I went to a psychiatrist because I was occasionally having stage fright during musical performances. Instead of giving me beta blocker to take before performances, which is what I expected (and should have gotten), she diagnosed me as having generalized anxiety disorder and put me on low-dose Celexa (10 mg/day). I had horrible side effects (mostly gastrointestinal and sleep disturbances) but I kept with it as she indicated, for 6 months. It made no difference in my performance nerves so I went to a neurologist who gave me propanolol to take before performing - this was exactly what I needed and does the trick with zero side-effects, addictions or long-term damage.
On the contrary, I asked my psychiatrist to help me taper off of Celexa. She said to break the pills in half and take one every-other-day for a week and then half of that every-other-day for a second week. I asked if there would be discontinuation problems and she said not if I did it this way.
Boy was she entirely wrong, and I'm wondering if the medical community is being correctly informed about these medicines or whether she is a total quack. She neither warned me of the side-effects nor of the discontinuation syndrome. Nor of the purpose of this drug in the first place, which I understand is helpful to some people but in no way would I fall in that category (have never had serious depression or anxiety).
Now, a week after cessation of my 2.5 mg/day treatment, I am experiencing the "brain zaps" (the name alone suggests the medical community has no clue about this), horrible abdominal cramps, limited attention span/fuzziness of thought and a 2-week early period. As the drug had no benefit to me, I see this as a huge detriment to my health about which I was not forewarned (yes, the drug label told me about side-effects but nothing of discontinuation syndrome). I should have read about it, but even what I find on-line is not medical advice but instead mostly people like me who are shocked by the discontinuation syndrome (the best seems to be on wikipedia- a sure sign of negligence by the medical community!).
This is extremely frightening that people are going through this in mass numbers along-side a medical and pharmecutical community that is either clueless or misleading.
My question: How long will these withdrawal symptoms last? I would like a medical answer to that question, as well as an explanation of their cause (especially the brain zaps, but also why abdominal cramping is so common).
Thank you.