Prozac and insomnia

[MakeTheVanGogh]

I started prozac (20mg)  2 weeks ago. 1 week in, i suffered a major panic/anxiety attack. and a few smaller ones afterwords. i went into a 3 day tail spin of intense anxiety, racing thoughts, and obsessive thinking about the anxiety and fear of it coming back. i could literally not think of anything else. on top of that hell, i couldn't sleep through the night. 50mg of diphenhydramine would knock me out. but i would wake up 1-3 hours later. the first 2 nights this happened, i was able to fall back asleep. but the following nights, i wasn't able to fall back asleep. I started taking 100-200 mg  of the diphenhydramine with no success.

Yesterday, i decided not to take the prozac, because it's pretty clearly the problem. about 6 hours after my missed dose, i was able to start thinking of other things, and felt immensely better. but then last night i woke up after an hour at the most. I was hit with waves of heat in my back (not heat in the room. panic attack heat). and anxiety and racing thoughts. handfuls of the sleeping pills have done nothing. i noticed that the diphenhydramine would relieve my anxiety at night as well before i would fall asleep. but last night, it did not.

since i was only on prozac for 2 weeks, i'm wondering, how long until i go back to normal again?
specifically, when should I expect the side effects of anxiety and insomnia/frequent waking to subside?

[Paxiled]

Prozac is a stimulating antidepressant, and makes many people anxious.  It also helps many, but it is one of the more stimulating ones.

[RubyWitch]

First of all, you shouldn't just stop taking antidepressants without discussing it with your doctor. Fortunately, you weren't on the Prozac long enough and you were at a very low dose, so you didn't experience the nasty effects of going cold turkey off these types of meds.

Prozac can take anywhere from 4-6 weeks to reach "steady state" in your body. That is the point at which it will begin to help you. It can take that long for our bodies to get use to it and you should have been counseled in this and the side effects that COULD come along during that adjustment period.

Insomnia is one of the side effects of Prozac, which you should have been told about. I have no idea what adding 100-200 mg of diphenhydramine might do but again, you should have checked with your doctor before taking it. It's possible it could be contraindicated.

If you've been prescribed Prozac for anxiety/panic, it's pretty normal to have some "break through" episodes until the medication kicks in. This also should have been explained to you. Many doctors will prescribe a mild anti-anxiety medication to get you over those rough patches.

I'm not entirely sure you should blame the Prozac for all your symptoms, but some people do have a hypersensitivity to this medication.
You ask how long it will take for you to return to "normal." Since I don't know what "normal" is for you, I can't possibly say.
I can tell you that Prozac has a very long half life of 9.3 days, which means that every 9.3 days, 1/2 of the medication in your body will be eliminated. In another 9.3 days another 1/2 of the remaining drug will be excreted and so on until it is completely out of your system.

I urge you, STRONGLY, to see your doctor again and explain your experience (and fears) and discuss other options.

Sometimes it takes a couple of trials with different AD's to find the one that works best for us. Don't let this one not so pleasant experience stop you from getting the help you need.

I wish you the best. (See your doctor!)
Peace
RubyWitch