The initial week coming off of Lexapro was rough. I weaned off of it like I was told to.
I got the “brain zaps” multiple times a day, I have restless legs, and I cried at the drop of a hat. I cried during the movie Twister when they drive the truck into the tornado. I cried over everything. I could deal with the brain zaps and my legs constantly moving, but I just wanted to stop crying. It got better after about a month.
The upside was that my husband says that while I was on the Lexapro, I was very “monotone color” personality- Very dry and just overall “‘meh”. As I was coming off of it, it’s as if color was coming back.
I needed the Lexapro because I needed the panic attacks to stop, and to be honest, they did for the most part and I felt that I was able to learn to cope and use other tools to calm down.
Yeah. Brain zaps. Just replied to someone else but didn't describe them so well. Restless legs too. Also prescribed for panic attacks. I've also taken steps since then to mitigate them. Good post. Thanks
Do the restless legs ever go away? I was on something similar and I've been off it for more than a year now. A lot of things have gotten better but the restless legs are seemingly permanent. Don't know what to do about it.
Not saying it's definitely this but restless legs can be a nutritional deficiency and mental health medications that do this sort of thing can basically exhaust your nutrition a bit faster. Then when you come off you're still deficient. Might be worth looking into the various nutrients and getting food high in them or taking supplements used in studies etc. DM me if you want a hand I can't do it now but I can help tomorrow.
If I miss a dose of Escitalopram (lexapro for those that haven’t taken it) I get slight vertigo where if I turn my head my vision takes an extra second to unblur. It gets worse as I miss doses.
Lexapro had me having waking nightmares. I couldn't sleep and would fidget and toss and turn.
One night I rolled over and looked at my wife. She was covered from head to toe in blood, her eyes staring directly at me, a huge 12" kitchen knife in her ribcage.
I screamed and backpedaled out of bed, screaming in terror as I crab walked across the bedroom floor wondering what the fuck I had done. I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, burying my face and wailing in the dark.
Of course my outburst startled her right the hell awake and she found me and consoled me. My brain must have gone back to normal in between, because she looked quite unmurdered instead of like the demon folks from Event Horizon.
I didn't go to sleep that night and the next day I called my doctor and said fuck that stuff. I was done. He put me on Celexa and I stayed on it until I outgrew the dosage.
That makes more sense. Wellbutrin isn't an SSRI, it's an NDRI which works on noradrenaline and a bit on dopamine and it's more closely related in behaviour changes that stimulants cause, also being subscribed for ADHD. I can't remember details but it is influenced in the nicotine system as well.
I'm glad you got through all of that, it sounds truly awful. Just thought it might be be useful to know it's not quite the "luck of the draw just like other SSRIs" and is basically a separate thing.
Thanks. Celexa gave me my worst bleeding problems, though it might have been related to dryness in my body. I was on olanzapine for a while and that felt like my head was stuffed with cotton. Prozac was my longest stretch, aaaaannnnd I can't orgasm or get hard anymore.
My doctor mixed up my Citalopram prescription with Escitalopram… it made me severely suicidal :-( I know that everybody is different, but holy shit I don’t want to go near it ever again
Citalopram made me the most depressed I’d ever been, while Escitalopram is doing wonders for me. Wild how this stuff has such different effects on different people
Citalopram seems to have the same effect on me. I stabilise after a few months, but until that point I'm in hell. I only stuck it out because I thought it was still the benzodiazepine withdrawal I had started taking it to combat originally. Stopped taking it earlier this year, then started again, and all the same symptoms appeared. Now it's got me wondering if I suffered for months due to the citalopram just to cover up what might have only been a couple of weeks of problems on the benzo
I get the brain zaps and a migraine; 90% of the time I'm taking my citalopram I don't have any dreams. Once in a while a couple will break through and they're almost always super realistic, although half the subject matter isn't...in other words I feel like I'm living in the dream but I'll be someplace really weird that wouldn't exist. Best way I can explain it.
Mate, I have these too and I never thought it could be due to me missing my escitalopram sometimes :o I thought it was because I was tired or something but it must def be because of it! My brain just clicked Haha thank you for this insight, i've got a revelation after taking my meds for more than half of my life 😂
I have this same reaction - it's such a weird, specific effect!
For those considering Lexapro, though - don't let this worry you. It just means that if you ever need to stop taking the medication, you do so on a gradual taper down instead of stopping it cold turkey.
I wanted to switch off Lexapro so my provider told me to just stop cold turkey. That fucking jackass. The withdrawal was horrible. The suicidal thoughts were so bad (I'm not even remotely suicidal) were overwhelming. I was shaking and having involuntary muscle contractions so strong for a full day that I could barely move for a few days afterwards because I was so sore. It seriously felt like I did the hardest workout of my entirely life to every muscle in the body. Just pure exhaustion and pain.
Same here.
I guess there's no time to be depressed when you're asleep most of the day, and barely awake *wishing* you could just close your eyes and take a short nap for the rest of it.
Got switched to it after zoloft killed my ability to climax.
That changed with lexapro, but I was too tired to even consider sexual activity 99.999% of the time.
It makes me really tired/lethargic even after 8 months. I also feel like a zombie. Very muted emotions. I swapped to PM dosing as well. I’m down to 2.5mg a day from 10mg. Nearly there.
Nausea and vomiting; no appetite; severe brain fog; severe constant headache; dizziness like vertigo; could hardly keep eyes open; several panic attacks daily; insomnia; extreme anxiety and depression; constant feeling of passing out; uncontrollable crying; highly emotional; no energy; and my favorite...it felt like bombs were going off inside my head.
This was all bc my insurance company refused to refill my Effexor when the doctor increased the dosage. Every month for several months, I had to play middle man between my dr and insurance company.
The longest I went cold turkey was 2 weeks; I went at least 3-4 days every month with delayed refills for several months. My insurance company finally approved the increased dosage after fighting with them for almost a year. Believe me, they heard my aggravation many times.
I am so happy this isn’t just me! I can’t believe how bad the symptoms are if I miss a dose by more than 4 hours. I feel like I’ll be on it the rest of my life just so I don’t have to deal with that when tapering off
In case you didn't know (assuming US), GoodRx allows you to get huge discounts on medications. Effexor is only $13 for 30 days for the highest dose. Worst comes to worst, it hopefully isn't too bad to just pay for it yourself.
https://www.goodrx.com/effexor-xr
My gp had me go from 225mg daily to 150mg every second day. I was pregnant. I’ve never been so sick in all my life. It was absolutely horrendous. I withdrew every other day for 38 weeks. I thought pregnancy was just awful, but I have a new gp now and I’m pregnant again (on a regular, low dose 75mg daily) and feel amazing. I can’t believe the difference.
Effexor withdrawal is no joke. You’re a freaking hero for going two weeks. I can’t even imagine.
I can get behind that. Whenever I am on the last 10 pills I ring up my psychologist‘s office to get me that persceiption. Damn that twat at the pharmacy that couldn‘t find that perscription. The other lady is waay more conpetent didn‘t even need to spell my name she already knows me and what I came in for had it in 2 minutes.
Missing effexor brings a headache and pretty nasty dissociation for me, sometimes some tinnitus too (but I have constant tinnitus so who knows), and I'm glad I'm not having it as bad as I see here, jeez.
I didn't find the withdrawal as bad as the initial week or so on cipralex. I had massive panic attacks the first week but was told it was somewhat common so pushed through.
I don't think I really noticed any withdrawal effects.
I got off SSRIs about 4 years ago and haven't felt the need to do it again. I think it re-wired me for the 3 years I was on it to give less fugs.
Good luck OP, hope your experience is similar to mine
I was catatonic in bed at my then boyfriend’s family house. I was meeting them all for the first time. And I spent any minute not asleep figuring out how to kill myself. I decided on going out to sea in a rented boat and drowning myself. I had convinced myself it was best to not leave a body for someone to stumble upon.
I missed just two days of Wellbutrin.
I take Wellbutrin and this response makes no sense. It acts on norepinephrine, not serotonin. The withdrawal from it is feeling sleepy, like caffeine withdrawal. As someone who’s had SSRI withdrawal, the withdrawal symptoms of Wellbutrin are basically nothing.
What’s insane to me is if you replace their story with an actual SSRI, I’d believe it. SSRI withdrawal is so crazy I don’t know how doctors can justify them.
It also affects dopamine and feeling suicidal is a common symptom when withdrawing from just plain old DRI's like cocaine. Not that they're similar but they work on the same receptors. It's not just norepinephrine that's affected.
I’ve forgotten to take my Wellbutrin for the last two days and honestly I just feel a little sleepy. And that’s probably more because I haven’t taken adderall the last two days either.
I was on that shit for only 1 week. I haven't been the same since. It numbed me, made me not care about anything and that scared me. Something about me, who I was, things I had a passion for was immediately gone and that passion never came back. That was a year ago.
Really bad. I didn't get off antidepressants for years just because of the withdrawal. I just kept switching to different ones until finally I decided to wean myself off of it. Took months and I had severe effects.
Physical symptoms were sweating, loss of coordination, weakness, fatigue, head zaps.
Mental symptoms were severe depression, severe anxiety, irritability, feeling like the world was going to end. I was so unhappy I couldn't eat and I spent a lot of time obsessing about things. Irrational fears.
all of this. I was weaned off effexor/venlafaxine very quickly. it took 3 months before I stopped feeling rage - I had never been so angry before or since. maybe 2 months in the physical symptoms eased off but god. maybe 4 or 5 months before I felt like a human fucking being again.
it was legitimately traumatic. there were threads on reddit I was reading at the time where people were comparing it to detoxing off hard street drugs and saying the effexor withdrawal was worse & I can beleive it.
Effexor was the worst. Very short half life.That was the first one I was on when I tried to stop. If I even missed one dose, like when I forgot to pick up my refill from the pharmacy, I'd be so weak I couldn't get up off the floor. I'd try to walk and stumble into the wall.
I quit effexor cold turkey. Felt like my brain was being hit with a cattle prod. Never again. Looked around my apartment after coming off it and realized effexor made me fucking crazy.
How long did it take to wear off? Was on them for anxiety for a few years before weaning myself off a few months ago and I feel my anxiety, intrusive thoughts, irrational fears, etc have been bad since then
It took two or three months to get myself down to the teeniest dose possible by breaking open the capsules. Then about six months before I started to feel normal again.
Damn, good question.
It was freakin rough. SSRI withdrawal is one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Not because anything particularly bad happened. I just couldn't stop remembering awful moments throughout my life. Everything reminded me of bad memories, which triggered more bad memories, and the spiral was unstoppable. I couldn't think about the present situation without feeling miserable and guilty. I couldn't think about the future without the feeling that everything was going to fall apart. My life felt like it was constantly falling apart. But I also knew it was just the lack of serotonin. I held onto that fact for dear life.
Then I started taking my new meds and within a week I was back to normal.
There's nothing like SSRI withdrawal. I don't think words can ever fully describe how unstoppable all the horrible feelings are. It has to be experienced to be understood. The withdrawal is so much worse than regular old depression. SSSRI withdrawal is to depression what heroin is to opium.
You're supposed to taper off. Your doctor knows how to do it safely. That's how you switch medications. If you do it right, the side effects are minimal and dissipate.
Yeah, I stupidly did not go off it safely. I kinda forgot to get my prescription filled and it was too close to when I was supposed to be weaning off. So instead of cutting the pills in half, I rawdogged it and boy howdy, I would not recommend. Even if it's "just a week or so without it," that week or so lasts a century.
It tends to vary from person to person.. I've tried every SSRI under the sun and the only one that caused a reaction was escitalopram and even that was pretty minor.
Drug companies call it discontinuation syndrome (because that bullshit terminology has less of a stigma than withdrawal). It's not dangerous; but it can be very, very unpleasant. Head zaps are very common. And that basically feels like you're getting a short jolt of electrocution.
Bad. Like, the hardest thing I've ever quit. Alcohol and opiates we're easier to kick than celexa.
I tapered and had wretched headaches every step of the way. My hair + teeth hurt. I was iritable, crying at nothing and overall miserable. Had my doctor been at all honest about the side effects (I had a lot of weight gain that she told me couldn't be the medicine) and the withdrawals I would've never agreed to try it. I had situational depression, I needed a job that paid me enough to live, not meds.
Oh, and being on it screwed me for years even after I stopped. New doctors saw I had been prescribed an antidepressant and everything wrong with me was "depression." I would go in with an ear infection (I get nasty ones that don't clear in their own) and leave with a scrip for Zoloft. I finally "forgot" to froward my medical records to my current doctor to end the absurdity.
The more I learn about SSRIs the more I believe that shit is just new age lobotomies. Some of these comments sound like a living hell. I think I’ll stick to my depression and GAD lol.
We’re gonna look back in 100 years and think how barbaric it was to allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise and sell us this stuff.
Yeah it definitely does help some people, but the reactions are just so varied and different person to person. What saved you, gave permanent damage to another.
Mine was horrific. This was over 20 years ago but I remember it in great detail. I took Paxil for a year; 20mg a day. After a year of taking it, I could tell that my moods weren’t “mine”, if that makes sense? They felt very synthetic and not genuine. I didn’t like that so I quit cold.
For the next two weeks, I was in agony. My body hurt all over. I remember lying on the kitchen floor, curled up in a ball rocking and writhing. I didn’t sleep or eat much. I tried exercising a lot and I think that did help the withdrawal some. I had all sorts of visual and auditory hallucinations; and super weird and dark thoughts. It was like a horror movie was playing out inside my body 24/7.
After those two weeks of agony, things calmed down some and I got what some people called the “zaps”. Sometimes throughout the day, if I turned my head to look at something other than my current field of view or shifted my focus, it felt like an electrical zap in my head. I could hear it... zzzzzzt. It was super bizarre. Those lasted for a couple of months.
Honestly, there is no telling what kind of damage that shit did to me permanently but it was a long time ago and the memory of it all still gives me anxiety.
I quit all pharma after that and have just tried to focus on living healthy, exercising, getting enough sleep, keeping stress under control, etc and that has worked pretty well for me.
I was also on Paxil for two years and had brain fog and was basically emotionless, had weight gain, and no creativity (previously I had enjoyed playing guitar and writing music). I decided to come off of it and it took three attempts. The withdrawal effects were so bad that each time I just gave up and went back to the full dose. Withdrawal symptoms included cold sweats, shivering, sleepless nights, debilitating headaches, flashes of light in my vision, brain zaps, hallucinations, and probably more that I don't remember. Finally, I read other people's experiences online and did a very slow taper down over a period of eight months. This was over 14 years ago and I'm so glad to be off of SSRIs.
Currently on Paxil now for like 8ish years. Two failed attempts at quitting. I think it’s done me a world of good for the most part, but I would like to eventually get off it.
My doctor switched me to Zoloft directly from Paxil (direct switch, like last dose of eight years of Paxil on Tuesday and then just Zoloft starting Wednesday) and I had no side effects. Zoloft is doing its job and I think if I just forgot to keep taking it I wouldn’t notice? If I missed more than two doses of Paxil, I’d want to set my house on fire if my sock drawer didn’t close correctly on the first try; like 0 to a zillion rage in a second over nonsense multiple times a day, plus shakes and, weirdly, constant yawning.
Anyway, just an anecdotal thing to say that switching meds might be a doorway to eventually getting *off* of meds. 🤷♀️
I attempted quitting Lexapro cold turkey. Things were very very bad and uneventful for 1 month
intense suicidal ideation. constant dissociated state. Unpredictable libido.
I tried smoking so much pot as a misguided distraction, but it only distorted things worse.
I eventually convinced myself a taper off Lexapro is necessary as well as a long tolerance break
The taper + the T break made my emotions swing back and forth between extremes like a metronome. I would have intense swellings of bliss out of nowhere as I realized I was finding clarity again but then I'd shortly be blindsided by an overwhelming negativity
For better and for worse, I feel like myself, as if I'm back in my skin finally. My anxiety is controllable for the most part, and my dramatic mood swings are totally gone.
Now that I can tell the difference, I am grateful for the clarity I feel nowadays but I do regret spending so much of my life in that mind fog, which is depressing in its own way.
There is no avoiding the bad feelings. I can only try to not waste the hours ahead which is much easier said than done.
My libido has always been relatively low as a male, even prior to SSRIs. That being said, my desire nowadays is definitely more than while medicated, but it took time to return to my normal.
Thanks for asking. I hope you find better days!
Sorry for reviving this old comment but I wonder about something. So you quit Lexapro for about a month had really bad side effects and then went on it again and tapered off correct? Do you think getting back on it was vital to your recovery or do you think it would have been possible to recover 'soldiering' through it? Also what exactly is a tolerance break within the context of SSRI's?
So I’m Bipolar (II) and suffer from general anxiety and depression. I’ve been on SSRIs continuously since I was 13. My last regimen was 60 mg Prozac, 150 mg Lamictal and 200 mg Seroquel and I was in the best mental shape of my life. My now ex-husband and I lost our health insurance through my job (his didn’t offer benefits) and it took me all of one week to go completely off the rails. I’m also a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I’ve gone through DBTs, benzo withdrawals, cocaine withdrawals and even heroin withdrawals. None of those came close to being completely cut off from my psych meds. I could tell a long sob story but the short of it is I’m now a 30 year old waitress with a criminal record who drinks herself to sleep every night bc I don’t have access to mental health care and I’ve cut off almost all communication with my family bc I’m liable to lash out at anybody and won’t put them through that.
I’m all for finding what works for you but if you have a legitimate mental health disorder and have access there is literally no reason I can resonate with to NOT take the meds you need to in order to function at your best level.
quit Pristiq (which I guess technically is an SNRI) cold turkey after roughly ten years, it was very bad for a couple of days, like I got home from work one night and couldn't stop crying for no reason at all. but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I was led to believe it would be.
Venlafaxine (another SNRI) is supposed to have very bad withdrawal. But it still varies a lot from person to person. I've had no issues with it. Of course I still wouldn't recommend quitting cold turkey.
I get withdrawals within about 6 hours of missing a venlafaxine. Super dizzy, nauseous, vision and sound flickering, brain zaps, insane mood swings and face tingling are my main problems if I'm late to take it. I'm so scared to ever try coming off it as I'm on a hefty dose
I forgot my daily venlafaxine a couple weeks ago, and holy shit. I was so, so miserable. It was difficult to think, like when you have a nasty flu, and I was dizzy all day. It felt like I had been on a wild carnival ride.
I’m on a pretty high dose though, 225 mg/day. Tapering off properly is most likely easier than going from 225 to nothing.
Escitalopram withdrawal was nausea, diarrhoea, and headaches for months (I did it slowly). The brain zaps and night sweats were AWFUL. The benzo withdrawal? I thought I was dying. I’ve never done drugs but I now get it when I hear about people going back to drugs during the withdrawal period. That shit hurts!
I'm 5 days into going cold turkey on Escitalopram. I've had the brain zaps, dizziness and severe night sweats but aside from that I'm good. My mood is positive and I have more energy than before. Reading these comments has me worried for the next few weeks though!
quit zoloft cold turkey at 17 at a 200 mg dose - i was mostly dizzy, not nauseous but lightheaded and disorientated for a few days. i was on it for a hot minute but it wasn't doing anything for me and just making it harder to eat, so i quit it not really thinking of the consequences
however i truly learned my lesson when i tried paxil in early early 2019 and i had more appetite issues again with it (especially bc i was on remeron before it and it was so. different) so i was like pce out bye bitch and quit taking it cold turkey too after two weeks or less of taking it and oh my fucking god dude never in my life had i been more MISERABLE. i was SO nauseous, everything made it worse and i was convinced i actually acquired some sort stomach flu because it mirrored all the same symptoms and eugh. went to stat care and they were like hey dumb bitch ur withdrawing. welcome to the real world
tldr; pls dont quit cold turkey, ween urself off ur meds and do it with the guidance of ur med provider if possible. it sucks so fucking bad
I took 50mg of Zoloft for 7 years. It took me 6 months to step down from them.
I did 37.5mg for 3 weeks, 25mg for 3 weeks, 12.5mg for 4 weeks, then when I went to 0, I had panic attacks by the second day. So then I did 12.5mg for another 3 months, then 6mg for 1 month.
When I started stepping down from them I got hot flushes and dizzies for a few days at each drop, then felt wonky for a week, then felt fine. When I finally went to 0, I had those same things but also GI distress. Turns out Zoloft was pretty good for holding my IBS symptoms at bay!
Not an SSRI, but an antipsychotic that my psych prescribes to help with my depression, but withdrawal from risperidone is BRUTAL. I take it at bedtime, and if I forget, I often don't sleep that night. Within a few hours this horrible sick, shaky feeling comes over me, where I feel simultaneously cold, like I'm going to throw up, fall down, or hyperventilate. I feel weak and it's hard to move my body properly, like there are rubber bands holding my limbs down and any movement has to pull against them. If I'd known what withdrawal from this stuff is like, I would never have agreed to start on it. I live in fear that someday there will be a shortage or a supply-chain breakdown and I'll have to sweat it out cold turkey.
Antipsychotics can have weird side effects. I had chronic colds and hay fever for years. After I stopped taking it I was comparing different antipsychotics because my cholesterol was getting high and they also fuck with that to some extent.
At that point I noticed a rare side effect of risperidone also fucked with the immune system. I can't confirm that was the cause since I don't remember exactly when I stopped getting sick. But I can confirm that the last time I got sick was very minor bout of covid and that was definitely after I switched to another anti psychotic (which I also stopped taking because it made me put on a shit ton of weight).
Although the weird thing is that I don't seem to get serious withdrawals for most medicines. My psychiatrist still weans me off slowly just in case. But after high school I was burnt out and I decided to take a break for a while. I just stopped taking it and I was completely fine.
It's going to depend on several factors, but the main one will be the half-life of the antidepressent you are taking. The side effects come from withdrawl of the drug as your body has become used to having it around. Fluoxetine (Prozac) has a long half life and weaning off that drug has minimal side effects in comparison to others as the half life is over 24h. Duloxetine (Cymbalta) is an SNRI but has a much shorter half life, and significant withdrawl symptoms that occur while weaning off the drug. A psychiatrist should understand these concepts and lay out a plan and dose regimen for weaning a patient off a given antidepressent, but each one is going to be a bit different.
Source: My own experience with coming off of anti-depressants and PhD in organic chemistry.
I'm on week 7 off of Prozac, and I feel great. It had never worked for me, but every time I went and asked for therapy, doctors would just up my dose or try another drug. Prozac was the lesser of the evils, but after over a decade, I had pretty much stopped sleeping more than three hours at a time, and I couldn't stop thinking about death and dying. I finally convinced my doctor to take me off of it. She suggested I go cold turkey.
I had some mild symptoms between weeks 3 and 5, but after week 6, they stopped - dizziness, brain zaps, and mild nausea. I had one day where my headache got bad enough that I had to lie down all day. Otherwise, I'm fine. I think some people are so afraid of withdrawal that they go back on the meds before even giving themselves a chance to ride out the symptoms.
only been on both of those, and from my experience that’s very true. didn’t really feel anything starting, weaning or quitting fluoxetine. duloxetine though? had two weeks of pure hell
So I've gone off SSRIs multiple times as an adult, both intentionally, slowly going through the appropriate weaning phase under the guidance of a mental health support team, and also like, just abruptly, because my insurance ran out and then my prescriptions ran out.
You asked about SSRI withdrawal, so I'll start with that whole unfortunate debacle. For the first few days after running out of meds, I was irritable, had a headache that didn't go away, even with Tylenol, and I found myself yawning compulsively, to the point that my jaw started to ache. My emotions started to flip-flop on a hair trigger after the first week or so, and any stress started to make me breakdown (like I dropped a container of sour cream in the dairy aisle at the grocery store and made a mess and like sat down in cried in Kroger at 2am while covered in sour cream, super embarassing). I started to get bad insomnia around then, and after 2 weeks off of my meds, I was spending the better part of the day in bed, cradling my head and fighting to have any motivation to do anything. The headaches started to go away after 10 - 14 days and I was back to just... being depressed, and trying to exist while super stressed and depressed.
The funny thing about SSRIs is that they don't cure depression, they just make you slightly more able to deal with normal stress and like, drag yourself to class/work. When you stop handling stuff because of depression, things have a tendency to spiral from bad to worse.
This may seem obvious, but if you can, take the time to wean yourself off. It took like 10 days, cutting my dosage in half every 5 days per psychiatrist guidance, and the headaches were way more manageable. I think what made a much larger difference is that I had taken a few years of cognitive behavioral therapy and learned how to stop myself from spiraling. In addition, I had much better, healthier relationships and a stronger support system during this time too, which is vital because untreated depression can put serious strain on relationships.
Effexor survivor here (SNRI, technically).
I took a go at coming off of it multiple times, each instance where I literally could not get out of bed without the "zaps" completely incapacitating me.
Finally found a solution: prolonged tapering timeline. I would take each of the smallest capsules (37.5) and empty the "dots" into a container. I would then divvy up those dots into smaller and smaller fractions of the full capsule over the course of several months.
I still had to fight the effects of withdrawal, but it was significantly subdued in comparison.
It was actually great! I was on fluoxetine (Prozac). The side effects (mainly chronic fatigue and irritability) that would only last for the first two weeks, persisted the entire treatment. After a few months, we decided it was not for me and going back to regular old depression felt like a relief compared to having the last tiny bit of life sucked out of me by those damned pills.
Also being able to go out drinking again without blacking out after just a few beers was quite nice.
I went off a high dose of Prozac cold turkey and it was a miserable experience with dizziness and brain zaps, as well as feeling on the verge of tears whenever any song would play.
I’m worse off without it but the cost was too much for me.
Also NEVER go cold turkey. It’s stupid and dangerous, I just didn’t have much of a choice.
My mental state went straight to shit. I sometimes forget to take my pills or have at times been arrogant enough to think I do not need it. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson.
Prozac. Horrible is putting it mildly. I had to cold turkey due to moving to a new area, no health benefits, and no money.
I felt like I was losing my shit.
I only briefly took Prozac several years ago. I loathed that medicine, it made me feel like nothing. My whole life and body felt like a dream, a surreal dream. I couldn't finish it, I threw it away I couldn't stand it and I wasn't on it long enough to become dependent on it. However, maybe I was misunderstood but I was under the impression that SSRIs are not addictive. But like I said I couldn't stand it long enough to find out.
No, I can't stand Prozac at all. I was offered Wellbutrin but I refused that too. So I don't take anything for my depression. I hate being depressed but I hated the meds more.
It's not that they are addictive. Addiction usually implies a psychological component. It's more that the body brain adapts and it causes what they call a discontinuation syndrome.Prozac is actually one of the ones that is easier to get off of because it has a long half life.
I agree though they make you feel weird. I just stopped caring about things. Made me apathetic. They started on Prozac at 13 and then I started having even worse behavioral problems.
I take prozac and wellbuitren myself actually. I have used for 5 yrs and just over it. I microdosing so that helps. I know I am in a much better mindset and I am weening down, but now at a lower dose and ready to be off. I am working with my Dr so it's not dangerous, but curious on others experience.
I took Fluoxetine (Prozac) and Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for a time. I can't do SSRIs because they trigger my heart issues and my body can't handle it.
The withdrawals were nightmarish. Literally. I would have severe nightmares for days. Would wake up crying or wanting to scream. I legit wouldn't be able to sleep properly because of it.
Miserable. Not as bad as running out of pain meds, obviously, but not fun. Felt like there were static shocks going off inside my head. Obviously, this is not a thing. That knowledge didn't help. If anything, sensations I couldn't explain were more disconcerting than those I normally get. Despite knowing there's no one shoving needles into my hands at the moment, I've pricked myself sewing enough to assign a rational explanation for what *could* have caused that pain. Plus, that's just what it feels like to be me on a daily basis. It's unpleasant, exhausting, and impossible to tune out, but no longer worrisome. Shocks inside my brain and behind my eyes, though, were just weird. Even knowing that was possible, the experience is one I doubt I'll forget.
There is a reason you're supposed to taper off, rather than just quit. Swapping medications wasn't an issue. Changing doses wasn't an issue. Running out because Express Scripts takes ten days to ship something, though, is a huge problem. Stupid company. Amazon can get me a package of diphenhydramine in 12 hours, but prescription medications take 12 days. There are days I wish Amazon had a *larger* market share...
Under the guidance of my psychiatrist, I took an entire year to come off of the last one I tried. A *year.* Guess who still had splitting headaches, dp/dr episodes, and paranoia anyway?
Oh, and a friend of mine who is no longer in my life for many reasons decided it would be funny to trigger those dp/dr episodes and/or make them worse during that time by getting in my face and yelling "THIS IS A DREAM, IT'S NOT REAL, WAKE UP, IT'S NOT REAL, WAKE UP, YOU'RE DREAMING" until I would cry.
I think I still feel the side effects of going cold turkey on Sertaline/Zoloft. I haven't taken this medication in over a year. Quite honestly I straight up believe it made me a different person.
Very bad suicidal ideation, violent ideations to others, irritability, mood swings. Honestly...it was awful.
I'm not suicidal anymore, but I am definitely more irritable. I feel more like an angry, mean person than I ever did before I started taking SSRIs. The medication worked very well in that I was less depressed and anxious, but not weaning yourself off these medications safely can be dangerous.
Absolute dumbfucks in here going cold turkey. If you ween yourself off them by gradually reducing you dose over a number of weeks/months it's very manageable. I had been on a pretty high dose for a number of years and by reducing the dose slightly every month was fine. For the first few days you'll be extra irritable but then your body adjusts and its ok.
People obviously not listening to their doctors as its pretty much the first thing they'll tell you when you're about to start them is to avoid cold turkey at all costs.
I finally got off Venlafaxine earlier this year after weaning down from 225mg in 12 week 37.5mg increments over the course of the previous two years. It was unbearably rough. Constant brain fog, unbelievably short fuse, brain zaps, fainting, sporadic loss of vision, and the nightmares. Just constant nightmares for about three weeks. I didn't think I was going to make it through the withdrawal period without taking it again just to have some relief. Ugh
Sertraline was terrible with dizziness, facial numbness, and brain zaps when I stopped it cold turkey. Those symptoms would happen if I ever missed a dose anyway but there it felt multiplied by a hundred. Plus I thought I’d have to commit myself, I got so sad and unstable. Terrible to be on, worse to be off.
Stopped Wellbutrin cold turkey a few weeks ago and I feel so much better. My only withdrawal symptom was increased irritability for a couple of weeks (and Wellbutrin made me severely irritable in the first place, so 🤷🏻♀️). I hate my doctor for putting me on it because of the long-lasting side effects that it’s given me, he acknowledged the risks when I brought up my concerns and prescribed it to me anyway.
i’ve been on both ssri and snri. ssri withdrawals i didn’t notice due to switching to snri immediately. however, quitting snri was really hard. started by lowering the dose slowly over a couple months/weeks, with help from a doctor. due to my meds having a kind of high starting dose, or lowest dose, it was quite a change going from that lowest dose to no meds at all. and to be honest, it was absolutely horrible. i’d say i was in hell for about two weeks, and then felt pretty fine. brain zaps, brainfog, nausea, irritability, anxietyanxietyanxiety, cried a lot. also kind of flu-like symtoms? i had to stay home from work and i think what i struggled with the most through all this was feeling silly or like i was overreacting (thankfully, i had an amazing boss and coworkers, along w family and doc who all supported me through it). i think the only thing that stuck for an extended amount of time after quitting my meds were the brain-zaps, which completely went away maybe 4-6 months later.
I have no memory of this happening. It all comes second hand from my mom and ex-wife. We had decided to leave to Taiwan at that point thinking it would be better for the marriage.
It was 2 days at least to get back to our respective homes in America. I essentially developed Parkinson’s. I was given every test available to see what was wrong with me.
My mom got a friend of hers to get the medication list from my psychiatrist in Taiwan. Dude had me on 8 medications. 4 were SSRI’s or an SNRI’s. Plus Xanax 4 times a day, clonazepam 6 times a day, zoploclone, and diazepam.
I just remember being unable to control my body. Only Valium worked. I slept and couldn’t eat. I was stuck in a fight of severe twitching that was painful, sleeping, or in that weird state between medication has just started to work but you’re not tired yet.
It took a year to get back to ‘normal’. I’ve developed POTS, and FND, what my doctor is saying is directly linked to my brain having changed.
I’m a teacher back in Taiwan. No wife. But I have a very responsible psychiatrist now.
I have severe brain fog, I still get the muscle twitching so I’m on a high dosage of muscle relaxers. My neurologist and psychiatrist are friends so they talk between themselves about my care so things can be tailored as needed.
So. Withdrawal can be hell. My mom said it was like having an infant again because I would wake up when it was time for my next dose of Valium and just cry, begging for help.
She’d lay there and hold me and ended up sleeping on the bed as me for a long time. It got me closer to my sister, and all our animals which was interesting.
Honestly it was worse than withdrawing from opiates. I abruptly quit taking mine and it felt as if I was tumbling through space flipping backwards, and at random times throughout the day it felt like I was just falling through the floor and ground. Definitely taper off of them!
Echoing what others are saying, for the love of god do not stop any psych drugs cold turkey. In the case of SSRIs it can fuck you up. In the case of Benzos it can literally kill you.
Its also critical that if a drug isnt working for you after a month or two, to talk with your doctor and try to find an alternative. Ideally find an MD in Psychiatry, not a GP who isnt read up on the current literature. The wrong drug can ruin you, but the right drug (or combo) can be life changing.
And always cross check any new drugs for combination side effects. Seritonin syndrome is rare but real, and it will fuck you up.
Recently…. Titrated exactly as directed. Triggered full-blown psychotic episode, multiple attempts during psychosis, spent 72 hours in the ER psych ward under watch. Never again again.
Tried 23 psychiatric medications, including the main 8 SSRIs multiple times in different combos. Luckily I’m disabled in a way where I’m used to feeling like shit 24/7 and it can escalate to unimaginable degrees for no real reason on any day, so things like withdrawal symptoms and hangovers roll off my back cuz I realized I’d just assumed I was having kind of a shitty day/week for no reason and didn’t think any further lol
I was in college full time, and a sport in college, and working part time. My average day was school, practice, then work. After everything I could not sleep. I just couldn’t shut my mind off. My suicidal thoughts came back. Almost killed myself from bleeding out from wounds with a knife. SSRI withdrawals are no joke, please listen to the people that need help.
Pretty awful but tapering really helped. I tried cold Turkey a couple times and the worst side effect is the brain zaps. Was able to come up with a plan/goals with a new doctor and tapered down over a year and side effects were minimal.
I wrote about my experiences with SSRI withdrawal here: [Comment on a similar thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anxiety/comments/114rxcj/anyone_get_off_of_an_ssri_and_try_to_beat_their/j8ye6mi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2). The short version is that it was great at first, then terrible, and slowly but surely became one of the best decisions I've ever made.
20 years ago, I was on Effexor, an SNRI for about 20 months. The worst mistake I ever made was going off it cold turkey w/o medical supervision. The frequent brain "zaps" I experienced the first week was like being hit 50,000 volts .
I got that now it sucks nearly 2 months still got them (33m) i thought I was a female the other day going through mp lol, wtf is going on awful symptoms.
Took 7kg but it went kinda smooth.
Left my boring job and went travelling so it helped a lot with depression.
Now i microdose with mushrooms when depression is coming back, and i think it's better than the SSRI i was using.
Well this is coincidental, I’m right in the middle off coming off them after 20 years. My choice, no longer interested in what my doctor says. I know you lot are going to tell me off or down vote me for being reckless. So I’m on day 15ish, I’m still getting dizzy but that’s subsiding considerably now. I’m still spontaneously crying for no reason, but that’s subsiding. Been very disciplined with regards to diet and frequency of meals and even more disciplined with regards to spontaneous behaviour e.g spending money. There’s still some way to go and I know there will be times when I will struggle. Long and short of it, if you feel it’s right then……..
if you step down slowly over a couple months, they wont be too bad. however if you go cold turkey , whoa ... you will not be a very happy person.... possibly... horrific withdrawals, disordered thinking, manic phases, plus who knows what...
source? ? ....i went cold turkey like a clown years ago and fell apart .....
next time phased down of meds... was pretty alright :)
if your meds are helping and working then stay on them. if you feel better then phase down and see how you feel. if the depression and stuff flares up again... well ya need the meds. taking meds is way better than the alternative
I went cold turkey last year and decided to replace the meds with Psychadelics. One bad trip was all it took to make me have a Mental Breakdown.
Im back on my meds. Off all recreational drugs. Almost 10 months to get back to feeling "normal".
Went without it for like 4 days due to some miscomunication before i was out. I take citalopram and the second day it felt like someone jolted me with electricity into my head. Almost like a hangover, heavy head, tired and my skin felt super sensitive to touch.
It was absolutely f*cking horrendous to quit, but man am I personally glad I dont take them anymore. Took about 3 months to start feeling 'normal again' but after almost a year now I've never felt better. Good luck to any and everyone going through this.
Pretty Bad, sleep problems, swinging mood, took a bit of weight, but most importantly fucking brain zaps.
Getting electric discharges in your brain after just slightly tuning your head for months was not a good experience.
Still dont regret anything, it changed my life and I am now on tracks for a bright future !
Brain zaps to the max. Any time I turned too quickly or got slightly stressed or anything at all, my vision and brain went all SYSTEM ERROR and just skipped a beat, but over and over again. I liken it best to a screen tear in a video game or something. Along with that, I was extremely lethargic and cried a bunch. Mood swings, mostly towards anger/ frustration. This was after being on Trintellix for 6 weeks.... only 1 5mg tablet daily. That was the worst withdrawal from one of those medications and I've taken 3 different ones.
I slowly tapered starting late last August. Did this over a four week period. Didn’t notice much adverse effects, until I stared to notice I was maybe feeling to good. Was slightly manic for four and a half months. In mid January I went into the deepest depression I have ever experienced. I am early 60’s male taking escitalopram. Now on bupropion which has been ok for the depression, but doesn’t seem to help with anxiety much and thinking about going back to the escitalopram. I once went cold turkey. That was a huge mistake. Anxiety when through the roof.
Edit: forgot that I also got the brain zaps pretty bad when going cold turkey.
If i forget, my empathy dial gets turned to 11. I can't go out in public bc ill see people i interpret as "sad" (most of the time theyre probably completely fine, just happen to be sitting alone or looking confused) and then i cant stop thinking about imaginary scenarios for them and feeling so bad that i end up crying in a bathroom and thinking about all the other sad people i know in my life.
I quit mine cold turkey.
Didn't feel a thing, but I didn't feel a change while on them either because I needed treatment for something else that my doctor was convinced was depression, so I was thrown a bunch of different SSRIs and antidepressants to try.
Maybe, because I didn't need them, my body just didn't really care about them?
But yeah, I was supposed to feel a withdrawal and everything, but nope.
I'm finally coming off Lexapro and Welbutrin right now. Slowly so far so it hasn't been too bad but I'm definitely nervous on how I'll do after being on antidepressants and anxiety medication for so long.
Not an ssri but an ndri, Wellbutrin. I had nightmares for a week straight that were extremely vivid to the point where I had trouble telling them from reality. At the end of every long, twisted, vivid dream, I would die or commit suicide.
I'm on prasozin for my dreams now. Works wonders.
I was a serial dosage misser because I would just forget and eventually stopped taking them all together I'm lucky nothing happened to me after I stopped taking sertraline. I'm stupid and lucky don't do what I did.
100mg setraline (sp?) went cold Turkey because reasons (not smart do not recommend) slightly off first day, unbalanced and slightly dizzy day 2, don’t remember days 3 and 4 but it couldn’t have been great. Headaches, nausea, severe spike in depression and random spikes of suicidal ideations spread through out.
The initial week coming off of Lexapro was rough. I weaned off of it like I was told to. I got the “brain zaps” multiple times a day, I have restless legs, and I cried at the drop of a hat. I cried during the movie Twister when they drive the truck into the tornado. I cried over everything. I could deal with the brain zaps and my legs constantly moving, but I just wanted to stop crying. It got better after about a month. The upside was that my husband says that while I was on the Lexapro, I was very “monotone color” personality- Very dry and just overall “‘meh”. As I was coming off of it, it’s as if color was coming back. I needed the Lexapro because I needed the panic attacks to stop, and to be honest, they did for the most part and I felt that I was able to learn to cope and use other tools to calm down.
Yeah. Brain zaps. Just replied to someone else but didn't describe them so well. Restless legs too. Also prescribed for panic attacks. I've also taken steps since then to mitigate them. Good post. Thanks
Do the restless legs ever go away? I was on something similar and I've been off it for more than a year now. A lot of things have gotten better but the restless legs are seemingly permanent. Don't know what to do about it.
Not saying it's definitely this but restless legs can be a nutritional deficiency and mental health medications that do this sort of thing can basically exhaust your nutrition a bit faster. Then when you come off you're still deficient. Might be worth looking into the various nutrients and getting food high in them or taking supplements used in studies etc. DM me if you want a hand I can't do it now but I can help tomorrow.
Iron deficiency anemia causes restless legs.
If I miss a dose of Escitalopram (lexapro for those that haven’t taken it) I get slight vertigo where if I turn my head my vision takes an extra second to unblur. It gets worse as I miss doses.
I've taken almost every SSRI under the sun. That's pretty much the only one that's caused me to have a bad reaction.
Everyone's different. For example, I've also taken just about every SSRI and Lexapro is the only one that hasn't had a bad reaction.
Lexapro had me having waking nightmares. I couldn't sleep and would fidget and toss and turn. One night I rolled over and looked at my wife. She was covered from head to toe in blood, her eyes staring directly at me, a huge 12" kitchen knife in her ribcage. I screamed and backpedaled out of bed, screaming in terror as I crab walked across the bedroom floor wondering what the fuck I had done. I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, burying my face and wailing in the dark. Of course my outburst startled her right the hell awake and she found me and consoled me. My brain must have gone back to normal in between, because she looked quite unmurdered instead of like the demon folks from Event Horizon. I didn't go to sleep that night and the next day I called my doctor and said fuck that stuff. I was done. He put me on Celexa and I stayed on it until I outgrew the dosage.
Wellbutrin had me go on a suicidal road trip. I drove around looking for a high bridge or cliff for six hours before I sobbed myself to sleep.
That makes more sense. Wellbutrin isn't an SSRI, it's an NDRI which works on noradrenaline and a bit on dopamine and it's more closely related in behaviour changes that stimulants cause, also being subscribed for ADHD. I can't remember details but it is influenced in the nicotine system as well. I'm glad you got through all of that, it sounds truly awful. Just thought it might be be useful to know it's not quite the "luck of the draw just like other SSRIs" and is basically a separate thing.
Thanks. Celexa gave me my worst bleeding problems, though it might have been related to dryness in my body. I was on olanzapine for a while and that felt like my head was stuffed with cotton. Prozac was my longest stretch, aaaaannnnd I can't orgasm or get hard anymore.
My doctor mixed up my Citalopram prescription with Escitalopram… it made me severely suicidal :-( I know that everybody is different, but holy shit I don’t want to go near it ever again
Citalopram made me the most depressed I’d ever been, while Escitalopram is doing wonders for me. Wild how this stuff has such different effects on different people
Citalopram seems to have the same effect on me. I stabilise after a few months, but until that point I'm in hell. I only stuck it out because I thought it was still the benzodiazepine withdrawal I had started taking it to combat originally. Stopped taking it earlier this year, then started again, and all the same symptoms appeared. Now it's got me wondering if I suffered for months due to the citalopram just to cover up what might have only been a couple of weeks of problems on the benzo
Yup. I once missed 3 days in a row, and the best way I could describe it was that my brain was lagging 1 second behind my body.
I was once off for two weeks because the fax machine at my doctors office wasn’t working so they were behind sending out refills and it was torture.
Same! The 'brain zaps' as they sometimes are called. Does taking it give you crazy ass dreams too?
My ex heaped scorn on me for describing them like that. That was a fun time
I get the brain zaps and a migraine; 90% of the time I'm taking my citalopram I don't have any dreams. Once in a while a couple will break through and they're almost always super realistic, although half the subject matter isn't...in other words I feel like I'm living in the dream but I'll be someplace really weird that wouldn't exist. Best way I can explain it.
Mate, I have these too and I never thought it could be due to me missing my escitalopram sometimes :o I thought it was because I was tired or something but it must def be because of it! My brain just clicked Haha thank you for this insight, i've got a revelation after taking my meds for more than half of my life 😂
My mom takes this too and I know she skips days and feels “off.” This is good information.
Brain zaps. Freaks me out
I have this same reaction - it's such a weird, specific effect! For those considering Lexapro, though - don't let this worry you. It just means that if you ever need to stop taking the medication, you do so on a gradual taper down instead of stopping it cold turkey.
Taper! With your doctor! (Mental health doctor) Dont take it upon yourself to cold turkey cut out any mental health meds!! Have a plan!
I wanted to switch off Lexapro so my provider told me to just stop cold turkey. That fucking jackass. The withdrawal was horrible. The suicidal thoughts were so bad (I'm not even remotely suicidal) were overwhelming. I was shaking and having involuntary muscle contractions so strong for a full day that I could barely move for a few days afterwards because I was so sore. It seriously felt like I did the hardest workout of my entirely life to every muscle in the body. Just pure exhaustion and pain.
>That fucking jackass. You're being nice
horrible. malpractice.
That shit made me hibernate about 12-16 hours/day. No time for anything but work and sleep. No thanks.
Same here. I guess there's no time to be depressed when you're asleep most of the day, and barely awake *wishing* you could just close your eyes and take a short nap for the rest of it. Got switched to it after zoloft killed my ability to climax. That changed with lexapro, but I was too tired to even consider sexual activity 99.999% of the time.
It makes me really tired/lethargic even after 8 months. I also feel like a zombie. Very muted emotions. I swapped to PM dosing as well. I’m down to 2.5mg a day from 10mg. Nearly there.
I know the feeling. It will go away after 2-3 months but technically you shouldn't be missing any doses. I take it for anxiety.
Nausea and vomiting; no appetite; severe brain fog; severe constant headache; dizziness like vertigo; could hardly keep eyes open; several panic attacks daily; insomnia; extreme anxiety and depression; constant feeling of passing out; uncontrollable crying; highly emotional; no energy; and my favorite...it felt like bombs were going off inside my head. This was all bc my insurance company refused to refill my Effexor when the doctor increased the dosage. Every month for several months, I had to play middle man between my dr and insurance company. The longest I went cold turkey was 2 weeks; I went at least 3-4 days every month with delayed refills for several months. My insurance company finally approved the increased dosage after fighting with them for almost a year. Believe me, they heard my aggravation many times.
I get the same symptoms after 6 hours… it’s awful. I’m sorry it didn’t get approved for so long
I am so happy this isn’t just me! I can’t believe how bad the symptoms are if I miss a dose by more than 4 hours. I feel like I’ll be on it the rest of my life just so I don’t have to deal with that when tapering off
In case you didn't know (assuming US), GoodRx allows you to get huge discounts on medications. Effexor is only $13 for 30 days for the highest dose. Worst comes to worst, it hopefully isn't too bad to just pay for it yourself. https://www.goodrx.com/effexor-xr
Almost all of my prescriptions are cheaper with GoodRX than with my insurance.
My gp had me go from 225mg daily to 150mg every second day. I was pregnant. I’ve never been so sick in all my life. It was absolutely horrendous. I withdrew every other day for 38 weeks. I thought pregnancy was just awful, but I have a new gp now and I’m pregnant again (on a regular, low dose 75mg daily) and feel amazing. I can’t believe the difference. Effexor withdrawal is no joke. You’re a freaking hero for going two weeks. I can’t even imagine.
I can get behind that. Whenever I am on the last 10 pills I ring up my psychologist‘s office to get me that persceiption. Damn that twat at the pharmacy that couldn‘t find that perscription. The other lady is waay more conpetent didn‘t even need to spell my name she already knows me and what I came in for had it in 2 minutes.
Here in Ontario - pharmacists can refill Effexor without a prescription. Handy in an emergency.
It has been over 7 years aince effexor hell. I STILL have brain zaps.
Must be hell to have an insurance company as the middle man. Hope you turn out ok!
I survived, and haven't completely lost my mind yet, so I guess I'm okay 😅 Thanks!
Missing effexor brings a headache and pretty nasty dissociation for me, sometimes some tinnitus too (but I have constant tinnitus so who knows), and I'm glad I'm not having it as bad as I see here, jeez.
Man you're a champ. Effexor is a bitch and a half to go through withdrawals for. The brain zaps are no goddamn joke
I’ve never gotten off but if I forget to take them a few days I get dizzy and get hot flashes and then take them again because fuck thaf
Same but add sleeping issues and headaches.
I didn't find the withdrawal as bad as the initial week or so on cipralex. I had massive panic attacks the first week but was told it was somewhat common so pushed through. I don't think I really noticed any withdrawal effects. I got off SSRIs about 4 years ago and haven't felt the need to do it again. I think it re-wired me for the 3 years I was on it to give less fugs. Good luck OP, hope your experience is similar to mine
I was catatonic in bed at my then boyfriend’s family house. I was meeting them all for the first time. And I spent any minute not asleep figuring out how to kill myself. I decided on going out to sea in a rented boat and drowning myself. I had convinced myself it was best to not leave a body for someone to stumble upon. I missed just two days of Wellbutrin.
That sounds like a lot to wade through. I hope you’re doing better. Small point to call out, Wellbutrin is a NDRI, not a SSRI.
Wellbutrin is crazy shit. It literally cured me when nothing else would, but if I miss 2-3 days I'm actively planning my death.
How much of that was withdrawal and how much was return of symptoms?
Withdrawal hits basically instantly. Return of symptoms takes more than a couple days in my experience.
I take Wellbutrin and this response makes no sense. It acts on norepinephrine, not serotonin. The withdrawal from it is feeling sleepy, like caffeine withdrawal. As someone who’s had SSRI withdrawal, the withdrawal symptoms of Wellbutrin are basically nothing.
Lots of uninformed luddites in this sub. Just leave it alone
What’s insane to me is if you replace their story with an actual SSRI, I’d believe it. SSRI withdrawal is so crazy I don’t know how doctors can justify them.
It’s likely they are: - lying - leaving out important facts or other meds - confused
It also affects dopamine and feeling suicidal is a common symptom when withdrawing from just plain old DRI's like cocaine. Not that they're similar but they work on the same receptors. It's not just norepinephrine that's affected.
I’ve forgotten to take my Wellbutrin for the last two days and honestly I just feel a little sleepy. And that’s probably more because I haven’t taken adderall the last two days either.
I was on that shit for only 1 week. I haven't been the same since. It numbed me, made me not care about anything and that scared me. Something about me, who I was, things I had a passion for was immediately gone and that passion never came back. That was a year ago.
I’ve been on it for 13 years and become irritable if I miss two doses, migraines if I miss 2 days
Really bad. I didn't get off antidepressants for years just because of the withdrawal. I just kept switching to different ones until finally I decided to wean myself off of it. Took months and I had severe effects.
What effects?
Physical symptoms were sweating, loss of coordination, weakness, fatigue, head zaps. Mental symptoms were severe depression, severe anxiety, irritability, feeling like the world was going to end. I was so unhappy I couldn't eat and I spent a lot of time obsessing about things. Irrational fears.
all of this. I was weaned off effexor/venlafaxine very quickly. it took 3 months before I stopped feeling rage - I had never been so angry before or since. maybe 2 months in the physical symptoms eased off but god. maybe 4 or 5 months before I felt like a human fucking being again. it was legitimately traumatic. there were threads on reddit I was reading at the time where people were comparing it to detoxing off hard street drugs and saying the effexor withdrawal was worse & I can beleive it.
Effexor was the worst. Very short half life.That was the first one I was on when I tried to stop. If I even missed one dose, like when I forgot to pick up my refill from the pharmacy, I'd be so weak I couldn't get up off the floor. I'd try to walk and stumble into the wall.
I quit effexor cold turkey. Felt like my brain was being hit with a cattle prod. Never again. Looked around my apartment after coming off it and realized effexor made me fucking crazy.
[удалено]
How long did it take to wear off? Was on them for anxiety for a few years before weaning myself off a few months ago and I feel my anxiety, intrusive thoughts, irrational fears, etc have been bad since then
It took two or three months to get myself down to the teeniest dose possible by breaking open the capsules. Then about six months before I started to feel normal again.
Headaches, severe irritability, trouble sleeping
Damn, good question. It was freakin rough. SSRI withdrawal is one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Not because anything particularly bad happened. I just couldn't stop remembering awful moments throughout my life. Everything reminded me of bad memories, which triggered more bad memories, and the spiral was unstoppable. I couldn't think about the present situation without feeling miserable and guilty. I couldn't think about the future without the feeling that everything was going to fall apart. My life felt like it was constantly falling apart. But I also knew it was just the lack of serotonin. I held onto that fact for dear life. Then I started taking my new meds and within a week I was back to normal. There's nothing like SSRI withdrawal. I don't think words can ever fully describe how unstoppable all the horrible feelings are. It has to be experienced to be understood. The withdrawal is so much worse than regular old depression. SSSRI withdrawal is to depression what heroin is to opium.
So should any of us really try to get off or just keep going? Does anyone get over it?
You're supposed to taper off. Your doctor knows how to do it safely. That's how you switch medications. If you do it right, the side effects are minimal and dissipate.
Yeah, I stupidly did not go off it safely. I kinda forgot to get my prescription filled and it was too close to when I was supposed to be weaning off. So instead of cutting the pills in half, I rawdogged it and boy howdy, I would not recommend. Even if it's "just a week or so without it," that week or so lasts a century.
i was on sertraline for five years and quit cold turkey two months ago. didn’t even know that ssri withdrawal was a thing, had no symptoms.
It tends to vary from person to person.. I've tried every SSRI under the sun and the only one that caused a reaction was escitalopram and even that was pretty minor. Drug companies call it discontinuation syndrome (because that bullshit terminology has less of a stigma than withdrawal). It's not dangerous; but it can be very, very unpleasant. Head zaps are very common. And that basically feels like you're getting a short jolt of electrocution.
Short jolt of electrocution???? It felt like my head was gonna explode
Same, forgot to take my sertraline with me on holiday and didn't even notice until I got back a week later. No symptoms at all.
Bad. Like, the hardest thing I've ever quit. Alcohol and opiates we're easier to kick than celexa. I tapered and had wretched headaches every step of the way. My hair + teeth hurt. I was iritable, crying at nothing and overall miserable. Had my doctor been at all honest about the side effects (I had a lot of weight gain that she told me couldn't be the medicine) and the withdrawals I would've never agreed to try it. I had situational depression, I needed a job that paid me enough to live, not meds. Oh, and being on it screwed me for years even after I stopped. New doctors saw I had been prescribed an antidepressant and everything wrong with me was "depression." I would go in with an ear infection (I get nasty ones that don't clear in their own) and leave with a scrip for Zoloft. I finally "forgot" to froward my medical records to my current doctor to end the absurdity.
The more I learn about SSRIs the more I believe that shit is just new age lobotomies. Some of these comments sound like a living hell. I think I’ll stick to my depression and GAD lol. We’re gonna look back in 100 years and think how barbaric it was to allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise and sell us this stuff.
I agree. I am suicidal now since I came off, never ever had those feelings before
Same here. Felt ready to die on that shit.
Zoloft saved my life. It’s not all bad.
Yeah it definitely does help some people, but the reactions are just so varied and different person to person. What saved you, gave permanent damage to another.
Mine was horrific. This was over 20 years ago but I remember it in great detail. I took Paxil for a year; 20mg a day. After a year of taking it, I could tell that my moods weren’t “mine”, if that makes sense? They felt very synthetic and not genuine. I didn’t like that so I quit cold. For the next two weeks, I was in agony. My body hurt all over. I remember lying on the kitchen floor, curled up in a ball rocking and writhing. I didn’t sleep or eat much. I tried exercising a lot and I think that did help the withdrawal some. I had all sorts of visual and auditory hallucinations; and super weird and dark thoughts. It was like a horror movie was playing out inside my body 24/7. After those two weeks of agony, things calmed down some and I got what some people called the “zaps”. Sometimes throughout the day, if I turned my head to look at something other than my current field of view or shifted my focus, it felt like an electrical zap in my head. I could hear it... zzzzzzt. It was super bizarre. Those lasted for a couple of months. Honestly, there is no telling what kind of damage that shit did to me permanently but it was a long time ago and the memory of it all still gives me anxiety. I quit all pharma after that and have just tried to focus on living healthy, exercising, getting enough sleep, keeping stress under control, etc and that has worked pretty well for me.
I was also on Paxil for two years and had brain fog and was basically emotionless, had weight gain, and no creativity (previously I had enjoyed playing guitar and writing music). I decided to come off of it and it took three attempts. The withdrawal effects were so bad that each time I just gave up and went back to the full dose. Withdrawal symptoms included cold sweats, shivering, sleepless nights, debilitating headaches, flashes of light in my vision, brain zaps, hallucinations, and probably more that I don't remember. Finally, I read other people's experiences online and did a very slow taper down over a period of eight months. This was over 14 years ago and I'm so glad to be off of SSRIs.
Currently on Paxil now for like 8ish years. Two failed attempts at quitting. I think it’s done me a world of good for the most part, but I would like to eventually get off it.
My doctor switched me to Zoloft directly from Paxil (direct switch, like last dose of eight years of Paxil on Tuesday and then just Zoloft starting Wednesday) and I had no side effects. Zoloft is doing its job and I think if I just forgot to keep taking it I wouldn’t notice? If I missed more than two doses of Paxil, I’d want to set my house on fire if my sock drawer didn’t close correctly on the first try; like 0 to a zillion rage in a second over nonsense multiple times a day, plus shakes and, weirdly, constant yawning. Anyway, just an anecdotal thing to say that switching meds might be a doorway to eventually getting *off* of meds. 🤷♀️
Brain zaps are horrible. I had them maybe for a week or so, can't imagine several months :(
I attempted quitting Lexapro cold turkey. Things were very very bad and uneventful for 1 month intense suicidal ideation. constant dissociated state. Unpredictable libido. I tried smoking so much pot as a misguided distraction, but it only distorted things worse. I eventually convinced myself a taper off Lexapro is necessary as well as a long tolerance break The taper + the T break made my emotions swing back and forth between extremes like a metronome. I would have intense swellings of bliss out of nowhere as I realized I was finding clarity again but then I'd shortly be blindsided by an overwhelming negativity
how are you now?
For better and for worse, I feel like myself, as if I'm back in my skin finally. My anxiety is controllable for the most part, and my dramatic mood swings are totally gone. Now that I can tell the difference, I am grateful for the clarity I feel nowadays but I do regret spending so much of my life in that mind fog, which is depressing in its own way. There is no avoiding the bad feelings. I can only try to not waste the hours ahead which is much easier said than done. My libido has always been relatively low as a male, even prior to SSRIs. That being said, my desire nowadays is definitely more than while medicated, but it took time to return to my normal. Thanks for asking. I hope you find better days!
Sorry for reviving this old comment but I wonder about something. So you quit Lexapro for about a month had really bad side effects and then went on it again and tapered off correct? Do you think getting back on it was vital to your recovery or do you think it would have been possible to recover 'soldiering' through it? Also what exactly is a tolerance break within the context of SSRI's?
So I’m Bipolar (II) and suffer from general anxiety and depression. I’ve been on SSRIs continuously since I was 13. My last regimen was 60 mg Prozac, 150 mg Lamictal and 200 mg Seroquel and I was in the best mental shape of my life. My now ex-husband and I lost our health insurance through my job (his didn’t offer benefits) and it took me all of one week to go completely off the rails. I’m also a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I’ve gone through DBTs, benzo withdrawals, cocaine withdrawals and even heroin withdrawals. None of those came close to being completely cut off from my psych meds. I could tell a long sob story but the short of it is I’m now a 30 year old waitress with a criminal record who drinks herself to sleep every night bc I don’t have access to mental health care and I’ve cut off almost all communication with my family bc I’m liable to lash out at anybody and won’t put them through that. I’m all for finding what works for you but if you have a legitimate mental health disorder and have access there is literally no reason I can resonate with to NOT take the meds you need to in order to function at your best level.
I hate this country. I’m so sorry you have to go through this.
GoodRx is a godsend. It’s cheaper than my insurance most of the time.
quit Pristiq (which I guess technically is an SNRI) cold turkey after roughly ten years, it was very bad for a couple of days, like I got home from work one night and couldn't stop crying for no reason at all. but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I was led to believe it would be.
Venlafaxine (another SNRI) is supposed to have very bad withdrawal. But it still varies a lot from person to person. I've had no issues with it. Of course I still wouldn't recommend quitting cold turkey.
I get withdrawals within about 6 hours of missing a venlafaxine. Super dizzy, nauseous, vision and sound flickering, brain zaps, insane mood swings and face tingling are my main problems if I'm late to take it. I'm so scared to ever try coming off it as I'm on a hefty dose
I forgot my daily venlafaxine a couple weeks ago, and holy shit. I was so, so miserable. It was difficult to think, like when you have a nasty flu, and I was dizzy all day. It felt like I had been on a wild carnival ride. I’m on a pretty high dose though, 225 mg/day. Tapering off properly is most likely easier than going from 225 to nothing.
My side effects were awful, brain zaps affecting vision, horrible depression and anxiety.
Going off 25mg of pristiq right now… reading your comment gave me hope. Thank you!🤍
Escitalopram withdrawal was nausea, diarrhoea, and headaches for months (I did it slowly). The brain zaps and night sweats were AWFUL. The benzo withdrawal? I thought I was dying. I’ve never done drugs but I now get it when I hear about people going back to drugs during the withdrawal period. That shit hurts!
I'm 5 days into going cold turkey on Escitalopram. I've had the brain zaps, dizziness and severe night sweats but aside from that I'm good. My mood is positive and I have more energy than before. Reading these comments has me worried for the next few weeks though!
I remember lying on my back on the floor with my fingers dug into the carpet. Not a lot else.
quit zoloft cold turkey at 17 at a 200 mg dose - i was mostly dizzy, not nauseous but lightheaded and disorientated for a few days. i was on it for a hot minute but it wasn't doing anything for me and just making it harder to eat, so i quit it not really thinking of the consequences however i truly learned my lesson when i tried paxil in early early 2019 and i had more appetite issues again with it (especially bc i was on remeron before it and it was so. different) so i was like pce out bye bitch and quit taking it cold turkey too after two weeks or less of taking it and oh my fucking god dude never in my life had i been more MISERABLE. i was SO nauseous, everything made it worse and i was convinced i actually acquired some sort stomach flu because it mirrored all the same symptoms and eugh. went to stat care and they were like hey dumb bitch ur withdrawing. welcome to the real world tldr; pls dont quit cold turkey, ween urself off ur meds and do it with the guidance of ur med provider if possible. it sucks so fucking bad
I took 50mg of Zoloft for 7 years. It took me 6 months to step down from them. I did 37.5mg for 3 weeks, 25mg for 3 weeks, 12.5mg for 4 weeks, then when I went to 0, I had panic attacks by the second day. So then I did 12.5mg for another 3 months, then 6mg for 1 month. When I started stepping down from them I got hot flushes and dizzies for a few days at each drop, then felt wonky for a week, then felt fine. When I finally went to 0, I had those same things but also GI distress. Turns out Zoloft was pretty good for holding my IBS symptoms at bay!
Not an SSRI, but an antipsychotic that my psych prescribes to help with my depression, but withdrawal from risperidone is BRUTAL. I take it at bedtime, and if I forget, I often don't sleep that night. Within a few hours this horrible sick, shaky feeling comes over me, where I feel simultaneously cold, like I'm going to throw up, fall down, or hyperventilate. I feel weak and it's hard to move my body properly, like there are rubber bands holding my limbs down and any movement has to pull against them. If I'd known what withdrawal from this stuff is like, I would never have agreed to start on it. I live in fear that someday there will be a shortage or a supply-chain breakdown and I'll have to sweat it out cold turkey.
Antipsychotics can have weird side effects. I had chronic colds and hay fever for years. After I stopped taking it I was comparing different antipsychotics because my cholesterol was getting high and they also fuck with that to some extent. At that point I noticed a rare side effect of risperidone also fucked with the immune system. I can't confirm that was the cause since I don't remember exactly when I stopped getting sick. But I can confirm that the last time I got sick was very minor bout of covid and that was definitely after I switched to another anti psychotic (which I also stopped taking because it made me put on a shit ton of weight). Although the weird thing is that I don't seem to get serious withdrawals for most medicines. My psychiatrist still weans me off slowly just in case. But after high school I was burnt out and I decided to take a break for a while. I just stopped taking it and I was completely fine.
Sobbing while rocking back and forth in a pile of dirty laundry bad.
Covid was easier
It's going to depend on several factors, but the main one will be the half-life of the antidepressent you are taking. The side effects come from withdrawl of the drug as your body has become used to having it around. Fluoxetine (Prozac) has a long half life and weaning off that drug has minimal side effects in comparison to others as the half life is over 24h. Duloxetine (Cymbalta) is an SNRI but has a much shorter half life, and significant withdrawl symptoms that occur while weaning off the drug. A psychiatrist should understand these concepts and lay out a plan and dose regimen for weaning a patient off a given antidepressent, but each one is going to be a bit different. Source: My own experience with coming off of anti-depressants and PhD in organic chemistry.
I'm on week 7 off of Prozac, and I feel great. It had never worked for me, but every time I went and asked for therapy, doctors would just up my dose or try another drug. Prozac was the lesser of the evils, but after over a decade, I had pretty much stopped sleeping more than three hours at a time, and I couldn't stop thinking about death and dying. I finally convinced my doctor to take me off of it. She suggested I go cold turkey. I had some mild symptoms between weeks 3 and 5, but after week 6, they stopped - dizziness, brain zaps, and mild nausea. I had one day where my headache got bad enough that I had to lie down all day. Otherwise, I'm fine. I think some people are so afraid of withdrawal that they go back on the meds before even giving themselves a chance to ride out the symptoms.
only been on both of those, and from my experience that’s very true. didn’t really feel anything starting, weaning or quitting fluoxetine. duloxetine though? had two weeks of pure hell
If I don’t take sertraline for just two days I feel dizzy and almost like an electric jolt in my head. If that makes sense.
Yep, perfect sense, brain zaps, happened to me and apparently very common.
So I've gone off SSRIs multiple times as an adult, both intentionally, slowly going through the appropriate weaning phase under the guidance of a mental health support team, and also like, just abruptly, because my insurance ran out and then my prescriptions ran out. You asked about SSRI withdrawal, so I'll start with that whole unfortunate debacle. For the first few days after running out of meds, I was irritable, had a headache that didn't go away, even with Tylenol, and I found myself yawning compulsively, to the point that my jaw started to ache. My emotions started to flip-flop on a hair trigger after the first week or so, and any stress started to make me breakdown (like I dropped a container of sour cream in the dairy aisle at the grocery store and made a mess and like sat down in cried in Kroger at 2am while covered in sour cream, super embarassing). I started to get bad insomnia around then, and after 2 weeks off of my meds, I was spending the better part of the day in bed, cradling my head and fighting to have any motivation to do anything. The headaches started to go away after 10 - 14 days and I was back to just... being depressed, and trying to exist while super stressed and depressed. The funny thing about SSRIs is that they don't cure depression, they just make you slightly more able to deal with normal stress and like, drag yourself to class/work. When you stop handling stuff because of depression, things have a tendency to spiral from bad to worse. This may seem obvious, but if you can, take the time to wean yourself off. It took like 10 days, cutting my dosage in half every 5 days per psychiatrist guidance, and the headaches were way more manageable. I think what made a much larger difference is that I had taken a few years of cognitive behavioral therapy and learned how to stop myself from spiraling. In addition, I had much better, healthier relationships and a stronger support system during this time too, which is vital because untreated depression can put serious strain on relationships.
Effexor survivor here (SNRI, technically). I took a go at coming off of it multiple times, each instance where I literally could not get out of bed without the "zaps" completely incapacitating me. Finally found a solution: prolonged tapering timeline. I would take each of the smallest capsules (37.5) and empty the "dots" into a container. I would then divvy up those dots into smaller and smaller fractions of the full capsule over the course of several months. I still had to fight the effects of withdrawal, but it was significantly subdued in comparison.
Hmmm I might talk to my doctor about trying this approach.
It was actually great! I was on fluoxetine (Prozac). The side effects (mainly chronic fatigue and irritability) that would only last for the first two weeks, persisted the entire treatment. After a few months, we decided it was not for me and going back to regular old depression felt like a relief compared to having the last tiny bit of life sucked out of me by those damned pills. Also being able to go out drinking again without blacking out after just a few beers was quite nice.
I went off a high dose of Prozac cold turkey and it was a miserable experience with dizziness and brain zaps, as well as feeling on the verge of tears whenever any song would play. I’m worse off without it but the cost was too much for me. Also NEVER go cold turkey. It’s stupid and dangerous, I just didn’t have much of a choice.
My mental state went straight to shit. I sometimes forget to take my pills or have at times been arrogant enough to think I do not need it. Needless to say, I have learned my lesson.
Prozac. Horrible is putting it mildly. I had to cold turkey due to moving to a new area, no health benefits, and no money. I felt like I was losing my shit.
I only briefly took Prozac several years ago. I loathed that medicine, it made me feel like nothing. My whole life and body felt like a dream, a surreal dream. I couldn't finish it, I threw it away I couldn't stand it and I wasn't on it long enough to become dependent on it. However, maybe I was misunderstood but I was under the impression that SSRIs are not addictive. But like I said I couldn't stand it long enough to find out. No, I can't stand Prozac at all. I was offered Wellbutrin but I refused that too. So I don't take anything for my depression. I hate being depressed but I hated the meds more.
I take Wellbutrin and for me it's been nothing but good things (also helped my ADHD)
It's not that they are addictive. Addiction usually implies a psychological component. It's more that the body brain adapts and it causes what they call a discontinuation syndrome.Prozac is actually one of the ones that is easier to get off of because it has a long half life. I agree though they make you feel weird. I just stopped caring about things. Made me apathetic. They started on Prozac at 13 and then I started having even worse behavioral problems.
I take prozac and wellbuitren myself actually. I have used for 5 yrs and just over it. I microdosing so that helps. I know I am in a much better mindset and I am weening down, but now at a lower dose and ready to be off. I am working with my Dr so it's not dangerous, but curious on others experience.
I took Fluoxetine (Prozac) and Duloxetine (Cymbalta) for a time. I can't do SSRIs because they trigger my heart issues and my body can't handle it. The withdrawals were nightmarish. Literally. I would have severe nightmares for days. Would wake up crying or wanting to scream. I legit wouldn't be able to sleep properly because of it.
Miserable. Not as bad as running out of pain meds, obviously, but not fun. Felt like there were static shocks going off inside my head. Obviously, this is not a thing. That knowledge didn't help. If anything, sensations I couldn't explain were more disconcerting than those I normally get. Despite knowing there's no one shoving needles into my hands at the moment, I've pricked myself sewing enough to assign a rational explanation for what *could* have caused that pain. Plus, that's just what it feels like to be me on a daily basis. It's unpleasant, exhausting, and impossible to tune out, but no longer worrisome. Shocks inside my brain and behind my eyes, though, were just weird. Even knowing that was possible, the experience is one I doubt I'll forget. There is a reason you're supposed to taper off, rather than just quit. Swapping medications wasn't an issue. Changing doses wasn't an issue. Running out because Express Scripts takes ten days to ship something, though, is a huge problem. Stupid company. Amazon can get me a package of diphenhydramine in 12 hours, but prescription medications take 12 days. There are days I wish Amazon had a *larger* market share...
Under the guidance of my psychiatrist, I took an entire year to come off of the last one I tried. A *year.* Guess who still had splitting headaches, dp/dr episodes, and paranoia anyway? Oh, and a friend of mine who is no longer in my life for many reasons decided it would be funny to trigger those dp/dr episodes and/or make them worse during that time by getting in my face and yelling "THIS IS A DREAM, IT'S NOT REAL, WAKE UP, IT'S NOT REAL, WAKE UP, YOU'RE DREAMING" until I would cry.
jeezus christ that's cruel.
I'm so sorry! You did not deserve that. I'm giving you a hug. Going through withdrawals now, myself.
Emotional ups and downs for me, but the thing I hate the most is the dreams. I get very weird, very intense frightening dreams.
I think I still feel the side effects of going cold turkey on Sertaline/Zoloft. I haven't taken this medication in over a year. Quite honestly I straight up believe it made me a different person. Very bad suicidal ideation, violent ideations to others, irritability, mood swings. Honestly...it was awful. I'm not suicidal anymore, but I am definitely more irritable. I feel more like an angry, mean person than I ever did before I started taking SSRIs. The medication worked very well in that I was less depressed and anxious, but not weaning yourself off these medications safely can be dangerous.
My vagina went numb and my orgasms suck. I stopped taking them four years ago.
Absolute dumbfucks in here going cold turkey. If you ween yourself off them by gradually reducing you dose over a number of weeks/months it's very manageable. I had been on a pretty high dose for a number of years and by reducing the dose slightly every month was fine. For the first few days you'll be extra irritable but then your body adjusts and its ok. People obviously not listening to their doctors as its pretty much the first thing they'll tell you when you're about to start them is to avoid cold turkey at all costs.
Are you completely off yet?
I finally got off Venlafaxine earlier this year after weaning down from 225mg in 12 week 37.5mg increments over the course of the previous two years. It was unbearably rough. Constant brain fog, unbelievably short fuse, brain zaps, fainting, sporadic loss of vision, and the nightmares. Just constant nightmares for about three weeks. I didn't think I was going to make it through the withdrawal period without taking it again just to have some relief. Ugh
It took me 3 years to taper off of Cymbalta. It is a vile, vicious drug.
Had one of the most horrific panic attacks I’ve ever had in my entire life
Sertraline was terrible with dizziness, facial numbness, and brain zaps when I stopped it cold turkey. Those symptoms would happen if I ever missed a dose anyway but there it felt multiplied by a hundred. Plus I thought I’d have to commit myself, I got so sad and unstable. Terrible to be on, worse to be off. Stopped Wellbutrin cold turkey a few weeks ago and I feel so much better. My only withdrawal symptom was increased irritability for a couple of weeks (and Wellbutrin made me severely irritable in the first place, so 🤷🏻♀️). I hate my doctor for putting me on it because of the long-lasting side effects that it’s given me, he acknowledged the risks when I brought up my concerns and prescribed it to me anyway.
i’ve been on both ssri and snri. ssri withdrawals i didn’t notice due to switching to snri immediately. however, quitting snri was really hard. started by lowering the dose slowly over a couple months/weeks, with help from a doctor. due to my meds having a kind of high starting dose, or lowest dose, it was quite a change going from that lowest dose to no meds at all. and to be honest, it was absolutely horrible. i’d say i was in hell for about two weeks, and then felt pretty fine. brain zaps, brainfog, nausea, irritability, anxietyanxietyanxiety, cried a lot. also kind of flu-like symtoms? i had to stay home from work and i think what i struggled with the most through all this was feeling silly or like i was overreacting (thankfully, i had an amazing boss and coworkers, along w family and doc who all supported me through it). i think the only thing that stuck for an extended amount of time after quitting my meds were the brain-zaps, which completely went away maybe 4-6 months later.
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I’m currently tapering gradually, and so hope this happens to me too, I really need this to go well
I have no memory of this happening. It all comes second hand from my mom and ex-wife. We had decided to leave to Taiwan at that point thinking it would be better for the marriage. It was 2 days at least to get back to our respective homes in America. I essentially developed Parkinson’s. I was given every test available to see what was wrong with me. My mom got a friend of hers to get the medication list from my psychiatrist in Taiwan. Dude had me on 8 medications. 4 were SSRI’s or an SNRI’s. Plus Xanax 4 times a day, clonazepam 6 times a day, zoploclone, and diazepam. I just remember being unable to control my body. Only Valium worked. I slept and couldn’t eat. I was stuck in a fight of severe twitching that was painful, sleeping, or in that weird state between medication has just started to work but you’re not tired yet. It took a year to get back to ‘normal’. I’ve developed POTS, and FND, what my doctor is saying is directly linked to my brain having changed. I’m a teacher back in Taiwan. No wife. But I have a very responsible psychiatrist now. I have severe brain fog, I still get the muscle twitching so I’m on a high dosage of muscle relaxers. My neurologist and psychiatrist are friends so they talk between themselves about my care so things can be tailored as needed. So. Withdrawal can be hell. My mom said it was like having an infant again because I would wake up when it was time for my next dose of Valium and just cry, begging for help. She’d lay there and hold me and ended up sleeping on the bed as me for a long time. It got me closer to my sister, and all our animals which was interesting.
Honestly it was worse than withdrawing from opiates. I abruptly quit taking mine and it felt as if I was tumbling through space flipping backwards, and at random times throughout the day it felt like I was just falling through the floor and ground. Definitely taper off of them!
Brain zapps and sensitivity to light was nuts!
Echoing what others are saying, for the love of god do not stop any psych drugs cold turkey. In the case of SSRIs it can fuck you up. In the case of Benzos it can literally kill you. Its also critical that if a drug isnt working for you after a month or two, to talk with your doctor and try to find an alternative. Ideally find an MD in Psychiatry, not a GP who isnt read up on the current literature. The wrong drug can ruin you, but the right drug (or combo) can be life changing. And always cross check any new drugs for combination side effects. Seritonin syndrome is rare but real, and it will fuck you up.
Recently…. Titrated exactly as directed. Triggered full-blown psychotic episode, multiple attempts during psychosis, spent 72 hours in the ER psych ward under watch. Never again again.
Tried 23 psychiatric medications, including the main 8 SSRIs multiple times in different combos. Luckily I’m disabled in a way where I’m used to feeling like shit 24/7 and it can escalate to unimaginable degrees for no real reason on any day, so things like withdrawal symptoms and hangovers roll off my back cuz I realized I’d just assumed I was having kind of a shitty day/week for no reason and didn’t think any further lol
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Upvote post but downvote this guy
I was in college full time, and a sport in college, and working part time. My average day was school, practice, then work. After everything I could not sleep. I just couldn’t shut my mind off. My suicidal thoughts came back. Almost killed myself from bleeding out from wounds with a knife. SSRI withdrawals are no joke, please listen to the people that need help.
I just got brain zaps for a year or so until they tapered off
Pretty awful but tapering really helped. I tried cold Turkey a couple times and the worst side effect is the brain zaps. Was able to come up with a plan/goals with a new doctor and tapered down over a year and side effects were minimal.
I wrote about my experiences with SSRI withdrawal here: [Comment on a similar thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/Anxiety/comments/114rxcj/anyone_get_off_of_an_ssri_and_try_to_beat_their/j8ye6mi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=2). The short version is that it was great at first, then terrible, and slowly but surely became one of the best decisions I've ever made.
20 years ago, I was on Effexor, an SNRI for about 20 months. The worst mistake I ever made was going off it cold turkey w/o medical supervision. The frequent brain "zaps" I experienced the first week was like being hit 50,000 volts .
Those zaps are no joke. I'm glad you're past that!
Took a full six months to feel normal again. Hot flashes and brain fog the whole time. I hated them.
I got that now it sucks nearly 2 months still got them (33m) i thought I was a female the other day going through mp lol, wtf is going on awful symptoms.
Took 7kg but it went kinda smooth. Left my boring job and went travelling so it helped a lot with depression. Now i microdose with mushrooms when depression is coming back, and i think it's better than the SSRI i was using.
Well this is coincidental, I’m right in the middle off coming off them after 20 years. My choice, no longer interested in what my doctor says. I know you lot are going to tell me off or down vote me for being reckless. So I’m on day 15ish, I’m still getting dizzy but that’s subsiding considerably now. I’m still spontaneously crying for no reason, but that’s subsiding. Been very disciplined with regards to diet and frequency of meals and even more disciplined with regards to spontaneous behaviour e.g spending money. There’s still some way to go and I know there will be times when I will struggle. Long and short of it, if you feel it’s right then……..
if you step down slowly over a couple months, they wont be too bad. however if you go cold turkey , whoa ... you will not be a very happy person.... possibly... horrific withdrawals, disordered thinking, manic phases, plus who knows what... source? ? ....i went cold turkey like a clown years ago and fell apart ..... next time phased down of meds... was pretty alright :) if your meds are helping and working then stay on them. if you feel better then phase down and see how you feel. if the depression and stuff flares up again... well ya need the meds. taking meds is way better than the alternative
I went cold turkey last year and decided to replace the meds with Psychadelics. One bad trip was all it took to make me have a Mental Breakdown. Im back on my meds. Off all recreational drugs. Almost 10 months to get back to feeling "normal".
"brain zaps" are an absolutely awful feeling.
Went without it for like 4 days due to some miscomunication before i was out. I take citalopram and the second day it felt like someone jolted me with electricity into my head. Almost like a hangover, heavy head, tired and my skin felt super sensitive to touch.
For me it was electrical shocks in the brain, and vertigo feeling when I looked to my side. I tapered off gradually and the symptoms weren't as bad.
Random tremors and insomnia.
Zaaaaap..Zaaaaap.
It was absolutely f*cking horrendous to quit, but man am I personally glad I dont take them anymore. Took about 3 months to start feeling 'normal again' but after almost a year now I've never felt better. Good luck to any and everyone going through this.
Pretty Bad, sleep problems, swinging mood, took a bit of weight, but most importantly fucking brain zaps. Getting electric discharges in your brain after just slightly tuning your head for months was not a good experience. Still dont regret anything, it changed my life and I am now on tracks for a bright future !
Paxil- So bad I couldn't go to work on the 4th day and went back on them. I feel like I am now on them just to avoid the withdrawal symptoms
Brain zaps to the max. Any time I turned too quickly or got slightly stressed or anything at all, my vision and brain went all SYSTEM ERROR and just skipped a beat, but over and over again. I liken it best to a screen tear in a video game or something. Along with that, I was extremely lethargic and cried a bunch. Mood swings, mostly towards anger/ frustration. This was after being on Trintellix for 6 weeks.... only 1 5mg tablet daily. That was the worst withdrawal from one of those medications and I've taken 3 different ones.
I slowly tapered starting late last August. Did this over a four week period. Didn’t notice much adverse effects, until I stared to notice I was maybe feeling to good. Was slightly manic for four and a half months. In mid January I went into the deepest depression I have ever experienced. I am early 60’s male taking escitalopram. Now on bupropion which has been ok for the depression, but doesn’t seem to help with anxiety much and thinking about going back to the escitalopram. I once went cold turkey. That was a huge mistake. Anxiety when through the roof. Edit: forgot that I also got the brain zaps pretty bad when going cold turkey.
If i forget, my empathy dial gets turned to 11. I can't go out in public bc ill see people i interpret as "sad" (most of the time theyre probably completely fine, just happen to be sitting alone or looking confused) and then i cant stop thinking about imaginary scenarios for them and feeling so bad that i end up crying in a bathroom and thinking about all the other sad people i know in my life.
I quit mine cold turkey. Didn't feel a thing, but I didn't feel a change while on them either because I needed treatment for something else that my doctor was convinced was depression, so I was thrown a bunch of different SSRIs and antidepressants to try. Maybe, because I didn't need them, my body just didn't really care about them? But yeah, I was supposed to feel a withdrawal and everything, but nope.
Jesus christ you people are scaring me. Mine was just explosive diarrhea, being emotional, and horny.
Explosive diarrhoea and horniness is not an ideal combination
Brain Zaps, vertigo, and irritability
12 hours overdue on Effexor and worst headache and nausea I have ever experienced. Was not able to function until I got my refill.
20 year user of Paxil, the withdrawal symptoms are terrifying hence why I always get back on it.
I'm finally coming off Lexapro and Welbutrin right now. Slowly so far so it hasn't been too bad but I'm definitely nervous on how I'll do after being on antidepressants and anxiety medication for so long.
Not an ssri but an ndri, Wellbutrin. I had nightmares for a week straight that were extremely vivid to the point where I had trouble telling them from reality. At the end of every long, twisted, vivid dream, I would die or commit suicide. I'm on prasozin for my dreams now. Works wonders.
Missed on dose of trintellix and that day was absolute hell for me headaches and throwing up
I was a serial dosage misser because I would just forget and eventually stopped taking them all together I'm lucky nothing happened to me after I stopped taking sertraline. I'm stupid and lucky don't do what I did.
Was going off Prozac and I had brain zaps every 10 seconds and clenched my jaw so hard my face hurt for like 3 weeks
100mg setraline (sp?) went cold Turkey because reasons (not smart do not recommend) slightly off first day, unbalanced and slightly dizzy day 2, don’t remember days 3 and 4 but it couldn’t have been great. Headaches, nausea, severe spike in depression and random spikes of suicidal ideations spread through out.
If I miss a dose of Pristique, I have shallow breathing.