Posted by Lou Pilder on February 5, 2010, at 17:50:42
In reply to Re: Symptom of Medication? » Buckeye Fan, posted by 49er on February 5, 2010, at 12:55:51
> Buckeye Fan,
>
> You're having problems because you're not taking a consistent dose every day and as a result, you are putting your body into withdrawal.
>
> If you stop the med, that will be a cold turkey withdrawal. You may be fine for a few months but the chances of having problems are big time.
>
> It isn't case of simply lowering the drug level like with an aspirin. These drugs have made long time neurochemical changes throughout your body and it needs to be given time to adapt to a lower dose.
>
> I previously wrote you suggestions on how to taper Pristiq slowly. If you can't find the post, let me know and I will do a search.
>
> 49er
>
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I am almost a month into my tapering of Pristiq.
> >
> > I was switched from 7 years of Zoloft, because of a job last last August that sent me into severe depression, to Pristiq.
> >
> > After gaining 35 pounds...High Blood pressure..being unemployed and it being the dead of Winter here;;;..I have tapered down to once-every-3-days of 50 mg's of pristiq ( smallest dose available).
> > Things were going pretty well, but for the last few days the depression has returned along with other symptoms.
> >
> > Itching, fatique, aches and pains, trouble sleeping, anxiety and a "restless" feeling I have never experienced before.
> >
> > I cannot really explain this new symptom with words.
> >
> > It is a feeling of...emptiness..or embarrasment..I dont feel like being around anyone...YET the isolation and loneliness is equally agonizing.
> >
> > Its like an inner nervousness,,,,uncomfortable feeling....like something is just not quite right.
> >
> > Any ideas? I know I am not being very descriptive
> > but I am really puzzeled by this emotion,..or feeling...or symptom, or what ever it is!
> >
> > Any help would be appreciated
> >
> > BF
> >
> 49er,
You wrote,[...these drugs have made long time neurochemical changes throughout your body....].
There are many well-written articles describing what those changes are. The question here is how can those changes be reversed, if they can.
One reasoned way is that if you keep taking the drug in question at smaller and smaller amounts, the nervous system will adapt to those reductions and eventually you will get to zero. But even though that makes sense, could it be true?
Let us suppose that a person went into a hospital with 3erd degree sun burns. And then the doctor says to the person to go out in the sun each day a little less time than the previous day and your sunburn will go away.
Now would that make sense?
Then there is the aspect of just stopping the drug ,period. If that was done, what could heal the neurochemical changes? Would it happen by itself? Could not those changes be not reversible?
But if the changes could be reversed, what could be a mechanism to have the changes reversed?
One could think that there is something that the body itself could do, like white blood cells attacking bacteria. One could think that the changes could be reversed by taking another drug.
I have an entierly different perspective as to how the nervous system that was changed by chemicals could be restored.
You see, one could discontinue the chemicals in question on their own determination. That would be human achievment. But I say to you, could not one be heald by (redacted by respondent).
Lou>
poster:Lou Pilder
thread:935767
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100204/msgs/936067.html