Posted by Angel-2 on March 5, 2002, at 23:59:27
In reply to Ringing in ears ... Prozac ... Effexor withdrawal, posted by Allen F. on November 14, 2001, at 22:53:11
Thank God I'm not alone with a tinnitus (the ringing in the ears).
I was on Prozac for the last 3 years (I had been on other AD before but I had quit, always for side effects reasons and because it just didn't really helped). Anyway. I was put back on Prozac (20mg) 3 years ago for "depression" (it was in fact something like a burn-out from too much work, with physical symptoms like cluster headaches, vision problems, photophobia, myoclonus... I had dystonia but I didn't know it at the time).
Last december, I experienced what they call a "serotonin syndrom" and a HUGE dystonic crisis (all the aforementioned symptoms were back... with new ones). I had to go off Prozac (+ benzos) cold turkey. I wasn't really scared because I had done it before quite easily. EXCEPT this time it was not so easy. In fact, it was not easy at all and even if I feel a little better now (I almost got my sleep back, for instance, after weeks of staying awake for sometimes 3 days & 3 nights in a row).
But the thing is, just as I started to feel better, that new symptom showed up: the tinnitus (ear ringing). I didn't know how I would be able to cope with the dystonia condition (even if I had repeatedly asked my doctor over the years if there were serious side effects from using Prozac for a long period of time -he kept saying there wasn't any-, I had never heard the word "dystonia" before my physician finally diagnosed me and explained where all those symptoms like the blepharospasm, cluster headaches, pain in the neck, and now facial tics came from). I know, it's a little late to wake-up now since I don't think it will ever go away. At least not enterely. I know from having to live with all those headaches and vision problems (I have a an "ocular rest myoclonus" and, believe me, it is horrible). I don't want to scare anybody but I now fully realize that those "miracle pills" w/o any long-term side effects are literaly poison slowly distilled into your system and the day when your body just can't take it anymore is the first day of your cold turkey nightmare. The nightmare is actually not that bad since you eventually wake up from a nightmare... But you don't wake up from tardive and acute dystonia. And you don't wake up from having to live with this tinnitus problem -'cause you just can't go to sleep anymore with that noise in the middle of your head!
I know those pills can help a lot of people. They surely didn't help me. Going back to college, working, having friends helped me a lot. Pills got me physically sick. And most of doctors just won't aknowledged that fact (it took them 3 years to diagnose the dystonia condition... while they would continue to fill prescriptions for the very medications that got me sick and made me lose my job and everything I had been working so hard to get in the last 10 years of being "mentally" ill and plagued w/ depression).
I empathize with people who have to go through a Paxil or Effexor withdrawal -never been there- because it seems so hard to accomplish. But please don't believe what they say about it being easy tappering off Prozac: it is NOT. At least, not when you have a physical condition and after years of AD use and tryings.
Sorry for the hiatus...
Going back to the main topic now: has anyone in here experienced having a tinnitus after going cold turkey off Prozac (after years of use)? If so, did the ear ringing eventually disapeared?
The truth will be hard to swallow but would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
A2
poster:Angel-2
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020301/msgs/96629.html