Posted by jamie on January 7, 2000, at 2:26:02
In reply to How to stop taking Anti-depressants, posted by Cindy on January 6, 2000, at 22:17:38
> Every time I try to stop taking meds I get terrible withdrawl symptoms and suicidal thoughts just to excape the sympotms and before anti-depressants I was NEVER suicidal. I've been told my symptoms describe VIRDIGO, which I'd never heard of. I feel dizzy, nausea, headachy, sea sick, tearful, and my ears feel like I'm in a tunnel or underwater. I can't remember ever felling this bad, only when stopping Paxil, Wellbutrin and now Effexor. Any thoughts on how to make it easier?
Some meds have worse withdrawals than others, and it varies considerably from one person to the next. I think effexor has the worst withdrawals of them all. I was reading in Dr. Bob's Tips that benadryl is helpful for effexor withdrawals.
Even with a long slow taper off your med you can still have withdrawals. But they should be milder the slower you taper off. You can break or cut your pills into smaller pieces for incremental changes in dose size. If capsules, you can empty contents into water or juice and customize doses that way. Another strategy is to get a prescrip for just a few capsules of prozac. While discontinuing your med, the prozac will let you down much more gently due to its long halflife.
A general rule of thumb is to decrease your dose by 10% a week. Regardless, you still might have some withdrawals. I can understand that, but the suicidal feelings is pretty scary. That's probably a result of too rapid a dropoff of serotonin levels. I am not suggesting this, and I'm sure a doctor would not endorse it, but I have withdrawn smoother from meds by supplenting with 5HTP to replace the serotonin while tapering down. How much to take is purely a guess. Probably not the wisest thing to do to, but I've found it helpful. I think the best you can do is taper slowly in small increments but still expect some withdrawals. Get some prozac in your system while tapering down.
jamie
poster:jamie
thread:18249
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000101/msgs/18266.html