Posted by bleauberry on February 3, 2010, at 17:12:17
In reply to Symptom of Medication?, posted by Buckeye Fan on February 2, 2010, at 15:55:15
What you describe is common with antidepressant withdrawals, but especially with effexor, pristiq. For me it was especially bad post-zoloft.
Lots of adaptations take place in the brain on these meds. Take away the meds, and things friek out. The entire serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine circuits are totally frieking out. As it takes weeks and months for adaptations to occur while getting on meds, it takes at least as long and sometimes longer getting off them. We already know our brains are screwed up in the adaptation department to begin with anyway, because if they weren't we never would have had any reason to try a medication. Medications can just aggravate the whole thing and make it worse.
The good news is that eventually things will settle down to a baseline. For me, that was about 6 months after zyprexa; about 4 weeks after zoloft; and similar with other meds.
In the meantime you really should try some things to help the symptoms. Over the years one of the more helpful aids for effexor withdrawal is Benadryl.
I tried a bunch of supplements and herbs to treat those aweful symptoms you described. Most of them helped quite a bit. I didn't use them continuously, but for sporadic relief when I really needed it the most. They included Passionflower, Lemon Balm, magnesium, GABA, glycine. And yeah, Benadryl. Pharmaceutical aids would probably include Xanax, Klonopin, Lorazepam...but then you're looking at withdrawing from those eventurally. Zyprexa can be a good help, taken as needed instead of everyday. Seroquel also, though I never recommend this med for any other reason.
That creepy whole body anxiety thing you are feeling, most of the above will help with that a lot. As for the emptiness and loneliness, that's a different story. That is probably a combination of withdrawal depression mixed in with some of the original depression pre-meds.
Pristiq has some unknown interplay with the opioid system, is structurally similar to tramadol, and some have hypothesized that is why its withdrawals are so scary.
Four ways out:
1. Cold turkey, get it over with, and use natural or pharmaceutical help to weather the storm until things smooth out. Then see where you are and decide what to do from there.
2. Wean very slowly in tiny steps over a couple months. 50mg is not the smallest size. You can take 48mg, 47mg, whatever size you want. There is a whole art in making custom doses at home...cutting pills, slicing pills, crushing pills to powder, emptying capsules and reloading desired amounts into gel caps, mixing in juice and drinking measured amounts, etc.
3. Switch straight across to something else.
4. Take a single dose of prozac about once every 4 days to a week. Its long halflife will help fill in the gaps.
poster:bleauberry
thread:935767
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100122/msgs/935875.html