Posted by JohnL on December 10, 2000, at 5:30:14
In reply to Quitting Prozac after Long-Term Use?, posted by lgd2000 on December 10, 2000, at 2:04:01
> Would GREATLY appreciate hearing of anyone's experience or knowledge of studies regarding the effects of quitting Prozac after continuous use for three years? (Or, Wellbutrin after 2 years?)
Prozac is normally much easier to ween off of than any other antidepressent, due to its long halflive. One dose of Prozac is half gone in a week. It isn't completely gone until around 4 weeks. Therefore it naturally wears off very slowly and has kind of a built in weening benefit.
I don't know your dose. For the sake of an example, let's assume 20mg per day. Here's a method that could work well.
Empty the capsule contents into juice. Stir well, drink half(10mg), save the other half in the fridge. The next day, take a full capsule as you normally would. The third day, drink the other half of the juice (10mg). The fourth day, take another full capsule. The fifth day, make up another batch of juice and drink half of it. Each time you drink the juice, make sure to stir it well first. Prozac won't dissolve and will settle to the bottom of the glass.
When you are comfortable with it, just drink 10mg per day and don't do any more 20mg doses. Then you could start skipping days. Drink 5mg (1/4 glass) every day, or every other day, or even every third day. After two or three weeks of this, you should be able to just stop completely. If at any time you get intolerable withdrawal effects, just drink enough juice as needed when needed to get over the hump. Eventually you won't need any more at all. Let the withdrawal process tell you when it's completed, instead of trying to predict a deadline.
Each batch of juice will keep for about a week in the fridge.
John
poster:JohnL
thread:50305
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001130/msgs/50317.html