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Depression med ruined my life. Restarting after off 15 months

I took amitriptilyne for the last 5 years and various other antidepressant meds before then. Tbh i wish i tried recreational drugs before i ever tried antidepressants. The meds never helped my anxiety, they just made me drowsy enough to fall asleep.

I cold turkey came off amitriptyline 15 months ago after taking a high dose that eventually stopped working and my insomnia wasnt being helped.

It has been the WORST experience of my life. Ive had terrible withdrawl and its been 15 damn months and the withdrawl hasnt gone away. I never should have gone cold turkey but i figured at some point id return to normal. In this time i eventually left my job. I havent slept at all and i have severe depression which i never had before the meds. Right now the pressure in my head is so bad. I have exteme fatigue and cant handle any amount of stress or external stimuli without having a mental breakdown. Im only in my 20s. I cant handle this anymore. I either need to see if maybe recreational drugs can help me as a last option or reinstate the amitriptyline just for the sake of taking it even though it does nothing for me. Then i just remember how bad the side effects i had on it but what else can i do?
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I had a similar experience when I tried to get off cymbalta. I tried cold turkey and the flu like symptoms lasted for almost 3 straight months. I eventually started taking it again and slowly tampered off of it over a period of 6 months. I would definitely seek a new psychiatrists as PAWS is real and it can be a nightmare for people trying to wean off of SSRIs.
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Avatar universal
Find a new psychiatrist. They should ALWAYS take you seriously and never underestimate what kind of repercussions a poor physical state of being can have on your mental wellbeing. Believe me when I say that your doc could have EASILY prescribed you something to at least help you feel better, even if it’s not anything specifically for your mental health. The best psychiatrist i’ve ever seen and the only one to actually treat me and take me seriously is one I was assigned to when I was admitted to a Psych hospital. There are lots of psychiatrist who work between hospitals and regular doctors offices, seeing patients they didn’t meet there.
A psychiatrict whose goal is to get people out of the hospital and keep them from going back is one who understands not to take concerns of their patients lightly. If i tell him in my appt that I’m having an issue and it’s a problem for me, he immediately takes action to help fix it.
I know how much it sucks when a mental health professional gets cocky and won’t take your concerns seriously. A REAL mental health professional would never risk letting their patient live and suffer if there was a way to help because they know the risks can be really dangerous
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Avatar universal
Yeah my psychiatrist doesnt believe its withdrawl and im so weak i dont even care to visit him anymore. Theres a lot of people who take this medication for pain management. Ive never had pain in my body but now its everywhere. Im starting to think this medication has some sort of opiod base in it. They say opiod/pain medincines for pain are the hardest to come off of, even worse then heroine. Ive stopped taking regular clonazapam in the past and even that wasnt as worse as this. Paxil i had taken for 6 months and quit cold turkey had some terrible withdrawls but was good as new. This is 24/7 Non stop.
So i was on 150mg. Should i restart it at 10mg? I should mention i took a 10mg tablet like 2 months ago and i got so much relief. It just hurts to think im starting again after being off so long.
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2 Comments
Also have you heard of people with PAWS smoking marijuana to help? Its legal where i live and ive never smoked it before but i would rather then go back on the med. What i meant is from now on id rather try a recreational drug over a prescription one to help my anxiety/depression. Just dont know what to try
Marijuana would be trial and error like anything else, and unless you try some medicinal varieties they've made now that don't get you high you realize you'd have to do whatever you do stoned.  The other problem with pot is that a lot of people get their first bouts of anxiety or depression while stoned on it.  My own opinion for the reason for this is that pot turns us inward, which is great when it's great but can bring things out of us that were in us lurking as we're hyperfocused on ourselves.  But again, today's pot is a lot different than what I used years ago.  They say, if it's not just hype, that there are breeds of it now that are tailored to what ails you.  Can't advise you on this, because getting stoned doesn't fix anything and makes you high all the time if you have a chronic mental disorder because you'd have to use it all the time.  Some do great high all the time but most of us just don't perform all that well that way.  I'm amazed you got off Paxil and clonazepam easier than your current drug, as the tricyclics tend to be easier to stop taking.  But we're all different, and it is what it is.  I had the same problem with my psychiatrist when I stopped Paxil, and his failure to follow through left me with permanent PAWS.  Sometimes when we play with drugs we meet our match, something our brain just can't handle.  That's a lot of addiction -- not everywhere who takes addictive drugs get addicted to them, probably not even most of them.  The ones who do have something in their brains that make them more likely to become addicted.  The fact that even that low dose of the drug made you feel better indicates this is withdrawal.  I'd try the taper off, stop this cold turkey stuff because you've suffered enough being impatient, and I'd get a different psychiatrist as yours isn't listening to you.
Avatar universal
This is a tough problem because you waited so long.  You have what is called PAWS, Protracted Withdrawal Syndrome.  It's no comfort to you to know this doesn't happen as often with the drug you were on as it does with other classes of antidepressants, you have what you have.  And when you use any drug for medicinal purposes, it's not a recreational drug, it's a medicinal drug.  The question is if there's anything these other drugs that would interfere with the withdrawal, and the answer is probably no, although they might make you not notice it as much.  I have this problem, but from a very different medication that is known for this, but keep in mind you can get protracted withdrawals from any drug that affects brain neurotransmitters except perhaps marijuana -- even alcoholics can get it when they stop drinking.  It isn't common, and so medical professionals are almost always unaware of the condition.  I think going back on the drug and tapering off slowly as you should have done is probably the best thing to try, and is probably more possible to try with this class of drugs than with other classes.  I'd discuss it with a psychiatrist, if you can find one who is willing to look up PAWS -- they won't have heard of it.
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