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Tapering off zoloft
Anyone tapered off zoloft before? How long does it for it to be out of your system once you have went down your last dose? I feel really horrible like I have had the flu and alot of numbness in the face. Hoping this doesn't last that long anyone that has been through this I would love your input!
What's up paxilled just gonna give ya a heads up and thanks for the advice again. I am doing 10 times better still having some anxiety but nothing I can't handle. Most of the effects and hyped up have gone awAy still get an occasional brain zap but nothing like before. The Buspar seems to be helping some I feel a little calmer and not so irritable all the time. Hope all is well with you!
No, not a doctor or a nurse. I managed health food stores for 18 years and learned a lot from customers who were doctors, naturopaths, nutritionists, etc. I don't hold myself out to be an expert by any means, just giving some info to those who don't know there are some ways to mitigate some of this stuff so they can investigate it themselves. GNC isn't a good place to buy anything. A good health food store is the best place, but most have disappeared due to Whole Foods and its copiers, but if there's a good one in your area they can be very helpful. The two best companies for Holy Basil are probably New Chapter and Gaia. You can buy them on the internet if you can't find a good local health food store. You can also find many good books on herbs, and there's a book called Natural Highs by Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist at UCLA who uses natural medicine in her practice for a fairly good overview of the possibilities. As for dealing with withdrawal, there are a lot of websites on this subject, and what you want to do is look for the success stories. And I know of no contraindication between adrenal support herbs and clonazepam. Some herbal relaxants might be a problem, as they would also target GABA, so if you have any questions I would research the subject or try to find a naturopath in your area (probably not easy to do in Arkansas, but my guess is there are plenty of herbalists there).
Man I really appreciate taking time to give your insight are u a nurse or doc seems you need to be in the anxiety field if you will I've learned twice as much from you as I've heard from a doc or pcy and in terms I understand lol. Would the holy basil have any interaction with the buspar or clonazapam? I was gonna also ask do you get this at an herbal store or like a GNC. I really had a rough one last nite slept about an hour and today felt wierd as hell like kinda emotional and gettin some twitches or numbness in my body can't really explain I am sure you have been through it before. Paxilled just talking to ya has made me feel better my name is Gabe I am from good ole Arkansas if there's anything I can help ya with just let me know! I'll look forward on ur insight in our next discussion lol thanks for the help
That's because psychiatrists and doctors don't know anything about the adrenal glands. The people who focus more on them are practitioners of natural medicine -- there are a ton of herbs that affect the balance of the adrenal glands, so nature obviously takes the adrenals seriously, but even thyroid specialists, which definitely involves the adrenals, seldom address them. I guess they just don't stress the interconnection in med school. Something you can try, as I said, is holy basil, but also eleuthero and ashwagandha are very effective for some people in balancing the adrenals. Meditation helps with this as well.
I honestly do think there is a problem with my adrenal glands that's what I have been telling the doctors the whole time. I mean the only time I get anxiety or panic is basically after being wound up 3 or 5 days in a row like today just woke up went to shower and already excessive energy. Which will be followed in a short time with anxiety or panic if I don't take a clonazapam I don't do any drugs take any stimulates or drink any caffiene so what the hell is out of whack.
You might try an herb called holy basil, which is good for lowering cortisol levels as it balances the adrenal glands. But basically, you just have to wait it out. If it gets too hard for you to handle, you can go back on the med at the last dose at which you felt fine and taper off more slowly, but I still think by your description you just have to go through it. Some psychiatrists use a very small amount of liquid Prozac if the withdrawal gets bad to temper the waking of the serotonin receptors, and because Prozac, because it stays in the body much longer, is thought to be easier to stop taking. But these are just suggestions because I do believe you will get over this in a week or two. As for exercise not getting rid of your anxiety, tell me about it -- I was exercising regularly and meditating when I first started getting anxiety attacks, so there you go. Maddening, isn't it?
Another question for you paxilled is I know I have only been off the medication for 2 days now but I seem to still be getting the unwanted energy or hypomanic episodes as my pcy calls it is that some effect that should go away with time also or is it something I could be stuck with. I have never been so wound up in my life it hits me all at once like I have drank 30 cups of coffee and the only way to calm down from it is taking clonazapam which is another med I am trying to get off.
Yeah I get the exercise thing maybe the only problem with that is I am 37 now and was working out 4 days a week with 2 days being cardio which is why I don't understand why I have the anxiety I do you would think I would waste alot of that during workouts.
I have tapered off of Zoloft a couple of times. I believe that Paxiled is giving you good advice. For me, regular exercise seemed to help quite a bit. I also just knew that I was going to have some withdrawal side effects with this medication and I just told myself that it was temporary and it would pass. Another thing that I did, was I talked to my prescribing doc about it and he put me on a much slower taper as I came off the medication which really seemed to dampen the side effects quite effectively.
Some people obviously do well on buspar, but it's probably a placebo. It has never done well in clinical trials, and it's only known current possibly effective use is as an adjunct to ssris. But it's supposed to be easy to get on and off of, probably because it doesn't do anything, but placebo medicine is often the best of all because when it works you don't get side effects!
Hey thanks for the input I was on it yrs ago and had no problem coming off that I can remember. I don't know what happened I started havin anxiety and panic attacks again so I was put back on but this time it caused me to have hypomanic episodes really wound up all day and night everyday and night crazy stuff. It works for alot of people and for me at one time but I am scared to try another ssri don't want to go through that ever again! My pcy wanting me to go on buspar have you heard anything good about it if so let me know. Thanks again for the reply ill just tough it out I guess.
This has nothing to do with the drug being in your system -- Zoloft leaves the body very quickly, which is actually part of the problem. The withdrawal you're having is from your brain trying to adapt back to working normally, and it isn't easy for the brain to do this. From your description, you're actually not having the worst kind of withdrawal -- they call what you have the Paxil flu because Paxil is known to be the most difficult of these drugs to stop taking, but Zoloft has pretty high withdrawal numbers as well. If this is all you get, consider it a blessing, and it should pass, but how long is different for everyone. Right now your brain is trying to reawaken serotonin receptors that have shut down because they weren't needed when you were on the drug, and to some degree trying to readjust choline, which is also affected and affects brain function. Some people find healthy doses of fish oil helps with this, and exercise is said to help as well, but again, if this is all you get, it should pass fairly easily.
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