Posted by bleauberry on September 26, 2010, at 10:40:04
In reply to SSRI withdrawal 1 month later, still zapping, posted by vitalsign0 on September 22, 2010, at 12:07:45
After 14 years, there have likely been some profound long lasting and maybe permanent changes in the brain. It isn't the same brain you had prior to Luvox.
Manifestation of anxiety? Grasping at straws. Sorry, ssri zaps are not anxiety. Headaches have a thousand causes. To point at anxiety seems weak to me. Unless of course you are indeed suffering some heavy anxiety. I didn't see that in your post.
For reference, I was still have brain zaps 4 weeks after stopping zoloft and I had only been on it for 6 weeks. Prior to that it had been 6 weeks of lexapro and 8 years of prozac.
Doctors have not yet taken notice of it yet, but there is a very clear phenomenon of post-ssri adverse effects following longterm use. It's almost as if we need to keep taking the ssri for life, regardless if it does any good for us or not, simply because the molecule has become such an integral part of the body we can't readjust to working without it. Almost like a permanent physical dependency.
I would probably give it another month to see what happens. My zaps were gone at about the 6 week mark. My true baseline really didn't settle in until about 3 months....these brain adaptations...either getting on a med or getting off....take a long time.
> Brief history:
>
> Been taking Luvox 50mgs and Xanax .5mgs at night for the past 14 years for generalized anxiety and OCD.
>
> My doctor switched me to Prozac to make withdrawal easier and it worked. I took Prozac 10mgs for a month and then stopped the SSRI altogether. I still got some brain zaps and headaches, but they were a lot more mild than any other previous attempt. Things got bad two weeks after stopping for a few days, then calmed down a bit.
>
> Here it is 4 weeks after stopping Prozac, 2 months after stopping Luvox, and I'm still getting brain zaps, disconnected feeling, and headaches. I can never predict how I'm going to feel day to day.
>
> How long should this go on for? My doctor said at this point it may not be the medication withdrawal anymore, but a physical manifestation of baseline anxiety and I might want to restart Luvox or try a different one.
>
> Any advice?
poster:bleauberry
thread:963367
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100926/msgs/963839.html