I am a 44 year old female mother of three happily married for over 20 years. In the past twenty years I have lost both parents through death. 1998 was the first and I was put on Paxil . After two years and increasing the dose(40 mg) I was switched by my choice(because of weight gain) to Zoloft which also had to be increased after time 40 mg. I was on that for three years. That made me agitated and irritable so I switched over to Celexa which I was on for 15 years.the highest dosage was 60mg. All these doses were only once a day. Twice I tried to taper off and got as far as 35 mg. This was under my Dr. supervision. I had never been to a psychiatrist at that point.( Believe it or not I never thought of it)I had always gone to my GP. I had never had health problems at all in my life and to this day my blood work is pristine. When I got down to 35mg by tapering I started having racing thoughts and suicidal feelings. It scared me so much that I checked my self into a behavioral health center for 4 days . They kept me on celexa and increased it and just gave me new anxiety meds. Nothing changed. After that I went to my GP and he proceeded to tell me that I would need to be on meds for the rest of my life and said he thought I had bipolar. He proceeded to try (for three weeks) different meds(mood stabilizers(lamictal-only one day tried that)seroquel(horrible) 2 weeks, then wellbutrin thinking I was bipolar and it would help and changed celexa 50 mg to Prozac 40 mg. Finally after this awful roller-coaster ride he told me that he could not do any more and was going to refer me to a psychiatrist. Well, I found my own with a good reference. This guy told me that if i was having racing thoughts and suicidal feeling that the meds I was put on would cause me problems(wellbutrin and prozac). He thought we should try just prozac 40mg - it did not change much. Then he though maybe Lithium 600mg twice a day. That had terrible side affects but the racing thoughts and suicidal thinking was gone. Last time I saw him we were talking and he and i were discussing that he thought that maybe these meds were all causing the issue and how about not taking any and having xanax there if there is anxiety. So we agreed. I weaned off of lithium and only have xanax . This is the 4 day with no lithium and i have had some minor anxiety and have not had to take xanax often and feel better.My question is this ******** with all these years of taking these meds will i have problems . My blood work is really good and I eat well and exercise. I take omega fish oil and a multi. Do you have any advice. I cannot go on those antidepressant again. It was a nightmare and all those years I think the meds just topped off and then i had to switch.
So far the withdrawal symptoms i am having some anxiety, a little shaky and had some brain zaps when i got off the lithium in the beginning.How long will this all last and will I ever have good brain health?