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

[alabasterblue]

well that comment i made about the calm before the storm was exactly that. last night i cried on and off for about 6 or 7 hrs!!!! i never realized how little i grieved over losses in my life and last night i mourned my mother(dead for almost 10 years now fromALS) and believe me. i sat out side with my daughter and cried and screamed and and threw fits about my mom, my cat that i loved and dissapeared may 24th weekend/07 and about 15 other things that i delt with on a very minor level when i was on paxil.last nights mini breakdown lets call it, was so bizzare that when it was finally over(4 oclock in the morning) i could not believe that i behaved like like such a head case. it scared me so much that i kept asking my hubby if i should sign myself into the hospital. instead he talked me through it told me to recite out loud the general and most commonly mentioned side effects from paxil withdrawl. i did this and went back to quite a few sites reading the symptoms over and over until i was thinking straight enough to realize,YES this is part of withdrawl and as long as i am not feeling like hurting myself or others i will get through it.  today i feel very tired from all the crying and freaking out. i also feel a heavy sadness.  it is not depression sadness its normal sadness.i have not felt normal emotion in a long time so it would be easy for me fall into a trap of believing it is depression. i was once told in a group for anxiety and deppresion run by a hospital where i live, that many people with deppresion have a hard time distingushing or even understanding the difference between depression and normal sadness.i suggest(only cause it worked for me last night) is lookup sites that give u examples of normal and abnormal sadness and make a checklist...mental or on paper,and go through it and try to evaluate your emotional feeling into the right catagory.GO to a doctor if it is depression because the longer you leave the depression to fester the harder it will be to pull out. when the brain has a patern of depression and anxiety your nueral pathways become used and established to that routine and strengthening new healthy pathways become harder to form. i am not a doctor nor do i claim to be but this was explained to me by one. i may not be wording it correctly so i suggest finding a respected fully licenced practitioner who specializes in this field to explain it properly. i am still dizzy and zappy. my stomach is also a bit sensitive i have been taking rolaids, it seems to help.
                                              talk tomorrow

[psychiatricsurvivor]

I can assume from the replies by Doctors that they either work for the drug companies; are brainwashed by the drug companies; are really bad scientists; are crooks and liars; are living in a fantasy world of constant denial or just plain morons. Of course, all of the above probably apply to many more doctors than I care to know.

The other answer and this was really shocking to me when I found it out but most doctors get all their information about drugs from the drug companies. So the same drug company who is selling Paxil or any drug is the only source of information most doctors rely on. Gee, let me think about this. If I owned a company and I could sell the drugs for billions of dollars every year, would I have an incentive to lie about the drugs intended effects and side-effects and dosage.  Of course!!! But doctors are too naive at best or too corrupt to admit that to anyone. They are not scientists because science relies on an independent third party to replicate the results of the drug companies. This never happens in the approval process. The FDA is far from independent and relies on the drug companies paying for the studies. This is a scam and from all the problems people have reported it’s obvious that drugs kill and harm as many people as they help. Just think about all the people who tried to get off Paxil or any psychiatric medication that kill themselves because of the horrible withdrawals. They obviously can't post here and there must be thousands of them. BTW, do you notice all the ads for drugs on here? This is far from an objective board with objective scientists. Doctors are not objective nor are they scientists. They don't even know how the scientific process works. I don't know how to classify them but they are more like drug salesman than scientists.

[alabasterblue]

day 5. i only slept 4 and a half hrs last night and woke up tense with a tightness in my chest and felt like i did on day 4 when i first woke up. again, this feeling went away within fifteen...maybe twenty minutes. i feel less dizzy today. and i also woke up hungry and i was suprisingly awake!  it is only five thirty in the morning now, and i woke up at four forty five a.m.. i am pretty sure that i am going to go back to bed for a while,because i am starting to get sleepy again. i feel pretty good i have to say

[alabasterblue]

day 4 i could barely walk because of the dizziness. it was so bad i could barely stand up straight without feeling like i was gonna fall over. the headache is gone and so are the aches in my body......is this the calm before the storm or am i just one of the lucky ones.  i slept seven hrs and woke up very tense but that feeling went away after fifteen minutes of being awake. i spent most of the day listening to music, and my youngest daughter took me for a walk(very slowly so i didnt lose my balance) my older girl brought me a cut up platter of veggies and dip and i ate almost all of it. it  made me feel better. i am not craving carbs and sugar the way i did only 4 days ago

[alabasterblue]

well, it is day three. I awoke in a panic and ran outside looking for my husband. i was crying because i woke up feeling so crappy that i couldnt bare the thought of being alone. i felt like a pathetic little child, and i am 44 years old!!!!! once i was completely awake i started feeling a little better.  the dizziness, zaps(as i have now learned they are called) are still about the same. the headaches have begun,but they are not too bad, my neck and shoulders are very tense and are also contributing to the headache. my head feels like it is stuffed with cotton and its an effort if i have to concenrate on anything that requires calculated thinking. i became very tired and had to go nap!!!! seriosly....i have had three naps today and that is not a usual event in our household. so to sum up my day...I FEEL LIKE ****!!!!!!!!!! talk tomorrow.     vivian

[alabasterblue]

today is my second day cold turkey.I started taking paxil 10 years ago and was on 40 mg a day until yesteday. i tried the tapering off method several times and it is not for me. right now i am very dizzy and starting to get those zaps in my head if i turn too quickly. i cried at a u tube video of a dog dancing with her owner.....not really a video to cry over,but with the beginning of the emotional rollercoaster i found the video so cute that i started crying as if i just gave birth or was exchanging vows with the love of my life.LOL   This overemotion is really wierd and this is usually the point where i run back to the doctor. I am NOT running back this time. i am very nervous about what is coming next and i have decided to use this forum every day until the symptoms subside.
   thankyou for inspiring me(and scaring the heck out of me at the same time).I now know what i will be up against and that in itself is a comfort.....at least for now. we will see how i feel in a couple of days.