Posted by dancingstar on January 23, 2005, at 19:04:58
In reply to Re: Effexor withdrawal - very bad news, posted by sp on January 23, 2005, at 18:58:25
Did you read this link? You ARE DEFINITELY NOT ALONE :-):
http://www.dr-bob.org/tips/split/Antidepressant-discontinua.html
PARTIAL QUOTATION:
"Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 22:20:42 -0500
From: gsdavids@niagara.com (George Davidson)
Subject: Antidepressant discontinuation reactions"I see all sorts of strange complaints from stopping SSRIs too soon. These include mood disturbance, psychotic features such as illusions or frank hallucinations, extreme agitation, and severe malaise.
"Irritability and "over-reacting" don't suprise me in the least, and I find the story as you present it quite consistent with SSRI sudden-withdrawal syndrome. Having learned the hard way how terrible the effects of suddenly stopping SSRIs and venlafaxine (Effexor) can be I now routinely urge all my patients to come off these drugs gradually. I have seen the worst reactions from paroxetine (Paxil), but I have seen them in all the SSRIs. It is claimed that they ar more frequent in drugs with a short half-life -- certainly it doesn't seem to happen with fluoxetine (Prozac), to my knowledge. I have seen the withdrawal sydrome at low doses, like Paxil 20 mg and even Zoloft 50 mg.
"If in doubt that a symptom is due to SSRI withdrawal, just give a test dose and see if the symptoms soon disappear. It has been said on Psychopharmacology Tips that one dose of Prozac, due to its long half-life, can stop the SSRI withdrawal syndrome. The one time I tried this, it did not work, and I needed to give the Prozac daily for a week, then once every 2 days, etc."
poster:dancingstar
thread:1016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050119/msgs/446442.html