Posted by 49er on January 21, 2008, at 11:32:21
In reply to Cycling on and off drugs - why do I do this?, posted by seldomseen on January 19, 2008, at 15:31:48
Seldom,
It is very dangerous to stop any psych med cold turkey. When you do that, you get severe withdrawal symptoms that look like a return of the illness. That is a common mistake made my medical professionals.
Obviously, only you can decide whether you need the med or not. But please don't base it on withdrawal symptoms that occurred in my opinion due to cold turkey withdrawal.
As an FYI, I am tapering off of all my antidepressants due to concerns about serious side effects including hearing loss, impaired memory, tinnitus, and hand tremor. I have been on meds since 1995 and started tapering in 2006. I expect to be med free within 12 months to a year. I am doing better than I ever did on meds in spite of dealing with stresses like a job loss and the illness of a family member.
Anyway, I don't mean to imply that just because I am tapering off of meds, that everyone can do it. At the same time, I am concerned that many people have convinced themselves they have to be on meds for life when that simply isn't true.
Like many people on this board, I spent years chasing the perfect med combination. I would say the last one I was on was mediocre at best. But before I became concerned about these side effects, I figured that a mediocre combination of meds was still better than nothing.
Little did I realize how wrong that thinking was.
Good luck with your decision.
49er
PS - Another withdrawal symptom is even though my brain knows what I want to type, my fingers don't cooperate. I just edited the sentence where I said please. Initially, it came out as people.
poster:49er
thread:807722
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080114/msgs/808136.html