Posted by dMacy on December 17, 2003, at 18:26:35
In reply to Re: How many mg Prozac?, posted by Karalyn on November 22, 2003, at 23:19:38
Hi All, I'm glad I'm not alone in this!
I used to be on Celexa for about a 18months and, like a cliche, decided eveything was rosy and I didn't need to support the pharmas any more. Yep the shrink warned me that this was a typical pattern and he thought it to be a bad idea to quit, but I did anyway, cold turkey... the withdrawl symptoms SUCKED. If you're going through Effexor withdrawal, I'll just say the symptoms are very similar.
6 months later after I had crashed into the deep again, I started Effexor and have been on it for only 8 months. It hasn't help much with the depression expect for a general numbing affect. The lack of improvement and the concern over the lack of studies about adverse long-term effects prompted me to drop this beast. Remebering the awful month-long withdrawl episode from Celexa, I started to taper my doseage.
Originaly 75mg/day XR version.
4 weeks at 37.5, no problems noticed.
3 weeks at ~18mg (half the 37.5), still no problems.
I figured that this was so far below what the doctors or pharmas consider to be significant that I'd just stop.... he,he, jokes on me!
I tolerated the past 2 days off of the stuff, with all of the general problems described by everyone else here. It is awful!
I'm an engineer and basically can't do my job, have embarassed myself at work due to the confusion and memory problems, and am too dizzy to safely drive.
So I return to the beast tonight... and start taking a 1/8th dose.The thing that really makes me angry about this (besides falling for the pharmas' promises again) is that the drug companies can get away with this. There should have been studies about potential withdrawl problems, there should have been an appropriate process for ramping-down off this stuff, there should have been warnings given before being handed a prescription. Yeah,yeah buyer beware, but there are no resources for reliable information and when selling drugs to people who are desperate for help.... aggh, enough, if you're here reading this, you probably know all this...
I'll get off this drug sooner or later, and, partly because it's the last ssri I had left to try and partly because I no longer trust the drug companies, I hope to make it the last AD for me. (... oh yeah? heh,heh, you'll be back, when you've hit bottom again and finally crawl out of bed, you'll be back, begging for a little hope... heh,heh, and we'll be waiting... )
Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!
poster:dMacy
thread:12459
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031213/msgs/291072.html