PAXIL WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS MIMIC HEROIN WITHDRAWAL!

[Jaime]

I am suffering from Paxil withdrawals.  Below is more information that the doctors won't tell you!!!

Tell your Doctors, and perhaps they will make the connection! How hard has it been for you to wean yourself from Paxil? It's as agonizing as coming off of heroin..and shares most of the same symptoms and long term effects! While researching an answer to all of the awful symptoms I experienced during my Paxil withdrawal, I was unable to find any medical resources listing Paxil as a source of these particular symptoms we all experience. Guess where I kept finding my search results directing me to? Heroin withdrawal. The symptoms associated with heroin withdrawal that are similar to Paxil withdrawal are: nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, restlessness, and leg movements, or jerking. While heroin produces muscle and bone pain, insomnia, and cold flashes with goose bumps ("cold turkey"), which are not identical to Paxil withdrawal, the Paxil symptoms of headache, "electric shocks", dizziness and hot flashes as well as psychotic mental state (violent anger/hopeless depression, unwanted suicidal/homicidal thinking) are similarly debilitating and certainly result in the return to the use of the drug (paxil) in the same way that heroin produces that result! Most experts agree that the major withdrawal symptoms peak between 24 and 48 hours after the last dose of heroin and subside after about a week. However, some people have shown persistent withdrawal signs for many months. I think that most of us (the "experts" on paxil withdrawal!) would agree that, even with careful and lengthy periods of weaning off the drug, at least some of these frightening effects occur and are problematic in our lives for longer than the average heroin withdrawal duration of about a week! Most of us have found that, by the time a week has passed,off Paxil, the terrible sickness we feel has become so great, we are desperate to return to taking the drug again to alleviate the symptoms. And many often do return this way, again and again...simply because we can't afford to lose three weeks or more of work, withdrawing from a medication that Doctors routinely dismiss as not being a cause of such sickness (we all have a really bad case of the flu), or because we are so frightened by the strange, indescribeable physical and mental feelings of disassociation and nervous system "zaps" that we go back to the drug to restore clear thinking, fearing that we are "crazy"...especially since our doctors seem to have no understanding of any of these symptoms as relating to anything they have seen before.   I hope everyone who is serious about finding the truth about the drug Paxil and it's horrible withdrawal symptoms will be sure to notify their health care providers of all of the symptoms experienced with this drug and insist that the details be documented and reported to the manufacturer, distributors, pharmacists and anyone in the medical field who can process this information officially and end the notion that these symptoms are "hearsay", simply because the drug company has not chosen to make them "fact"! And the next time you feel, or someone tells you that withdrawing from Paxil is "not that bad", remember that you are in the throes of a withdrawal so severe. that few others, except heroin addicts, have experienced, and YES, IT IS BAD! But it can be survived!

: Shawn Allen

[Amy]

Hi- I read your message while searching for ways to alleviate my Paxil withdrawals- my doctor told me to ride it out while waiting for the Wellbutrin to kick in.  I did a dumb thing by quitting cold turkey, but I never knew I'd feel sooooo bad.  Did you find any help on how to feel better during this period?  I've read that it can last for six to eight weeks.  Great, Huh?  I've been on Paxil for three years and it's been great but I've switched to Wellbutrin for some reasons that I won't bore you with.  I'd ben interested in knowing if you feel better, and if you ever got any help.

Thanks,
Amy Mira

[Susan]

I find it amazing that some physicians still insist that there is no withdrawl syndrome with the SSRI medications.  The ability of there psychoactive drugs to alter the chemistry of our brain and its' neurotransmitters tells you that abrupt, and even gradual cessation of the drug is going to manifest itself in unpleasant physical and mental symptoms.
I am a RN. I suffered a severe depression and relapse over the last few years. I have tried prozac, zoloft, and paxil with relief of the depression, but their "cure" resulted in a whole new set of physical problems.  Sexually, I was dead.  I also find that these drugs change your ability to feel appropriate emotions like compassion and sadness. Crying was impossible, even when it was normal to do so! Human touch, something I usually crave, I lost all desire for. I wish I had never taken the medications, even though they brought me out of significant depression. I am not convinced that the drug-induced "normal" states they brought on, were not just that....a "high" just like any other high, wether it be from cocaine, heroin or alcohol etc..  Are antidepressants any different than other drugs of abuse? Blake equates prozac with LSD, in her book "Prozac, Pancea or Pandora". She says the basic mechanism of function in the brain are the same.  What are doctors doing to people! Much more research is necessary for drugs as powerful as these.

[Susan]

I find it amazing that some physicians still insist that there is no withdrawl syndrome with the SSRI medications.  The ability of there psychoactive drugs to alter the chemistry of our brain and its' neurotransmitters tells you that abrupt, and even gradual cessation of the drug is going to manifest itself in unpleasant physical and mental symptoms.
I am a RN. I suffered a severe depression and relapse over the last few years. I have tried prozac, zoloft, and paxil with relief of the depression, but their "cure" resulted in a whole new set of physical problems.  Sexually, I was dead.  I also find that these drugs change your ability to feel appropriate emotions like compassion and sadness. Crying was impossible, even when it was normal to do so! Human touch, something I usually crave, I lost all desire for. I wish I had never taken the medications, even though they brought me out of significant depression. I am not convinced that the drug-induced "normal" states they brought on, were not just that....a "high" just like any other high, wether it be from cocaine, heroin or alcohol etc..  Are antidepressants any different than other drugs of abuse? Blake equates prozac with LSD, in her book "Prozac, Pancea or Pandora". She says the basic mechanism of function in the brain are the same.  What are doctors doing to people! Much more research is necessary for drugs as powerful as these.

[TINA]

i finally decided to look up antidepressant withdrawal and am amazed at all of the sites i've found. i may have taken paxel briefly , i don't remember , i went through a few until me and my docter settled on effexor. i was on it for several months and went off it for over a year , but then opted to go back on it. and i did , for two years. until one night i started having the worst symtoms, cold sweats,heart palpitations, and the worst nervious anxiety i've ever known. i immiedatly started to wean myself off of it. it took a few months. i did it as slow as i could and still had bad withdrawal symptoms. anyways, still suffering from depression, about eight months later i decided to try a very new drug, one that my docter had suggested would be easier on my heart. it's called "celexa". i tried it and after taking it for just one week, i awoke w/the worst heart palpitations. it felt as though my haert would stop. so i immedietly stopped taking it. now it's six months later and i still have withdrawal symptoms. i haven't taken anything for several months and i still suffer from a list of symptoms{heart palpitations, strobe ligth effects in my head,head fuzzyness , and a feeling of the worst mortal anxiety that i've ever known. most of the symptoms come and go, but the feeling of anxious dread is pretty much always w/me. i finaly talked to my docter a couple of days ago, and he basiclly told me that these symptoms were all psychological and that i needed to come in for more therapy. i feel that my claims sound crazy, but i know my depression ,i've had it for so long, and i know my body, my personal belief is that these symptoms are a completely unnateral occurance for me and that my docter is dead wrong. i feel that all i can do now is wait and hope that these symptoms go away.

[Rose walker]

Same here guys.Paxil withdraw.There is such a thing just like the tabbaco industry saying there is no habit forming substance there either or cancer or what ever.Some day they will get this info all together and find out  that we were not only right but think twice who they put on that stuff.I will never be the same person after being on that stuff.I really wish they would of told me that because of this stuff I would risk never being able to be me again.The withdrawls, alwful alwful .Now I have constant pains in my whole body and the pain is exhausting and I am so afraid to take pills now

[Rho]

I have come off Paxil after using only 10 months.  I weaned off, over a period of one month.  I have a severe case of dizziness and hear a whooshing sound (similar to the sounds of a soft shoe dance on sand) in my head when I move suddenly.  When I run on my treadmill, I feel as if my feet do not touch.  I have been rather clumsy lately, as if my depth perception is off.  I am not crazy, I went to a ear, nose and throat dr and she says it's possible sinus problems.  All the antihistamines in the world are not helping.  Can this dizzy thing be a part of the discontinuation of the drug and if so how long will it last?  I spoke w/my sister and she has similar symptoms after stopping Paxil.  I also feel sensitivity on my face as if the nerves are exposed, when I apply makeup ,etc.