I recently found out that these antidepressants are highly addictive and that trying to stop them is impossible and very dangerous!!!

The withdrawal effects are from hell.........sweats, electric shocks, chills, severe vomiting, horrible nightmares,
disassociation, audio and visual hallunications, dizziness, confusion, mania,,just to name a few symptoms.

I have spoken to many that have stopped Lexapro and all have said they feel like they are outside of their body..........a surreal fealing that has not gone away for months.Anyone here experience that same feeling??

I am hoping that some here may have a positive twist on tapering from SSRI's/

Rosie, if you are here can you tell me how you sucessfully got off of the Paxil???

Any experiences or advice would be appreciated.

Been weaning the last three months by 1 Mg, my daughter has had severe side effects at even this small reduction in her dosage. We are being followed by several doctors but they know little about discontinuing usage of SSRI's?
I have heard how these antidepressants can cause diabetes and lower the immune system so they are seriously contraindicated in those that have lyme or any other chronic illness. They are also not to be used with Biaxin or Ketec due to using the same P-450 Cytochrome system in the liver possibly causing severe toxicity.

Thanks
aunty

and some severe migraines.

Zoloft left me jaundaced with near liver failure, and severe lymphedema.

Going down was actually easier for me than going up.
I started by decreasing my dosage every other day... full dose one day, half dose next. Did that for two weeks, then went to half dose for 2 days, and full dose on third day...when my body got upset by the full dose day, I eliminated that and did the half dose for 2-3 weeks before tapering again.

Towards the end, my body just couldn't stand the higher dose at all, and then there were no dose days, with small dosees in between until I quit all together.

I guess the thing that made it easy for me was that the zoloft only made my dr feel better, not me. By the time I got to the theraputic dose he wanted , I was finally feeling severely depressed like he always claimed I was from the start.

He's taken it for YEARS. He has nightmares and doesn't sleep well. I think if he went to something else, he'd do better.

Several times he has run out of Prozac for as long as two weeks and didn't have withdrawal. The only thing I noticed was grumpiness!

So I'm wondering if stopping Prozac would be difficult for him?? Do the withdrawal problems begin after 3 or 4 wks??

I have taken Wellbutrin and didn't like the side effects. So I switched to Zoloft. I took Wellbutrin one day and switched to Zoloft the next day.

Jake was on Zoloft and had been up to 200 mg per day. This was before his Lyme diagnosis and his neurologist thought it would help his headache. He tapered off without any problems.

Jordan has been taking Zoloft (50 mg) for the last year. I'm going to start tapering him next week. I think I'll go to 37 mg for a week and if he does OK, and then go to 25 mg the next week.

My kids have constant, unrelenting headaches and other neurological symptoms. I don't know if they would be able to tell if it is withdrawal or a Lyme symptom.

auntybiotic1499 - I hope you can find a doctor to help you with the tapering. I want to taper Jordan off of MS-Contin but I need someone to help us. The normal tapering schedule does not work for him.

Prozac is a long acting SSRI with a half life of about 26 days..so if one stops Prozac it would take about 5-6 weeks for the withdrawal symptoms to surface. The grumpiness is a symptom of withdrawal but it would progressively turn into anger then rage as time went on and no prozac was given.

Do NOT have him swithch to Lexapro. In all my research.............it is the new EVIL PAXIL..............the #1 worse and hardedst to wean off of.

Good luck with weaning off of the Zoloft......I am told not to reduce more then 5 to 10% and to wait until all symptoms subside until the next reduction which for us takes about a month.

I do have a doctor but most of them have no clue and suggest weaning way to fast. Cave......I just purchased a CD "Help I can't get off my antidepressant" BY DR. Anne Tracy Blake. She offers some guidelines.
Cave what happened when you tried to taper??

I wish Rosie was here because I know she taper off of Paxil with success.

The SSRI"S are very harmful to the body and as I said can cause diabetes and make the body double its cortisol with every dose!!!

It's a shame we are not told they are so addictive and impossible to get off without much mental and physical pain and disruption in one's life.

More stories please.

My best friend's 10 year old daughter successfully weaned off of lexapro or celexa (not sure which) w/no problems either.

Cut down gradually even if you have to split the pills to reduce the dose.

I probably did it too fast for most people- made a sudden switch to every other day for a week and a half, then every third day, then once a week. I'm still at one a week.

I've noticed some minor palpitations and slightly elevated heart rate, but that's all I'm sure is from quitting.

After wasting time taking SSRIs I stopped, and still felt crummy.

I can't tell you how many ducks told me SSRIs were the answer to my symptoms.

Also, what exactly is lyphedema? Swelling of lymph nodes, fluid retention? She has had both of these on zoloft. Did your problems resolve once off zoloft, and how long did it take?

To others, withdrawal from SSRI's can come later than you expect, even with short half-lives (and Prozan has a really long half-life so it is really delayed). Also, many people experience worse withdrawal once they are down to a certain point. For instance, coming down fro 50mg to 25 mg might be easy and could even be done quickly, but then there are more problems with the last 25 mg. Lots of people say thte last 10mg is the hardest and needs to be tapered very slowly.

Everyone is different and she was put on a high dose of Lexapro by her doctor and never ramped up, just started at 20 MG.

I would be happy to let you borrow my book on weaning off of SSRI's if you will return it when you are finished.

When you had the severe reaction, with my daughter it peaks in about 8 to 14 days and then she stabilizes. I bet if you were able to get thru it you would have normalized. Also you may have wanted to wait at least a month in between tapers to give your brain a chance to function with lower levels of the serotonin.

SLOW is the way to taper. 5 to 10 % of your dose a month!!!So if you are taking 20MG then only taper 1-2 Mg a month.

Each time I complained to my dr abt how horrible I felt, I would be told to up the dose again...getting numb again, and shutting up in confusion. By the time I got tto a theraputic dose of 150 mg, I was fighting suicidal feeling all the time, and knew I needed to get the poison out of my system.

Additionally, I lost my appetite and gained 40 lbs, retained fluid, but had a severe drop in blood pressure and was yellow.
Lymphedema is swelling of lymph nodes.
My lymph nodes swelled in my neck, armpits, breasts, groin, ankles, feet and hands. I was puffy and lumpy all over, and I got a very sore and inflammed liver and comstant headaches.

I needed to do a liver detox and make dietary changes for abt 6 months to get all the side efects to resolve.

I hope that helps... I hope your daughter is doing well!

As a side issue, or maybe related, GI endoscopy recently revealed extensive stomach inflammation and also yeast infection in her GI tract. She had diarrhea three times a day on zoloft, which stopped when she stopped zoloft (tapered, I should say). So GI problems started on Zoloft. We've also found that she reacts to gluten, and so along with diabetes, and yeast-free diet, she can't eat gluten.

I know I wouldn't be able to go off anti-depressants completely. At least I don't think so!

I've taken tri-cyclics for years [like 15] and have had no problems. I'm taking trazodone now and have been for at least 4 yrs.

I was thinking of having my husband try switching to traz. I think it's safer and will help him sleep.

I tend to think that his sleep problems are BECAUSE of the Prozac.......or Lyme.

I believe Trazodone is not in the same class as the early tri-cyclics...??

So gut problems might be a big part of the problem.

The book is written to be entirely reader friendly to a non-scientific audience, without being at all condescending.

I couldn't stand it when that happened so I would start taking it again. It took me several years to get up the nerve to get off of it.

Finally, I decided I would do it no matter what happened. I started out slowly decreasing it but the zaps started so I just went cold turkey. I am definitely not recommending it. It wasn't easy.

The first few nights, every time I would close my eyes I would see worm like things. I would just lay and cry. My wonderful husband helped me through those rough nights.

Now that I have seen what a spirochete looks like, that's what the worms looked like except they were black. It was very scary but I made it. I had a rough couple of weeks and that was it.

I repeat, I do not recommend this but I just wanted you to know that I did get off the paxil. Now, I am on wellbutrin and cymbalta. I have taken wellbutrin before and stopped it with no problems.

I have only taken cymbalta for a month but am not taking it anymore. I'm so afraid of having to go through that again. I just wish these doctors would tell us these things before we take them. My nurse practitioner won't even prescribe paxil because of the withdrawal.

Best of luck to your daughter. She can do this but it may not be easy. By the way, I've never heard about this causing diabetes. I was dx'd with it shortly after or right before coming off paxil.(can't remember which) I've had drs ask me why I have it. I'm not overweight and no family history. Makes me wonder.

Can you shoot me the name of the author of that book?

Slowly the jaundice and swollen liver subsided, then the lymphedema decreased. Eventaully I added fish and berries to my diet, then organic yogurt and raw goatmilk.

I was feeling pretty good...went away on vacation...broke my hand!
After the surgery, I ate what ever was given to me, and the big "d" started... found out with the shattered hand that I had bone density problems and celiac disease.

Been gluten free almost 4 years.... at the 3 year mark had 80% improvement in bone density...

Anyway, my ND is in Portsmouth NH.... and I'm very thankful for her intervention in my life.

Concurrently with the diet and treatment of the ND, I have been recieving Integrative Manual Therapy (IMT). IMT is a wonderful alternative treatment of organ system healing.

Hope this helps...some

I will.

Be sure to get the 2nd (most recent) edition:

The Second Brain : A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine,
by Michael Gershon

I will warn you that he doesn't specifically link psychological disorders with the gut or suggest treatments re SSRIs etc. -- he basically lays the groundwork for understanding the gut in relation to neurotransmitters, and gives you food for thought and other areas to research.

Here's the Amazon.com link! With some additional books on the topic that look fascinating. Hope my library has some of them.

Be nice if I could actually retain what I read. But it's sorta all starting to repercolate in my brain--and I've learned to take lots of notes.

Also, an interesting blurb from Psychology Today:

"Q How does this (second) brain influence irritable bowel syndrome (lBS), which many believe is a psychological problem?

A Irritable bowel syndrome, whose symptoms include abdominal pain accompanied by loose stool, affects 20% of Americans. But doctors often dismiss its severity, attributing IBS to psychoneurosis because they don't know exactly what it is.

She just had a GI endoscopy, and blood work, whicih is negative for celiac. This is not a definite negative necessarily, but is all the info we have for now. Did you get a diagnosis from the ND based on bloodwork or biopsy?

The endoscopy showed extensive yeast infection and inflammation. So now we are thinking "leaky gut" causes the gluten senstivity. This would mean that she might be able to eat gluten again someday, as opposed to the situation w/celiac, where it is lifelong.

Yes, it is the Marino Center that she is referred to. I'm glad to hear it has a good reputation...

I just bought the "Second Brain" and some other books (on leaky gut ) on Amazon. Thanks for info...

What I can't figure out is the relationship between Lyme treatment with abx and Plaquenil , headache treatment with zoloft, and the onset of these GI and systemic symptoms w/bloating, stomach distension, dizziness etc. etc. I swear these were caused by the zoloft, because that's when everything started. She's also had low thryoid at times, which I blamed for symptoms, too (thyroid tests now normal but boyd temp. low)

On the other hand, my daughter got off abx at the same time she went on the zoloft (there was a small period of time when she was on abx too). So lately I was thinking the abx and Plaquenil would have contributed, or maybe even a Lyme relapse.

Achey, are you still on abx? Did you take Plaquenil? Do you think the SSRI was the main and/or sole cause of your problems?

I am printing out your story to show to our MD's- hope you don't mind. Noone has believed us until recently. They thought my daughter had an eating disorder, was sneaking food, and that her statements that she felt swollen indicated a distorted body image!!! Psychological evaluation by psych. and by eating disorder clinic revealed NO psych. problems, very well-adusted, positive attitude despite 10 years of illness, amazing kid etc. So now, finally, she had the endoscopy.

In the meantime, of course, Lyme treatment is impossilbe. Achey, are you on abx? Did you have to stop w/your symptoms and diet?

You need to listen to the tape Help I Can't Get Off My AntiDepressant.

She spemds much time talking about the SSRI'S as a side effect or upon withdrawal causing stomach bloating and distension.

She also says the SSRI cause metabolism problems and pancreatic problems as well as thyroid disturbances.

The dizziness is the vertigo that continues up to a year after withdrawal in some patients after using SSRI's.

Also blood sugars being unstable which can lead to fiabetes, She states this happens in all patients that withdrawal from SSRI's so this needs to be carefully monitored.

She suggested 12 walnits every two hours to stabilize blood sugar levels.

The SSRI can also cause heart problems and blood coagulation problems in many who use them.

Patients that have used SSRI's can go on to get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the Cortisol levels being disrupted daily.

She states that just one dose of Prozac 30 Mg ( and any SSRI) can increase the cortisol level by 200%.

The CD is Help I Can't Get Off MyAntiDepressant by Dr. Ann Blake Tracey and she also has a book available that is excellent on Prozac (and all antidepressants).

She offers helpful nitritional ways of rebuilding the body during and after withdrawal/ She suggests the aloe vera juice for digestive disorders and the naomi juice for the depersonalization that one may feel.
She also suggest the naomi juice works well for the mania the SSRI'S can cause either as a drug induced side effect or as a withdrawal effect.