Posted by SLS on February 18, 2009, at 6:37:22
In reply to Re: 2-1/2 years later have permanent withdrawal sympto, posted by 49er on February 17, 2009, at 17:46:33
Hi 49er
> Scott,
>
> With all due respect, adding drugs compounds the withdrawal problems and is essentially medicating side effect after side effect.I guess we must disagree on this one. It is good to see both sides of an issue.
Not that there is anything wrong with medicating a side effect, but many people use remedial pharmacological measures to ameliorating the intensity of a withdrawal syndrome. Prozac can help with most cases of SRI withdrawal. My guess is that magnesium might help as well. If it can make life more tolerable and the person more functional, why not opt for remediation? Using your taper schedule would actually take longer and possibly allow for more withdrawal symptoms than crossing over to Prozac and allowing its week-long half-life serve as a gradual taper. Using an anticonvulsant might be the way to go if kindling is indeed involved in the precipitation and persistence of the withdrawal syndrome. There is usually no withdrawal syndrome at all from coming off of an anticonvulsant if it is tapered, which can sometimes be accomplished within 2 weeks.
> Then you have the problem of withdrawing from the drugs that have been added.
Not so. You don't have to "withdraw" from these other drugs, just discontinue them appropriately so as to prevent withdrawal.
> So instead of dealing with withdrawal symptoms from 1 drug, you're now dealing with WD symptoms from the drug you added if you intend to get off of it.
Can you provide an example? You might have some worth noting.
> I realize sometimes you have no choice. In order for me to sleep due to tapering Doxepin (a sleep med) and having rebound insomnia, I have to take a herbal supplement. I am concerned that down the road, it could be hard to get off of it.
I think it is matter of using the tools responsibly and with understanding.
> But generally, adding a drug to deal with the problems caused by another drug is playing with fire.
Can you provide an example?
> For most people, time is the solution and letting the brain get back to homeostasis.
*Ease* back into homeostasis so as not to overshoot and produce more persistent problems - like the post-discontinuation persistent withdrawal effects that some people are reporting with SRIs and Remeron.
I have learned to taper using a flexible dosing method that does not confine one to one dose per day of a fixed amount. It is much quicker and much more tolerable. I can get off of 300mg of Effexor within 2 weeks with no withdrawal symptoms except for those that I purposely allow to occur. There is more than one method of taper, and there is more than one kind of drug remediation strategy.
My suggestion to Chinaroses to take a single dose of Ativan was to use it as a biological probe, not as a method of remediation. There would be no withdrawal syndrome to experience. However, if the symptoms described by Chinaroses were to disappear or ameliorate for a few hours after the dose, it might provide information on the state of the glutamate or GABAergic systems.
Believe me, I am no big fan of replacing one medicinal trap with another. But that is not what is going on with these discontinuation strategies.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:880481
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090213/msgs/880875.html