gonzi: tapering off of olanzapine

[gonzi]

Hello, 

I have started taking 10 mg paxil in the morning and 2.5 mg rexapin (generic for zyprexa) at night after bankruptcy followed by a break up. 

I have used paxil for 4.5 months and stopped along with rexapin ( fast taper for paxil and cold turkey rexapin). I had terrible anxiety. It was so bad that i was shaking inside all the time. I have survived for a month and than after talking to my dr i started takinng olanzapine at 5,5 months mark. I immediately started to feel better, now its been a little more than a month on only olanzapine. Last week i started tapering after consulting with my dr who is not a fan of drugs(wants me off this drugs asap) but fast tapering is his favourite i guess.

He recomended 3/4 dose for a week , 1/2 for a week and 1/4 for a week and than stop. 

I started taking 3/4 dose for 4 days now, mentally i am not so bad but i started to feel really tired that i can not leave my bed. Is this a common withdrawl symptom ?

 

BR

Gonzi

[Petunia]

Welcome Gonzi,

I'm glad you found SA, this is the best place to come for information about safe tapering of all psychiatric medications. Although its great that your doctor is not a fan of drugs, his tapering plan for olanzapine is much faster than what we recommend.

 

We suggest reducing by no more than 10% of the current dose every 4 weeks, this reduces the risk of withdrawal symptoms arising. Please read through this which will explain why:

  

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

and   Tips for tapering off olanzapine (Zyprexa)

 

 

It would be great if you would put your drug and withdrawal history in your signature. Doing this helps people understand your context, it appears below each of your posts. Here are instructions for how to do it:

 

Please put your withdrawal history in your signature

 

The extreme fatigue you are now feeling could very well be a sign of withdrawal, and that you are tapering too fast. But it could also be a delayed withdrawal reaction from the previous fast taper and CT withdrawal. Its difficult to say exactly what might be causing it, but I suggest you stop tapering for now and give your nervous system more time to stabilize.

 

Here is some more information to help you understand what may be going on:

 

Dr. Joseph Glenmullen's withdrawal symptom checklist

 

What is withdrawal syndrome?

 

and some information to help you communicate with your doctor:

 

What to expect from my doctor

 

You can use this thread as your ongoing journal to track progress, write about symptoms, ask questions and communicate with the community, add to it whenever you want. Its a good idea to bookmark it or follow it, so its easy to find again.

 

Petunia.

[gonzi]

Hello and thanks for the reply.

My withdrawl symptoms got worse and i have started to have crying spells and i can feel my anxiety is rising daily. I really don`t understand how can using these meds for such a short time could cause this kind of symptoms. What kind of treatment is this if you will feel miserable in the end. 

This just doesn`t make any sense...

[Petunia]

Hi gonzi,

 

Thank you for filling in your signature. If your symptoms are getting worse, I suggest you go back up to your full dose and give yourself some time to re-stabilize. At least 2 weeks, maybe longer, depending on how you feel. Then you could begin a slower, safer taper, like the one described in the link I posted above.

 

Most doctors don't understand or recognize psychiatric drug withdrawal, and suggest tapers which are much too fast. Some people can stop quickly, with no or few symptoms, but we are all different and many people need slow tapering to avoid withdrawal symptoms, which can sometimes last for months or even years in some cases.

 

Please read: What to expect from my doctor

 

Increased symptoms are a sign you are tapering too fast. You may also be having withdrawal symptoms from paxil, which the olanzapine may have been masking, so cutting your dose too fast might have allowed those to break through.

 

Yes unfortunately its true, for a significant percentage of people, these drugs cause more harm than good long term, and they end up here and on other web sites, trying to find help and support.

 

But the good news for you is that you were only on them for a short time, so recovery shouldn't take as long as for someone who has been on them for many years.

 

Here is some information to help you understand the recovery process:

 

Brain Remodelling (Rhi's Description of Brain Healing)

 

Videos

 

 

[Plshelp]

Hi petunia. Have you ever been on antipsychotics? Thanks.

[Plshelp]

Hello and thanks for the reply.

My withdrawl symptoms got worse and i have started to have crying spells and i can feel my anxiety is rising daily. I really don`t understand how can using these meds for such a short time could cause this kind of symptoms. What kind of treatment is this if you will feel miserable in the end.

This just doesn`t make any sense...

How have you been faring? Are your symptoms getting any better?

[gonzi]

Hello, 

It`s been a year since i gave my introduction and i thought it is more appropriate to start another thread with a better title and more explanation.

You can find my original introduction thread in the link below. 

 

 

I was unable to cope with the withdrawals and got back to 2.5 mg olanzapine and 20mg paxil. It took around 3 months for me to settle mentally (3 months of mental torture). 

I went like this for about 4-5 months. I was feeling okay.. not feeling much of anything. Then my doctor and i decided it`s time for me to come off the drugs again. I decided i was going to taper off paxil first thinking olanzapine would mask the terrible withdrawal symptoms of paxil. Firstly i dropped to 15mg waited for 3 weeks, and i was feeling okay, so i dropped to 10mg. I started to feel depressed and anxious(physical symptoms didn`t hurt me so much, just had some vertigo for 3 days at every dose drop). So i decided to wait for as long as it takes to feel okay. It took 1.5 months on 15mg for me to feel okay. I went on like this for 4.5 months and finally got off the paxil completely.

 

Then i waited for 2 months feeling a lot of anxiety and a little depression. I thought i was going to be like this forever. I was smoking a lot of cigarettes back than, one day i said enough and i quit just like that. It is hard to believe but 80% of my anxiety was vanished 3 days after quitting. I can`t emphisize this enough, if you are smoking and have too much anxiety, maybe you should give this a try.

 

 I have waited one more month like this and felt good.. no anxiety, a little ups and downs day to day. At this point i strongly believed that the drugs are making me sick because i was never depressed or anxious in my entire life before drugs.. I decided it is time for me to started tapering off of olanzapine. I took the same approach, i started having 3/4 of 2.5mg olanzapine.. It all started to get worse from that point on.. i felt really bad for 3 weeks, i even take a day off of work and stayed in bed and felt sorry for myself. And on 3 weeks mark, i was feeling really good like my old self. So i dropped to 1/2.

 

It`s been a month since i have dropped to 1.25mg olanzapine. I want to share how i am feeling. I wake up with an adrenaline rush in my legs. If i don`t get up from bed immediately, i start thinking about every single thing that has ever happened to me. These memories are so vivid i actually live an event that happened 20 years ago. This is horrible.. Than i try to hold it together and take a drive to work during which i feel doubts of about my future and  i feel my anxiety is increasing.

At work i am a little bit better since i can`t really think about anything. But as long as i am alone i feel this anxiety rush, and thoughts of depression. 

 

The worst thing about all of this is I feel  very week as a person. I don`t know if these feelings are mine or they are induced by the withdrawal. I used to be a really strong and confident person. I thought i could achieve anything in life. Now i am miserable and all i think about is the ways avoiding these horrible feelings no matter what. Sometimes i don`t even go out in case there might be a trigger for bad feelings. 

 

I am going to try to stay on 1.25 olanzapine for as long as it takes. If i feel good again i will drop some more. 

[gonzi]

I realized that anxiety and depression is the worst in the mornings. As the day progresses, anxiety almost disappears and then i feel exhausted due to the morning stress. And at night I am usually okay. Does anybody know why would I be feeling more anxiety in the morning? Could that be related to sugar or something ?

[Carmie]

4 hours ago, gonzi said:

I realized that anxiety and depression is the worst in the mornings. As the day progresses, anxiety almost disappears and then i feel exhausted due to the morning stress. And at night I am usually okay. Does anybody know why would I be feeling more anxiety in the morning? Could that be related to sugar or something ?

 

Hi Gonzi, 

I was just reading about it under Symptoms And Self Care. 

 

There’s a whole thread entitled: “ Waking Up In Panic: Managing Cortisol Spikes.”

 

A lot of people wake up with bad anxiety and panic, and the mornings are the worst. I get like that when I’m in a wave. The mornings when you just wake up can be overwhelming. I find it best to get up or turn the light on and distract myself.

 

 The things mentioned on that thread though were to really black out your room or wear eye masks, among other things. Haven’t read through the whole thread yet.

 

Take care

 

 

 

[Altostrata]

Gonzi, we merged your topics into one. Only one Introductions topic is allowed per member.

 

There's a reason we advised you to taper by 10% a year ago, it's to avoid withdrawal symptoms. You chose to go faster than that with the olanzapine, and got withdrawal symptoms. If you continue to do this, you will make your withdrawal symptoms worse.

 

You've already been through the cycle of reinstatement at least once, how many times do you want to do this before you learn how to taper more slowly?

 

Other than reinstatement, we don't know of any treatment for withdrawal symptoms, and sometimes reinstatement doesn't work. Your choice.

[gonzi]

On 4/19/2018 at 2:46 PM, Carmie said:

 

Hi Gonzi, 

I was just reading about it under Symptoms And Self Care. 

 

There’s a whole thread entitled: “ Waking Up In Panic: Managing Cortisol Spikes.”

 

A lot of people wake up with bad anxiety and panic, and the mornings are the worst. I get like that when I’m in a wave. The mornings when you just wake up can be overwhelming. I find it best to get up or turn the light on and distract myself.

 

 The things mentioned on that thread though were to really black out your room or wear eye masks, among other things. Haven’t read through the whole thread yet.

 

Take care

 

 

 

Hello Carmie,

Thanks for the response.. That was a very useful link. I will definetely give it a try to blacking out my room. 

[gonzi]

Just an update, 

7 or 8 days after i posted on april 18th i started to feel better. I felt like there is nothing wrong with me. I have waited for 10 or 15 days to drop another dose. 

8 days ago i dropped from 1.25 to 0.625. This time i am not feeling so bad. I will wait on this dose for 3 more weeks and see how it goes. 

[Carmie]

On 4/24/2018 at 5:21 PM, gonzi said:

Hello Carmie,

Thanks for the response.. That was a very useful link. I will definetely give it a try to blacking out my room. 

 

Hi Gonzi, 

 

How are u doing in the morning now. I’m in a window but I wake up most days with the shakes, they go away though once I get up  and start moving. 

 

I see on this site that a lot of people find mornings the worst. Hope blacking out your room helped a bit. 

 

On 5/8/2018 at 8:48 PM, gonzi said:

Just an update, 

7 or 8 days after i posted on april 18th i started to feel better. I felt like there is nothing wrong with me. I have waited for 10 or 15 days to drop another dose. 

8 days ago i dropped from 1.25 to 0.625. This time i am not feeling so bad. I will wait on this dose for 3 more weeks and see how it goes. 

 

 

Sounds like your tapering is going well. Yes, definitely make sure you wait at least a month between each taper. I once tapered after three weeks, not a good idea! 

 

All the best with your continued tapering💚

[gonzi]

Hello Carmie, 

Sorry for the late response, i have been busy and haven`t checked my replies (I guess this is a good sign). I am definetely doing better. Anxiety is almost gone, i am feeling kind of depressed from time to time but that is it. I stayed on 0.625 mg for 2 months .. Yes it took 2 months for my body to adapt, but i am feeling good. 

After 2 months i forgot to take the drug for 4 days straight, and when i realized i decided to quit for good. It`s been 10 days since my last dose. I think as part of the withdrawal i am feeling really really tired, and as i mentioned before kind of depressed. But thank god no to little anxiety. I think i am finally able to quit for good.

How are you ? I hope you are feeling good?

[Carmie]

Hi gonzi, 

 

How are you feeling since coming off your meds? Has the anxiety continued to stay away? 💚