Posted by Peter on January 20, 2003, at 2:46:08
In reply to Re: Very Confused-need some advice » Peter, posted by Ritch on January 19, 2003, at 21:40:19
> That's OK. You have a lot of similar symptoms that I have, so I want to see you do better, and wonder what will wind up working for you, because it may likely work for me as well! I got some similar effects with taking Adderall and Effexor (at much lower doses though), in regards to them "balancing" one another. It is like the Adderall does "hit" a particularly important circuit/pathway in a positive way, but it is like a bad keyboard player that gets the major and minor keys mixed up somehow. FWIW, you might *still* need a tiny dose of Zoloft (maybe 12.5mg every other day) for awhile to stay stable. The worst type of withdrawal I have ever experienced was trying to stop an SSRI. It wasn't "brain zaps" and all the usual stuff you hear about, it is more of an existential thing (a psychic thing), and it is like the "coldness/withdrawn" feelings you talk about. Perhaps a lower-dose continuation of the Zoloft/Adderall (with less "tweakiness") with the same dose of Lamictal given a little time and then see how you get along? No sense giving up totally on stuff that works, maybe just back off the dose to settle things? --Mitch
> Yeah, Iknow what you mean. Coming off the zoloft so fast really sucked-felt like when I used to experience withdrawl from all sorts of nasty street drugs. I got an email back from my pdoc tonight, and he said I shouldn't take the nortrip.-that my sudden mood cycling even after a period of improvement is normal, andI shouldn't be surpised by it atleast until we get up to a higher dose of lamictal. So, he told me to up the lamictal from 50mg to 75mg starting tomorrow. He believes in the antidepressant AND stabilizing effects of lamictal-that they're sufficient to render the med somewhat of an equivalent of taking a mood stabilizer + an AD, but with much less of a chance of (hypo)mania-switching. Your idea about some low-dose zoloft in the interim sounds extremely sensible to me, but he wants me off the zoloft now completely. It's just gonna require more waiting, and I gotta hang in there. Oh-another thing about coming off the zoloft-those crazy electric shock sensations up the arms and legs (in addition to all the other stuff). Crazy. And I thought zoloft was supposed to be the easiest of the sri's to stop-except for maybe celexa. Interestingly, I never had such problems stopping paxil, which I think is supposed to be the worst for withdrawal. Oh well; since we share similar symptoms, have you ever tried lamictal?
Peter
poster:Peter
thread:136494
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030119/msgs/136695.html