficult to deal with during WD?

 

Our nervous system can become more sensitive due to withdrawal, so its more easily triggered by any kind of stress.  It can take a while before it regains its previous strength, in the mean time, do the best you can to reduce stress, which will help the recovery process.

[Horns85]

Anyone deal with awful acid reflux during WD? I would have it sporatically before Lexapro but this is really bad. I have it even when I haven't eaten. Thats strange and my anxiety makes it worse. Has anyone else dealt with this?

[greentrain]

Hi Horns, I replied to someone in the symptoms and self care forum about reflux. Check it out.

 

How are you? How's the sleep? I'm hoping you're seeing some improvement, even if very minor.

 

Mine is so variable - some nights I get away with 3-4 quick wake ups and 8 hours. Other nights I get a lot adrenaline surges with heart thumping that keep me up a good portion of the night. Things are definitely better than they were a couple months our, however. Guess we just need to keep our heads up and keep swimming through this muck.

[Horns85]

Hi Horns, I replied to someone in the symptoms and self care forum about reflux. Check it out.

 

How are you? How's the sleep? I'm hoping you're seeing some improvement, even if very minor.

 

Mine is so variable - some nights I get away with 3-4 quick wake ups and 8 hours. Other nights I get a lot adrenaline surges with heart thumping that keep me up a good portion of the night. Things are definitely better than they were a couple months our, however. Guess we just need to keep our heads up and keep swimming through this muck.

Hey Greentrain,

 

Sleep is a little better. I am getting a solid 7 hours or so. I'm not waking up though the night, but waking every morning like clockwork around dawn w/ my brain going 90mph and unable to go back to sleep. At least I am getting some solid sleep though! It is frustrating on the weekends...

 

Thanks for the advice on the reflux. It has gotten a little better when I don't focus on it. It's terribly uncomfortable at its worst.

 

I hope you are hanging in there. Let me know if you ever need anything from me. I did get some magnesium glycinate and am going to give that a go this weekend and see if that helps calm me.  Best to you, Green!

[ikam]

 

Hi Horns, I replied to someone in the symptoms and self care forum about reflux. Check it out.

 

How are you? How's the sleep? I'm hoping you're seeing some improvement, even if very minor.

 

Mine is so variable - some nights I get away with 3-4 quick wake ups and 8 hours. Other nights I get a lot adrenaline surges with heart thumping that keep me up a good portion of the night. Things are definitely better than they were a couple months our, however. Guess we just need to keep our heads up and keep swimming through this muck.

Hey Greentrain,

 

Sleep is a little better. I am getting a solid 7 hours or so. I'm not waking up though the night, but waking every morning like clockwork around dawn w/ my brain going 90mph and unable to go back to sleep. At least I am getting some solid sleep though! It is frustrating on the weekends...

 

Thanks for the advice on the reflux. It has gotten a little better when I don't focus on it. It's terribly uncomfortable at its worst.

 

I hope you are hanging in there. Let me know if you ever need anything from me. I did get some magnesium glycinate and am going to give that a go this weekend and see if that helps calm me.  Best to you, Green!

 

Hi, just to add about sleeping. I remember I had this problem after Effexor, few years ago. I would be waking up around 5am with racing thought, pounding heart, sweating, etc. No matter what I did, I was waking up that time.

/in this what I wrote below I don't want to suggest that I am right and other people wrong. Just maybe it could be helpful?/

So as a first solution I started going to sleep earlier, even 8pm, so I got enough sleep. I have noticed that generally my sleep is better, deeper up to midnight, so my quality sleep is before that...

Secondly, I tried to dis-harm my vicious cycle, thinking and panic and body sensation and behaviour...I tried to think (this did not always work...) that "here we are again, my famous 5pm", or I would pre-empt my panic asking myself: "I wonder if I can guess the time? Aha, it is my famous 5pm"...Sometimes this helped me to get a bit more sleep...I tried to reformulate my panic trying to give a different meaning to my body signs, as "racing heart", feeling panicky, higher blood pressure- could be a sign of preparing for the day. I thought I had this habitual response to my faster heart beat- that this was anxiety. But it could also be mobilisation (?)...Actually, when reading about ANS the same body signs may have different meaning...

I also tried to re-channel my anxious energy, I was getting up and tried to get occupied with something else, e.g. exercise programme. But this was a difficult one, as I love to stay in bed...But if I stay in bed I expose myself to more anxiety...As it usually starts spinning faster and faster...

Interestingly, I noticed that changing completely from being preoccupied with anxiety to something as powerful like sex and orgasm made me feeling more recharged than anxious...hmmm...

In terms of behaviour, eventually when I needed to go to work, my anxiety had to be rechanneled to getting to work, etc...

 

It is easy to talk about it, but when I was feeling this it was so difficult, especially that I have tendency to catastrophising...

 

And this has started again, when I wake up, my mind looks for something "negatively attractive" and when I find it, I get the worst possible scenarios (such as that I may a cancer in my throat)...

[greentrain]

Seven hours a night at your point in withdrawal is pretty good! I know it's not consistent but we must celebrate the small wins. Are you working now? I'm not, so at least I can lay in bed until 8 or 9 and rest if I haven't slept. That's about as late as my kids will allow. 

 

Re: your question, I don't need anything...well, except to have this end. Ha! 

 

And maybe some of that warm Texas weather you're experiencing. The Northeast seems to covered in snow and flu germs! I guess it's a good time to be convalescing. 

[Horns85]

Seven hours a night at your point in withdrawal is pretty good! I know it's not consistent but we must celebrate the small wins. Are you working now? I'm not, so at least I can lay in bed until 8 or 9 and rest if I haven't slept. That's about as late as my kids will allow. 

 

Re: your question, I don't need anything...well, except to have this end. Ha! 

 

And maybe some of that warm Texas weather you're experiencing. The Northeast seems to covered in snow and flu germs! I guess it's a good time to be convalescing. 

Thanks, Green! Yes, must celebrate the small wins. I am working right now and one thing I have found is that since withdrawal hit, I can not handle stress AT ALL! Things that never bothered me before send me into a state of panic and worry. I worry and stress about EVERYTHING it seems and am obsessive about it. Its not me and that has affected my sleep a lot. I was a worrier before, but this has taken it to a whole new level. Have you or anyone else experienced this?

[greentrain]

Are you kidding? Worry has become my middle name.

 

I have three repeating worries that have plagued me for the past 9 months, but other minor ones cycle in here and there. You know, variety is the spice of life, right? Ugh. 

 

I try to repeat positive affirmations when I get into a state of overwhelm and worry. I read somewhere that this will "crowd out" the worries - because you literally can't worry and be repeating positive statements in the same moment.

 

Sometimes it helps until the wave of worry passes or there is some distraction that comes along to take my mind off the worry. 

 

I also try to get into my body when my mind wants to dominate - go for a walk, do yoga, lift weights, jump on a trampoline - anything to raise the good feeling chemicals and dampen the worry. 

 

PS- You are in good shape if you can work! Keep going!

[Horns85]

Thanks, Green. I'm sorry that you are going through this too. Knowing it's common certainly helps. I have been trying to insert positive affirmations constantly and it does seem to help! Thanks!

 

I am going through a bad wave right now. Things have been stressful at work and that usually makes my WD so much worse, but it doesn't tend to manifest till a few days after the stressful event. Very strange. Besides the worrying, I CANNOT sit still. If I sit on the couch, I immediately feel like I need to be moving. It's an awful feeling but seems to be rather common in WD.

 

Thanks for all your help. Just venting this morning.

[greentrain]

I hear you, Horns. Bad wave going down here, too. All of that stuff - doom and gloom, irrational fear, depressive thoughts - plaguing me as I pressed my nervous system a little too much yesterday. 

 

All we can do is hang in there and know that withdrawal and our down regulated receptors are creating this, and if we don't feed it, it will eventually back down.

 

I'm trying some distraction today....Eckhart Tolle on the iPad while I play bookworm and journal. 

 

This shall pass. 

[Daveguy2015]

Greentrain on average how long do you think it takes for the down regulated receptors to grow back?

[greentrain]

From what I have learned, it takes as long as your bio-individual nervous system needs to recover.

 

We all have different emotional tendencies, drug histories, time on medication, and tapering approaches.

 

But what I do choose to believe is that this chemical chaos in our bodies will balance out because we are a self-healing organism always moving toward homeostasis, especially if given the right inputs in the form of rest, good nutrition and gentle movement. 

 

We'll get through this. We will. 

[Daveguy2015]

Oh ok. Greentrain I see you have been off meds for almost 10 months. Have you noticed any big improvements in your recovery?

[greentrain]

I think I have seen improvements.

 

My recovery has been kind of logical - my symptoms have moved from the most urgent to the least.

 

It started with brain/vision, moved to GI, moved to nerves/periphery, and then on to hormones and bladder. I'm now primarily dealing with GI issues and muscle tightness/twitching with more minor waves of the other category of symptoms coming infrequently. There is some vision stuff happening but nothing as bad as blurred vision; I notice floaters, light sensitivity, etc. 

 

For example, I haven't had brain fog in like 4 or 5 days but this morning I had an hour spell. Brain fog was much more intense and frequent in the first three months. Or, for example, my hormones fell apart in Dec/Jan and I was having cramps everyday for a month. This cycle I've only had them for 2-3 days. Or, I had endless spells of burning/tingling and numbing in Nov/Dec and now I just have some warming of my extremities maybe once or twice a week. 

 

So, while I'm not even close to back to normal, I feel more days of engagement and stability than I did back in the fall. I still wind up in bed for a half day here and there, too. 

 

Can you tell I needed to type this out to remind myself as well? It's easy to get lost in the day to day management of symptoms and forget that your body has healed or improved many things along the way. 

 

How are you holding up? 

[Horns85]

Green,

Do you or have you had to deal with the "cortisol mornings"? I have had this for a month or so waking, even with my brain calm, with that surging uncomfortable feeling. Some days it makes sense because I am anxious about certain things, but others it's there for no reason it seems. I have a had a day here or there when I wake without out it, but most days it's there. It's so very uncomfortable.

[greentrain]

So very timely of you to ask...was up at 5:30am today filled with cortisol fueled restlessness, after losing 3 hours of sleep in the middle of the night due to cortisol. 

 

Yes, they have come and gone throughout withdrawal. Very bad at the beginning, not too bad from month 4-9 (woke feeling more toxic then), and now they are back. I think my body is working on healing the muscular system - lots of signs of pain and progress there - so I'm assuming that the cortisol is back because it is truly the tension leaving the muscles. 

 

Higher doses of Vit C before bed is said to help cortisol surges and I have found that to be helpful on many occasions. 

 

Don't worry - they will get better. You're sleeping and working so you should be really proud of where you are at only 5 months out. 

[Horns85]

Thanks, Green. I was much better yesterday morning. I went out Saturday night to dinner with my wife and her cousin, had a margarita and I think that is what SET ME OFF on Sunday. I don't drink alcohol very often and haven't at all during WD and wow, apparently I can't touch the stuff right now. The anxiety and agitation I felt was like no other. I seem to be very sensitive to any kind of stimulant right now. Lately just eating, even when it's whole, healthy meals seems to make my body feel tense. I remember this happening in Month 2 and man it's uncomfortable. Like everything, it will pass.

 

I hope you are doing well today. Hang in there. We will all make it to the other side!

[greentrain]

Good to hear from you! Yes, we will make it! Margaritas....ah, I remember those luscious drinks....seems like another lifetime. 

 

I am in a wonderful window - 4th day now. I needed this -was starting to second guess my sanity - with all of the horrific mental symptoms of the last month! Of course, the fear is still there but it's milder than it was. 

 

Month 8 saw lots of muscle healing progress, some vision improvements (and I thought they were healed already) and lots of cycling through old physical symptoms in very mild, short ways. I'm hoping that's my body's way of checking on it's healing work b/c this is the first time I've noticed such a thing. 

 

Onward and upward, Horns. There's a lot to be grateful for even in withdrawal ... we're Lexapro-free!!! ... that's amazing in and of itself. 

[Horns85]

I am struggling today. I have been very stressed/anxious with work the past 8-12 weeks. Well, very stressed. That pretty much all ended at the end of last week which is great. Ever since then I have felt very depressed, almost emotionless and out of it. Almost as if my brain is so worn out form past 2-3 months that it's non functional. It's a very scary feeling and I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this? I almost don't want to say depressed bc I don't really feel sad, just kind of feel nothing. No happiness or sadness really. Very very strange. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

[ikam]

If I feel like this, I try to just notice it, it will pass...

maybe this is a type of burnt-out feeling...

[greentrain]

Yes, just like ours bodies are experiencing a wide variety of pain and thus healing so will our brain. I've felt so many emotions in withdrawal that I've never encountered in my life and yes it can feel scary. I only experienced anxiety prior to withdrawal. I didn't even had names for many of the mental symptoms!

 

Name the emotion as healing and try not to catastrophize it into a forever state. This is all temporary. A few years from now we'll look back with amazement that our bodies navigated through this.

 

AND, I say this after coming off one of the darkest days I've ever had yesterday. It's really hard, I know.  

 

Keep holding on! With each passing day, we're one step closer to putting this behind us. 

[clearday]

 Almost as if my brain is so worn out form past 2-3 months that it's non functional. It's a very scary feeling and I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this? I almost don't want to say depressed bc I don't really feel sad, just kind of feel nothing. No happiness or sadness really. Very very strange. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

I had protracted mental fatigue during my Prozac WD years, it was the worst and most persistent symptom. I also had the apathy and anhedonia that you describe. 

 

Those symptoms eventually lessened and went away.

 

You probably won't have these symptoms as long as I did.

[Horns85]

Thanks Green and Clearday.

 

It has lessened substantially since Sunday. Like all these symptoms, the first time I get them I kind of freak out. Then they pass and I realize that they will come and go and eventually go away at some point. All part of the healing process. Thank you both.

 

Green-I am sorry to hear you had such a tough day. You are doing great. Hang in there and like you said, a few years from now we will look back in amazement.

[pieuw]

Secondly, I tried to dis-harm my vicious cycle, thinking and panic and body sensation and behaviour...I tried to think (this did not always work...) that "here we are again, my famous 5pm", or I would pre-empt my panic asking myself: "I wonder if I can guess the time? Aha, it is my famous 5pm"...Sometimes this helped me to get a bit more sleep...I tried to reformulate my panic trying to give a different meaning to my body signs, as "racing heart", feeling panicky, higher blood pressure- could be a sign of preparing for the day. I thought I had this habitual response to my faster heart beat- that this was anxiety. But it could also be mobilisation (?)...Actually, when reading about ANS the same body signs may have different meaning...

I also tried to re-channel my anxious energy, I was getting up and tried to get occupied with something else, e.g. exercise programme. But this was a difficult one, as I love to stay in bed...But if I stay in bed I expose myself to more anxiety...As it usually starts spinning faster and faster...

 

This is interesting Ikam, I should try this as well!