Hi All,
I've been reading your posts and appreciate the honesty and forthcoming information of your personal withdrawal experiences. I'm currently titrating off of zoloft after a year of med switches. Here's my history:
12 years ago, I had my first panic attack while driving- it came out of nowhere and I was thrown into a spiral both physically and emotionally. By the time I had returned to my apartment, I was in full blown panic. I was so fearful that I was going crazy/losing my mind, that I went and sought therapy a few days later since I was starting to get depressed over the experience. At that point, I began therapy and was put on Celexa (20mg)- I was 24 years old. The depression and anxiety subsided and disappeared completely within three months. Unfortunately, I gained weight with Celexa (25lbs) and was switched to Lexapro (10mg), which worked just as well, but the weight stayed on. A couple years after being on medication, I decided to get off since I had been feeling good for the past two years. I titrated slowly with help from my doctor and got off of the lexapro successfully. I was med free for about 9 months when the anxiety and depression returned. I immediately went back on lexapro because I didn't want to experience what I had two years ago. The symptoms subsided again within 6 weeks. A few months after that, I switched to zoloft (75mg) to see if that would help with the weight gain. I dropped most of the weight on zoloft but felt flat. About six month later, the doctor switched me to a small dose of effexor (37.5mg). I was on the effexor for 1.5 years and it worked well. After a year on 37.5mg, I split the pill in half and was doing pretty well on such a small dose. Unfortunately, I had a major panic attack while traveling and over caffeinating. I didn't realize that my panic attack was probably brought on by sleep deprivation and too much caffeine. I started to increase the dosage of effexor per my doctor's advice and the anxiety just kept getting worse with each increase in dosage. By the time she had me at 150mg of effexor, I was a basket case- couldn't stop crying, shaking, crazy thoughts that were not me. I realized at that point that I was having and adverse reaction to the increase in dosage and told my doctor I wanted to get off the effexor and go back on the lexapro. So I went back on lexapro and it took almost 5 months to truly feel back to myself again. Two years later, I tried to get off of the lexapro by following a guide to getting off of lexapro with vitamins and nutritional supplements. I successfully got off of the lexapro with minimal withdrawal effects, but three months later, the panic returned (perhaps triggered by another upcoming travel?) Again, I returned to the lexapro and had remained on it until March 2012 when I, with the help of my naturopath doctor, titrated off the lexapro and onto 5HTP. That worked for about 2-3 months and then the anxiety returned. However, this time, when I tried to go back on the lexapro, I experienced worse anxiety and depression and two weeks later my primary care doctor switched my to prozac- that was a BIG mistake. She had me on that for 3 months telling me to be patient since prozac took a long time and I wouldn't feel its full benefit for about 3 months. I struggled horrifically on prozac with terrible anxiety, depression, intrusive destructive thoughts and felt like I was going nuts. During this time, I was taking a small amount of klonopin (.5mg) to sleep since my anxiety was so bad. After three months I went to a psychiatrist who tried to put me back on lexapro. That worked for a couple of months but when it was switched to the new generic form, it didn't have the same therapeutic effect. Needless to say, I am now on zoloft and have been for the past nine months. It hasn't been ideal, but much better than my prozac experience. I fired my psychiatrist and found a new one who has slowly been getting me down on my zoloft- I went from 150mg down to now 37.5! However she did add 50mg of lamictal as a mood stabilizer while I titrate. It's been a very frustrating and disheartening experience to say the least. The intrusive thoughts pop up randomly throughout the day, but I try to keep them in their place, continue on with my daily activities and remind myself that my body is trying to heal and it will take a while to recalibrate and return to homeostasis. I apologize for the long, drawn out history, but it's hard to give you the reader's digest version. My hope is that I can successfully get off SSRI meds for good and I am able to trust and believe in my brain's ability to heal itself. Thank you for listening and I appreciate any feedback.
Originally Posted by buddingbuddha
