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Withdrawal?

How many people here have had to go through withdrawal?  Specifically, was it cold turkey withdrawal?  What was your experience and what medicine had you withdrawn from?  Was it because your doctor messed up or because you were switching meds?  Describe your experience here and insert it in this imaginary box on this message!  Thanks.
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Avatar universal
So, I've been through a lot of various full stop withdrawal, although not out of a desire to stop taking a prescription. Almost always it has been due to a pharmacy mishap, doctor miscommunication, and today it's both at once, and 4 meds at once. I've already been through these symptoms. I'm familiar with them. Duloxitine 60mg I'm feeling first, and hard. Elevated blood pressure, shocks with each increasing pulse, pain spikes with pulse rate, elevated temperature, falling into things, and it's only warming up. In a few days it will be much worse. I am not looking forward to the spasms, which induce pain spikes in my spine and neck, listening to my pulse and hearing little else, and the definite sensation that I am about to die. At least I still have my pain medication to tone it down a little. But also out of blood pressure and sleep meds. If I didn't have anyone trying to resolve this situation for me, I'm sure death would find me one way or another in this undignified state.
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3 Comments
Well... That escalated quickly. Collapsed reroute to the restroom. Didn't so much fall as just stopped standing. Didn't see or feel myself hit the ground but heard it happen. Back in bed via wheelchair and a great baby brother. A borrowed blood pressure pill helped a little. Lowered my resting heart rate from 113 to 89 bpm. Still can't really feel myself move since I fell but I'm considerably less distressed. Still, all firearms were removed from my possession for now just in case. Not that I would even try to use one in this state.
One other symptom now. Amazingly painful muscle cramp in my right mid inner thigh.
Hello HeiBao4.  Please call our doctor to discuss this. We want you to be safe and this sounds like a situation that is difficult to navigate without a doctor intervening.   Please let us know how you are doing.
Avatar universal
I had to go off Cymbalta after being on it for several years. I was taking 90mg. Then 60mg for 2days, 30 for 2 days and off. I had what I called static in my brain, I suppose that's what people call brain zaps. It lasted for about 4 weeks and was tolerable. I got off it to start on Emsam. You can't be on any other antidepressant for 2 weeks. Before starting it.  Or of course while you are taking it. It is an MAOI patch.
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Avatar universal
never been here before,not sure what some of abreviations mean ie;(AP,BRAIN ZAPS,BENZOS)I do however reconize "geodon" which is why I'm writing.Just started two days ago on geodon doc said take at bedtime,looked online for info they lists best time to take is with meals.Also seeing some of side affects are scaring me ,really considering stopping before really starting.
Was using "limital" with good results till really ugly nasty rash began forming,had too stop.]
Can anyone help me with positive results using new drug?(geodon)
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1167245 tn?1353878500
Exactly. There's always the pull between being scared of what the drugs may be doing to your body, and being scared of what will happen to your mind without them. It's a bit of a catch-22. I have a tendency to become a hypochondriac when I'm depressed but not suicidal, so these times are usually when I at least consider going off medication. I love reading about psychopharmacology, but this gets me into trouble sometimes when I read too much. I'm still really concerned about what my liver is going to be like down the road, because of alcohol, meds, and the combination of the two at times.

I recently was prescribed Geodon, which scared me slightly, because it was the first long term AP I was going to be on. But it did work to slow down my cycling, and it's been helping me sleep, so I guess I have to give it some credit right now.

And yeah, Prozac has such a ridiculously long half life. It's going to be quite a while before it's fully out of my system... I'm starting transcranial magnetic stimulation next week, which has the possibility of helping out my brain enough so that I won't have to be so reliant on medication. But I'm approaching it as a realist, knowing that it could very well do nothing at all.
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Avatar universal
Interestingly enough, I always had brain zaps even before I started medication.  I noticed now however they haven't came back much like my already present always there vertigo that both occurred more frequently while on Geodon.  Since I stopped it they haven't happened again.  I think the reason prozac doesn't have a withdrawal phase or at least a very mild one is because it has a rather long half life so your body has more time to adjust to it leaving the system.  I too am always like you when you are worried you are poisoning yourself with the meds (especially since the kind I take can cause things like weight gain and tardive dyskinesia) but I'm scared of what I'm like off medication so I guess I have no choice..
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1167245 tn?1353878500
Just a brief and slightly off topic post-script: I still go through these anti-pharmaceutical phases quite often, as I'm sure a lot of us on here do. I'm pretty darn ambivalent about my feelings toward drug therapy. I'm either optimistically hopeful that something will work efficiently (and benignly), or I'm terrified out of my skull that I'm poisoning myself with every swallow. So while I recognize how dumb it often is to be a "non-compliant", self-withdrawal-initiating patient... it's just so hard to resist, sometimes.
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1167245 tn?1353878500
Withdrawal is just terrible. Too often, it's just adding insult to injury, after a drug that once held some promise fails to really help with one's struggles, or it makes them even worse.

The worst withdrawal for me was Lexapro, cold turkey. This was initiated by my doctors while I was in hospital for a serious mixed episode. It was pretty uncomfortable, to say the least, although a lot of the symptoms (such as extreme agitation, restlessness, off-the-charts anxiety) could have been caused by my mood episode as well. The worst of the symptoms were the infamous SSRI "brain zaps". These occurred several times a minute, and while they weren't painful, they were alarming at first. It felt like I was suddenly being dropped by an elevator, for a brief moment, repeatedly. The zaps didn't go away for another 3-4 months. To be perfectly honest, the withdrawal from Lexapro was so uncomfortable and long-lasting that once I was out of the hospital, relatively stabilized (or perhaps hypomanic, still not sure, can't quite remember that whole period to be honest), I secretly started taking a low dose of my left-over pills to help taper my body off. I just wanted the symptoms to stop, and at the time I didn't care if it wreaked havoc on my mood in the process. But of course, once that stash ran out, I was back to the withdrawal and feeling just as bad as I had been before. A silly girl, I was.

Besides that, I've withdrawn off of a considerable amount of things, which is too bad, since I've only been taking medication for about 4 years. I stopped taking Lithium cold turkey by my own volition after a failed overdose. This led to some problems with mood swings, obviously, but nothing physical for me. Ambien withdrawal was tough at first, because I had been dependent on it for sleep for a year or two, and I was also a bit psychologically addicted to its pre-knockout anxiolytic effects. I looked forward to taking it every night, and I'm pretty sure I had what constitutes at least a mild addiction. I had a lot of rebound insomnia, but I feel much, much better overall now that I don't use it.

Everything else went smoothly enough for me to not really notice. I suppose I'm currently in Prozac withdrawal after being directed to stop it, but according to my doctor, "Prozac doesn't have withdrawal". So, eh, lucky me. A lot of the times, my withdrawal was self-inflicted because I couldn't refill a prescription, or I was going through one of those awful "I don't need drugs, I don't want to be a guinea pig for Big Pharma, etc." phases. Others were safely advised and monitored by a physician.

I'm kind of dreading Xanax withdrawal, and hopefully it will go as smoothly as possible. I'm not on too high a high dose, but I've been taking it long enough for it to be noticeably uncomfortable. I'm going to put it off until my mood has stabilized and I can handle the extra anxiety. Sigh. There's got to be an end to this merry-go-round of pills, withdrawal, new pills, new withdrawal.
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Avatar universal
zzzmykids
Yeah it wasn't really my choice to go cold turkey when I did, that was the worst.  The doctor giving me samples at the time ran out and couldn't prescribe psych meds.  I should of been in the hospital instead of freaking out at work of all places but I guess that's just life.  Then it was going to happen AGAIN but I was smart the second time and expected it to happen so I gradually poured more and more powder out of the capsules over the course of months to prevent withdrawal and the second time I didn't experience withdrawal at all.  Only problem is the second time I soon after had my next full psychotic break.

juliagulia45
Benzos you have to be careful about withdrawing from because the withdrawal can actually kill a person.  They are chemically the closest thing to alcohol you can get.
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1011826 tn?1274492712
Yes, though my experience was more of being really, super uncomfortable. When switching meds, I decided to go off of Xanax because it never really seemed to help my anxiety anyway, and so my pdoc had me step down gradually. I was only on 2 mg a day, but even going down by .5 mg every two weeks felt very uncomfortable. The worst part was when I stopped completely. You'd think .5 mg doesn't affect you, but it does. I spent 5 days with my skin crawling, itching, so foggy headed I couldn't drive or think straight, and with terrible insomnia. I drank lots of water and coconut juice (for the electrolytes, and it just tastes good) to try to flush the drug out of my system. By day 5 I felt human again, and two weeks after I didn't feel any after effects. But it was not a pleasant experience and I will never go on a benzo again. Nasty little drugs!
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Avatar universal
Yes, paranoid, I did. It was five or six years ago. Whenever it was it was beyond a nightmare. My, then, gp decided because I had been sick for a year with excruciating pain radiating all over my body and a bladder infection that would not go away, even after a year. So a year, pain, go to bladder dr and he does scope, it gets a little better but he puts me on higher doses of antibiotic. I was taking what ever the gp had me on for his diagnosed..five years prior, bp2. Good doctor, had him 12 years, just made a mistake thinking he knew me better than my body knew me. Missed the cause of the pain completely. So when I came back from a long trip I immediately just showed up at his office and was seen. He thought the best thing to do, because I had lost twenty pounds in two weeks, looked like death warmed over, the best thing to do was go  COLD TURKEY, I was on a cholesterol pill, hormones, lithium, not sure the psychotrop but it was medium dose and a pain pill called ultram oh and ambien just for a few days so far....First day figeting, second full blown out of it and in physical pain, third day went to a new doc, my daughter drove me, he gave me pain patches after running some tests, fourth day barely able to tolerate the pain, called old doc and he said I needed to be "cleansed" and using a pain patch would not help. Bet ME! If it was not for the pain patch, I believe I would have died. By that fourth day I was in full blown detox and my brain was fried. Oh did I tell you I wasn't sleeping and my body besides being in more pain than I ever want to go through again, my skin was crawling. I spent my time, being watched by family and friends crawling around on the floor counting seconds to live through. Not minutes, hours, days, but SECONDS. You have not known me before this happened. One daughter says she misses her Mom. It is true, I don't laugh like I used to, finding happy anywhere. I have full blown bp2 that must be managed by a psych...forever. I rarely do the things I used to...what I am saying Paranoid, the experience of going COLD TURKEY, landed me in the hospital with a psych taking care of me for over a week. If I get manic it is angry, never the high anymore. If I come out of the depression, it is only momentarily. Bed is where I am three fourths of the time. Things affect me differently and all that are close to me and being loving about it, I ask them. They say I am slower in thought and forget things a lot. Oh, I don't make people laugh or laugh very often anymore. Yes all due to going cold turkey. I went to the hospital, after I thought I was well enough to travel in a car, Monday started the journey into hell and Saturday, a smart psych, my psych knows him, just happened to be on that night and got it right. BTW, the pain? Initial pain? Cholesterol med and I was doing wrong combinations of the other pills I was taking.
So my advice, my dear friend, ONLY DO IT IN A CONTROLLED SITUATION IN A PSYCH HOSPITAL. AND THEN I STILL BELIEVE IT IS SO VERY, VERY DANGEROUS. I wish you knew the powerful, smart, go to person I was prior to Cold Turkey. And I didn't use run on sentences or make spelling errors, lol.
Your friend,
zzzmykids
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