Is this Paxil's withdrawal effect?

[hanasaki]

Back in September 2017, I suffered from GERD (without knowing it was GERD) and seriously in panic mode. I worried that I would going to die somehow. It's gotten to a point that my hands and legs were shivering uncontrollably. About 3 months, I have drank series of antibiotics to treat my throat instead of my stomach. After learning that I have GERD caused by gastritis, I took prescribed antibiotics (Suhacom). I then suffered from serious headache and thought there was something wrong with my brain instead blaming my antibiotics. I asked for some pain killers from a doctor. He prescribed me FLUNARIZINE, TATANOL and GABAPENTIN for a week. After 3 days, my head felt at ease, but on the 4th days, I experienced racing thoughts (random thoughts that constantly appeared to my mind that would not shut up, they would shut up only 3-5 sec and speak up again, could be anything, I even experienced another "I" speaking in my head). It drove me crazy but I still drank all the pills. The situation got so worse that my I could only sleep 2 hours at night. So, I went to a psychiatrist and described my condition. She thought it was the side effect of flunarizine (since she found out that I have previous depression tendency, which I swear to god it has stopped years ago, and flunarizine can trigger side effects to ones with anxiety, depression, etc.). In addition, she claimed that it could be a sign for a deeper matter, which explained why she diagnosed I was going through recurrent depression and gave me SERTRALINE (ZOLOFT), plus GABAPENTINE. She promised that I would sleep just fine. Guess what? I could not sleep more than 40 hours straight with only 2 days on sertraline. The good side was the racing thoughts stopped completely (but I was wondering whether it was sertraline work or because flunarizine's side effect was off).
My mother took me to another doctor (I was going to take uni final exam the next day so I need to sleep badly), who diagnosed my condition as anxiety disorder and gave me PAROXETINE (PAXIL) and ALPRAZOLAM. He also told me to stop taking the old drugs. I could sleep that night.
The next day when I was taking my test, I hear music, random music playing in my head. I thought it was an earworm because I experienced hearing Vincent once when taking a test before. But the situation got worse the more I drank these two drugs. Songs kept appearing in my head. It started with songs I heard days ago when I was having racing thoughts (I heard song/watched movies to stop the thoughts). And then it repeated songs/rhythm I just heard, even phrases from a comedy show. Now my thoughts are not as racing as before, but it a loop of songs, phrases and even me talking to myself in my head. It might quiet down a little when I am focus to some tasks. I read that it might be Paxil's doings, so I stopped cold turkey.
Today is the 13th day after I dropped all meds, but the vicious loop just would not stop. I first thought it was the side effect, then the withdrawal effect, I even considered that maybe (just maybe) the racing thoughts were born from my anxiety and not from any drugs. But to my understanding, Sertraline did stop it completely once (?); Paxil did not, but aren't these two SSRIs serve the same mental conditions? So it might not be Sertraline was working but flunarizine's side effect did stop? And what I experience right now is all Paxil's fault?
I need to know whether my current condition is side effect or withdrawal effect of Paxil, if yes, then how long it shall last? If not, then am I under anxiety disorder? Should I go back on other SSRIs or consult the doctor again (if he switches to another SSRI I would be pissed since now I do know what SSRIs can do to your brain short-term and long-term).
Thank you for reading my long story and sorry for bad English (English is not my mother tongue).

[SisterHoney]

This all sounds very complicated, but it may not have to be. I am going to respond to this the way I understand it, if I have misunderstood you, I apologize. This all began because of GERD which was then diagnosed as H pylori? So you were given an antibiotic that caused severe headaches? Then the headaches were treated with more meds including flunarizine? This drug can have psychiatric side effects. In my opinion, the Dr should have changed the antibiotics first to see if that was the cause of the headaches. If that didn't help, there are other migraine meds out there, but I don't know what's available in Vietnam.. I'm a little confused by the fact that it really sounds like your drs simply kept adding medications to try to counteract the side effects of the previous medications rather than eliminating the medications that were causing the problems. It also sounds like you possibly suffer more from anxiety than depression, so perhaps something like Ativan might be a more suitable medication as it treats anxiety. Since you never took any of these meds for more than a few days, withdrawal symptoms are unlikely, but not impossible. I would consider stopping ALL of the meds. If there is something you've been taking for a week or more, tapering it down would be best. If, after a couple days of being drug free, you're still struggling with the noise in your head and/or inability to sleep, perhaps see a dr about some anti-anxiety meds such as Ativan. Whatever they prescribe you, do your homework-look it all up and know what the possible side effects are! Best of luck to you!

[hanasaki]

Yeah, it was like they were trying to sell drugs to me rather than advising me to cut off all meds *sobs*
I have already stopped all meds related to my brain for 2 weeks now. However, I have to continue to drink meds for my stomach (no more antibiotics I swear, just drugs to maintain my stomach state after treating with antibiotics).
I too think it's anxiety rather than depression. Thanks for the advice, I'll come back to tell you the result later.

[Paxiled]

No, you don't need medication for your stomach.  It might help, but the solution to that is to solve the problem.  Vietnam has a long history with Chinese medicine, and that may be a much better vehicle for solving your stomach problems than drugs.  The problem with drugs for stomach problems is that, and I don't know what you're taking, most suppress stomach acid, which you need in order to digest protein and minerals.  So the stomach just keeps making more.  The other thing you need is to take probiotics to replace what the antibiotics killed off.  You can't take all of them, but you can take the ones we know about.  Bifidus is particularly important to digestion.  One way you can do this if these aren't readily available in a potent refrigerated form is to eat cultured and fermented foods that provide good food for probiotics -- which abound in your culture and nearby cultures.  Fermented cabbage, for example, such as Korean Kim Chi, is great for this.  Pickles are great for this.  Miso can be great for this, provided it's real aged miso and not the instant version that really isn't fermented much.  I'd find a good herbalist or practitioner of traditional medicine for this problem so you can repair the damage the antibiotics did to you.  But you have so many good remedies there -- ginger is great for the stomach, especially pickled ginger.  Daikon is great for the stomach.  It's something to look into, as doctors aren't the best at treating digestive problems.  

[Paxiled]

You say you only took Paxil for 7 days?  Is that right?  You don't say how long you took the gabapentin or the Zoloft.  If you only took them a short time, and if you only took Paxil 7 days, then it's unlikely you're suffering withdrawal, though it's possible.  If you were on the Zoloft for any length of time, it could be withdrawal from the Zoloft.  You can also get withdrawal from quitting gabapentin abruptly.  You need to slowly taper up on these drugs and slowly taper off.  But your story is very complicated and it's also medically odd.  Antibiotics don't treat GERD, and they cause digestive problems by killing off the beneficial organisms that help make up the digestive and immune systems and so can actually cause GERD-like symptoms.  GERD is a digestive disorder, and is best treated by looking at what you eat and how fast you eat it and how soon you eat before going to bed and the like.  So part of your problem may very well be taking so many antibiotics, especially if your description of your condition is accurate and there was never a diagnosis of a bacterial or fungal infection, the only things that would necessitate an antibiotic.  And even then, only if it was severe enough to require it.  So then you were put on three drugs at the same time because you had a headache?  This too sounds very odd.  I'm guessing there's more to this story as far as diagnosis than you're telling us.  The final part is that Zoloft works fine for anxiety and depression, but it takes about 4-6 weeks for most people to feel the beneficial effects.  Side effects, however, start right away.  I have no idea why you have these racing thoughts or why you would think you were going to die from having a stomach ache.  As I said, there's got to be more your doctors diagnosed than you're saying.  I'm also surprised nobody sent you to therapy before giving you medications, and I don't know why anyone would put you on Paxil rather than Zoloft.  As for your question about them both being ssris, yes, but people metabolize drugs differently and we all start with different brain patterns.  These drugs alter the way your brain normally works, and for some that works out well and for many it doesn't and different drugs work differently not only for you but for different people.  If your description here is correct, however, you've had horrible medical care, getting put on hordes of medications one after the other without trying any out long enough, taking antibiotics for no apparent reason, etc.  But I'm afraid you story is so complicated with so many different interpretations that the best thing you can do is, if you think you're having an anxiety problem, go see a therapist who specializes in anxiety treatment.  If it's so severe you need medication, see a psychiatrist.  If your stomach is bothering you, try to figure out why, don't just pour medication at everything.  Good luck sorting this all out -- if you do and can report it more clearly, I think you'll get better answers here.

[hanasaki]

I took Zoloft 2 days only. Those antibiotics were prescribed by doctors who did not suspect of GERD. Later on I had endoscopy for my stomach and found out I had H pylori so Suhacom was prescribed by doctor. All my meds were prescribed to me anyway. My headache started after taking Suhacom shortly. The pain was untolerable so i asked for pain killers but the doc prescribed flunarizine without hesitation and my racing thoughts began 3 days after taking flunarizine.

[hanasaki]

I live in Vietnam anyway, we do not have well-developed psychiatry field in our country let alone a good psychiatrist

[hanasaki]

I mean 2016 :((
I took Paxil for 7 days by the way.