paxil withdrawl

It's a tough journey but we can do it!

a reply to: violet

yes we can, violet. so sorry to hear about your condition. and I'm sure because of it all drs automatically think you need drugs.
happiness comes from within.
like you, I'm going to find it.
chin up! and I wish you the best on writing a new chapter in your life. I don't know about you but now that I'm in my 50's I look back on my life as lives within my life. so many chapters to be lived still.

a reply to: rickymouse
I can't thank you enough for your advice ricky ! I'm off work tomorrow and always wanted to buy a juicer anyway.
I've saved all your advice in a doc on my desktop, it's alot to look into.
and I grow my own eggs, that is an easy one. haha
just want to say thanks, I really appreciate everything!

originally posted by: horseplay
Head zaps (shorting out like, very unpleasant) are the worst. driving along, all of a sudden I'm like.... where am I?

Yeah, they're pretty bad. I suggest weaning yourself off them relatively slowly. Instead of two pills a day, go down to one, then one every other day, and so on until you're off them. If you feel like suicide, try to remember that it's the drugs and not the situation.

The stuff doesn't stay in your system long, and you'll feel like your old self again (actually better) in no time.

a reply to: horseplay

Some of the chemicals that moderate brain chemicals are heat liable, meaning they break down at about a hundred twenty degrees. These chemicals also help to protect the mitochondria of our cells. So eat your eggs soft boiled or with a runny yolk sometimes, either over easy or sunny side up. You only have to consume these chemicals about three times a week. You can get them from rare steak also. The supplement NAC can help, so can foods that are naturally high in Omega 3s along with a couple of special saturated fats.

It is better to eat fish broiled or baked instead of deep fried also, some of the chemicals are partially denatured by deep frying and certain oils used in deep frying.. Pan frying, or sauteing is at lower heat and not so much of a problem unless there are a lot of oils used similar to deep frying. Frying fish coated in flour and spices in a little butter and coconut oil is good.

Asparagaines help control anxiety. They are in many things naturally. I use them to control my TLE, a form of epilepsy. Cooked cabbage or asparagus are good sources. But there are many other veggies that have these, even meats. It is one of the chemicals that make us relaxed after eating a big steak. But too much meat, enough to control us, can have side effects. This chemical is heat stable and calming and natural. It is not comparable to aspartame which is spun differently and artificial, which can cause some weird problems. You should eat the food with the chemistry in it, not just a chemical.

Hello, i have been taking Citalopram (Celexa) for about a year and a half and it has helped me amazingly.

I took sertraline another SRI many years ago and it nearly killed me, well i nearly killed me lets say, but be cause of sertraline..

but the Citalopram (Celexa) has been brilliant the only really bad side affect is i tend to bite together a lot
pretty hard.. i have to make a conscious effort not to do it.. but it is better than being depressed.

Not sure how long i need these but for now they have helped me, i do worry about when the time comes to stop them.
I dont like taking any medication but when you need to you need to

I haven't read all the replies so maybe repeating...here goes...The thing I really hate is when doctors prescribe these kinds of drugs for "off label" uses. I was prescribed Zoloft around 10 years ago for an illness....Fibromyalgia. The doctor told me that SSRIs can help that disease relevant to insomnia issues and nerve pain. I bought into it. Well, I hated the side effects. Everything just looked too bright all the time, I felt useless, like a zombie, tired and wired at the same time. Insomnia got worse. I was only on it for about a year and said to myself, "Enough". I tapered off of it myself but it was rough going. It took 3 months for the electrical "zaps" to stop. The up and down mood swings and irritability took longer. It is no joke for sure.

These types of drugs may help some people but it is not a "one size fits all" medication. I have a relative that has been on Zoloft for 10 years and he does well with it. When he tries to quit he has a short fuse and gets very quiet at times and angry and nasty some other times. He mostly stays on it now. It was prescribed for depression and for anger control. I don't like that he is on it but...

I also hate it when I hear children and even toddlers are prescribed these powerful drugs. It should never be used that way, IMHO.

Good luck and take care and hugs to you!

I took Paxil for all of 9 months. Even then it was a chore to get rid of. While I was weaning myself off, I would have emotional outbursts and ruined a camping trip to due withdrawal. I found the only way to get over it was cold turkey. Dumped all the pills down the drain and switched doctors.

Edit: it's been 2 years and I still don't feel like myself. It sucks.

originally posted by: JackSparrow17
I took Paxil for all of 9 months. Even then it was a chore to get rid of. While I was weaning myself off, I would have emotional outbursts and ruined a camping trip to due withdrawal. I found the only way to get over it was cold turkey. Dumped all the pills down the drain and switched doctors.

Edit: it's been 2 years and I still don't feel like myself. It sucks.

hhmmm, funny you should say that. our biggest horse campout of the year starts next weekend, 11 days of bliss. I hope.
We do eat really well and healthy while camping, and I will be taking rickymouse's advice on diet too. I soooo have been looking forward to this all year. paxil w/d better not ruin it for me.

and yes, I read on another forum about ppl that months and even years later had horrible w/d side effects still occurring. very scary. even when it's out of your body it seems to have a terrible residual on the brain for a long time.

I'm pleased this thread has gone so well and hope random people (even lurkers) can gain something from it. whether it be awareness or help, I'm just glad the word is spreading. every little bit helps.
and so glad I'm definitely not alone. my ats friends have been a huge boost for me. !

Got put on paroxetine AKA Paxil and Seroxat (in UK) 3 weeks after I lost a baby and stupidly took it. Don't know how long for, it's all a bit of a blur. When I tried to stop taking it I found I became weepy and confused. My manager at work complained about my performance and I went back to GP who decided I was more depressed and doubled the dose to 40mgs. I then found an article about the 'discontinuation reaction' in a psychiatric journal and went back to GP with it. She looked a bit embarrassed and suggested switching to fluoxetine (Prozac) as it had a longer half life and easier to stop as was not excreted by the body so quickly. Two days later I developed an allergic reaction while working nights (did I mention I am a psychiatric nurse :mnky and stopped taking it. I started to feel so amazing and full of energy I didn't see any point of going back to the doctor. My mood continued to escalate and I was spending money like it was going out of fashion, ordering exercise equipment I had no room for and thinking about working in a massage parlour to supplement my income. Needless to say My manager insisted I went off sick. After a few weeks of this I crashed and couldn't stop crying. This was an awful time and after a few weeks I took an overdose as a desperate cry for help. I was admitted to a psychiatric ward myself but by then the acute withdrawal phase was easing and I avoided being put on meds for bipolar disease. I have never been like this before or since but at the time it was hardly realised this drug could cause this sort of thing and it was a couple of years before I fully understood it.

If one believes that life events happen to teach us things, it really opened my eyes to the dangers of psychiatric medicine and treatment and realise that so many of us become casualties of the system, some never get out again. The drug industry is big big business and doctors are fed all sorts of crap by the drug industry. A few years after I was having a few problems with a family matter and my GP offered me Citalopram (another SSRI). I asked him why he had done that and his exact words were 'because I felt so helpless to do anything else and thought it might help you through it'. How many doctors do this because they actually want to help but don't know what else to do.

How have we come to believe that taking a pill is going to make us whole people? Be wonderful if it could but come on guys. In my situation I needed time to grieve not antidepressants. No pill is going to get rid of our problems and difficult times, or bad childhood experiences resulting in emotionally damaged adults. We need to empower each other and learn to think our way through things and stop being paralysed with fear about things we create in our own heads, that don't exist in reality!

If that little voice in your head tells you you are a bad person or that your life is crap, guess what will become your reality. If you believe nothing good ever happens to you you won't even see it when it does. Crap happens to all of us, it's how we deal with it that really matters.

Sorry to go on but I have had 60 years on this planet and worked in psychiatry for many of those years and have seen nothing to convince me that the majority of medication does anything but make the drug company bosses rich. It's how and what we think that makes us ill and fear that controls us, or certainly trying to stop it from overwhelming us. The only thing we can be sure about in this life is that we will die but spend so much time torturing ourselves about things in the past or consumed with fear about the 'what if's' that we ruin what we have now. And that ain't no way to live!

My heart goes out to those still fighting to come off these ghastly drugs but keep believing in yourselves and you will get there

The "funny" thing is, I was depressed on an off for years and years. Then, for some unknown reason, I just got better. I just didn't feel like being depressed anymore. Considering how long I was depressed, it went away fairly quickly. I don't know why. It actually started happening before I went on anti-depressants, so I don't give them a lot of credit. Actually, one of the reasons I started taking them was because I was feeling better, and had the motivation to take them. I wouldn't have taken them without first feeling good and strong enough to try them. Ironic, I guess.

I still get bummed out occasionally, and I'm afraid that it's going to come back for good, but it never does. I guess I'm fortunate that way. Maybe the drugs ultimately did help in that regard, as I had a chance to "rewire" myself so that the really bad depression would stay away.

The brain is a funny thing. Baffling.

It must be protocol to double the dosage once the patient voices concerns. They did the same thing to me with "Pristiq". I was on 50 mgs and told my doctor that I wanted to take a natural route. She had none of that and assured me that some people simply need medication and proceeded to recommend I double my dosage.

I was in my early twenties and didn't know what the heck I was Doing so I caved and took the 100 mgs. I remember right before taking the second pill I dropped it and thought "this is God telling me not to take it," well I did, and it sent me into a full blown mania that consisted of zero sleep for seven days, and ended with me in the ER utterly convinced I was dying, and a heart attack or stroke were imminent.

I came to the medical system for help because of panic attacks that started when I was about 17-18. I went through a gauntlet of medications which only magnified the existing, and created new problems. Around 23-24 I finally started to fight back and try something new.

Like I said earlier, Healthy eating, daily exercise, positive thinking, and tapering off. I'm 27 now, I took my last little chunk of Pristiq about three years ago, and I still eat healthy and exercise. I get down every now and then, and I still get some serious physical anxiety when I start thinking too much, but I'm so much better of I can't even express it in words right now. I never needed any of it, I was just a kid who got caught up in some anxiety, something the system seemed to capitalize on.

What I needed was a personal trainer, or a nutritionist, or a Buddhist, not a pharmacist.

I joined a study at my university for anxiety and they put me on paxil, getting the dose up to 60mg. I became very impulse driven. I noticed myself changing, so I started weening off the pills towards the end of the study, just taking fewer and fewer until I was cutting them in half... etc. Getting off of them was not easy. I was off for about 6 months before going into my doctor to get back on. He told me they never should have had me on more than 20mg, given my anxiety was somewhat mild.

I recommend weening off because cold turkey will drive you nuts... going five days without any will give me flu-like symptoms, horrible recurring nightmares, bad body buzzes, and I have trouble controlling my muscles and body temp. The stuff is not good for the body, but it helps improve the quality of my life.

I am going through this with you right now. I go from hating myself and not wanting to be around anymore to loving everyone and everything. I get head zaps and what feels like 2 second seizures. If it was ten times worse I would not stop weening myself off. I've turned into a zombie over the past two years and my wife and kids have suffered long enough because of it.
I'm down to 10mg every 4 days from 40mg everyday. Even at that small of a dose that often the withdrawal is still bad.


If you don't give up I wont

a reply to: horseplay

a reply to: Bendgame


I have been having the sweats something fierce about 5 times a day. I just attributed it to stress from work. You think it could be because I am weening off of paxil atm?

a reply to: Raxusillian

oh no , I'm not going to give up.
I'm down to 10mg a day so you are way ahead of me.
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired though. lol.
and yes, I get extreme cold and hot flashes too. sleeping is like being on a rotisserie. covers on, covers off...

a reply to: horseplay

The sick and tired of being sick and tired quote intrigued me. I have felt this way for a couple of years now. Like a sinus infection/pressure in my eyes/headache/brain fog that will never go away.

I used to have very deep theological and political debates with a few close friends. It was the activity that I enjoyed most, and it has been taken from me for quite some time now. I cant put together very complex though anymore and it saddens me greatly. I am really a shell of my former self since getting on paxil. I hope and pray that the old me will come back. I'd even take the social anxiety issues all back.

I never would have taken any anti-depressant if I would have known what it would make me.

Sorry for the semi-rant. Haven't come across many people that fully understand what I am going through. It's nice.

I'd male a seperate thread, but since there is an ongoing discussion here...

Has anyone experiemced a nasty chemical smell and burning in the chest if their anti-depressamt pill(s) didn't go down their throat properly? it happened to me this morning...i think one of my prozac pills got caught in my throat and when the casing disolved, i birped and this nasty smell amd burning sensation happemed.

a reply to: TheToastmanCometh

Yeah multiple times. Pretty dang gross. Went to bed like that one night thought I burned a hole in my throat in the morning when I awoke.

a reply to: Raxusillian
It is really disgisting, i still feel like something caught in my throat...should it ne a concern though, like it's not burning my insodes or anything

originally posted by: horseplay
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

yes, I agree with you Johnny. But I think in my case they brought me even further down.
Sleeping 10-12 hrs a night isn't right.
not caring if your house looks like crap or not isn't right.
nor your barn, yard, flower gardens, etc.
I feel like I am waking up. Not just because it's been 5 yrs since my husband died, but since I am getting off the paxil.
I am determined. I am angry. angry at big pharma.
I understand some people are benefited big time from it. It has a place for some people. But i feel like it was bringing me down more so than life itself.

You have every right to be angry. You were given a drug for very natural and expected grief. You had situational depression. You suffered an extreme loss. That IS NOT a chemical imbalance.

The tried to put me on effxor after the loss of my kids. Scarey scary stuff. I felt shear and utter terror on the medication. I was so sure i was going to die from just one pill. It is because there was nothing wrong with the chemicals in my brain, I was grieving the loss of my children. I still am and probably always will.

They have to stop passing these medication out for people who have a reason to be depressed. The source of depression needs to be addressed, not covered up by a pill.

If someone is depressed and they don't know why, maybe then medications may help as there isn't an identifiable source therefore the possibility, and I stress the word possibility, of a chemical imbalance. But anti-depressants and bad news for situational depression.
The drugs interfered with you grieving process so it makes sense to me that you would be sleeping like that and not caring about the house.