Anybody have experience with quiting anti-depresants?

In My Humble Opinion
1

for about 3 or 4 years I have been on zoloft for depression, panic disorder, insomnia, and a touch of ocd. In the past year I was also put on vivacil to supplement the zoloft. I have had numerouse thereapists, been hospitalized, and took anger management classes to deal with my anger problem.

  well, it was determined years ago that most of my problems are due to my current family situation (theres another thread on the sdmb, i dont feel like re-typing the whole story). Well recently, I've been spending more and more time away and might possibly be moving out when school starts up. Long story short, I'm feeling the best I have in ages, and decided about 2 months ago to end my medicine. 

   I've been doing pretty well. I'm in a pretty good mood, but my insomnia has gotten worse. not bad enough to get back on the meds though, I was diagnosed with chronic insomnia at the age of 11. My hands have tremors(assoiciated with my panic disorder), and I have the occaisional temper flare up. 

  So how many of you dopers have gone thru this sort of thing? any success? did you decide to go back on meds? I'm looking foward to any insights/warnings/opinions!
2

Back in the early 80’s, after being on an MAO inhibitor (Parnate) for a few years, I felt that I could manage without the meds. I wanted to eliminate the dietary restrictions, I missed the highs at the upper end of my bipolar and thought I could manage the lows.

I, too, did pretty well for a few years. Therapy had given me skills that helped manage the lows.

Over time however, it got to be too much. My overall quality of life was suffering too much. My career was suffering, my personal relationships - especially with my children who were young at the time - were suffering. It just wasn’t worth it.

Prozac was on the market by that time, and my doctor suggested I try it rather than MAOI’s again. Been on it ever since.

For me, part of it was a matter of getting over the “I’m tough enough to handle this without meds” idea. My chemical imbalance isn’t something I can overcome by force of will any more than Darrell Kile was able to overcome his genetic heart problems by being an athlete (I know that’s a rather extreme comparison.), or my neighbor’s inability to control his high cholesterol levels with diet AND meds.

Everyone’s situation is different, but my advice is to err on the side of caution when it comes to both your physical and mental well being. There’s a fine line that only you can see (perhaps with the assistance of your MD). Don’t take more meds than you need, but also, don’t be as stubborn as I was for a while - there’s no point proved if your life goes down the dumper just because you want to avoid meds.

Good luck.

3

I was taking Serzone for an anxiety disorder. I decided to stop taking it, and didn’t see my doctor for about 2 months after stopping the Serzone. I did not enjoy it. I went to my doctor for another anti-depressant and am currently on Paxil. Like OldBroad said, it is a chemical imbalance that causes it, and I cannot control that by sheer force of will. Most of my symptoms were coming back and it was not pleasant. I am feeling better now, however.

Good luck to you.

4

see the thing is I don’t have a chemical imbalence. I was basically put on meds to make my self “managable.” Like i said, bad family situation. curing me was never the intrest at hand. well now i’m tyaking it into my own hands and doing quite nicely. although, i didnt sleep a wink last night…

5

I went on Prozac when I was 16, and stayed on it more or less faithfully for four years. For about a month when I was 18, I didn’t take it, started feeling a lot of stress, and decided I’d better go back on it.

When I was 20 I crashed very hard, perhaps due to external situations with my family and friends. I don’t think I have ever felt so bad. My psychiatrist thought the Prozac just might have “stopped working”. So he put me on Effexor. This stuff had side effects I didn’t care for, so after about three months I just stopped taking it.

Big mistake. I started to go through a weird withdrawal thing where I was hearing weird sounds and my vision was all blurry, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. So I started to take half the dose, then a quarter, then I’d just lick the tablet, and eventually I had weaned myself off it.

So at that point I was on nothing at all. Three months after that I was in the hospital for depression.

After that, they tried me on Serzone. This was good because it had no appreciable side effects. Unfortunately, it had no discernable therapeutic effect either. I was utterly dysphoric for the next six months. I don’t know how I survived. I did feel better once I’d graduated college. I took Serzone for another year, then stopped on my own once again.

For three years, no problems. Then last year I realized that all was not well. I was very resistant to go on medication again, but at a doctor’s recommendation, I tried Luvox for obsessive-compulsive disorder. I took myself off it twice before I accepted that I just might need something like this to keep myself together, at least for now.

The problem has always been that I never really have confidence that the medication is actually doing anything. I was, after all, fine for three years without anything at all, how do I know I’m just not a normal person going through a difficult time which will pass and everything will be rosy again? I’m still on Luvox and today, because I feel like total shit, I asked my doctor to renew my Clonopin prescription, which I haven’t used in several months.

Good luck.

6

clonopin… Used to be a drug i would abuse when i tryed to bury my sorrows in drug induced stupors…Memories

7

I’ve gone off antidepressants twice, once with supervision, once without. Both times were about 9 years ago, so please forgivce me if the details are a bit hazy. The first time, I was unemployed and my health insurance had run out. I was on imipramine, I think, and I lowered the dosage gradually, but not gradually enough, I’m afraid. One of the side effects I had was constipation, so you can guess what happened when I stopped taking it. At least I was unemployed. [sigh] The second time, I had been taking Paxil, and, as my life came together, I stopped taking it with my therapists advice, approval, etc.

It’s been at least years since I’ve used it or any other anti-depressant and I’m doing all right, despite a few rough patches. I am, however, back in therapy right now, getting some old issues taken care of. Going off antidepressants the first time was a mistake. It was one I pretty much had to make because I couldn’t afford them, but I wound up calling a suicide hot-line about 2 months later. The second time, I had the grounding and the support to do so, and I don’t regret it.

Sandalfeet, my heart goes out to you. I know you’re going through some incredibly rough times, and please remember you can e-mail me if you need to. Check with your therapist about going off the meds. Remember the nature of this illness is our minds tend to lie to us, and we want very badly to be better so we can look after people.

Take care,
CJ

8

I’ve been through more than my fair share of going on/going off/switching meds/adding meds.

I was first diagnosed with clinical depression in 1995, after spending a couple of months wrought with suicidal ideation. I doubt that was my first depressive episode, but rather, I beleive it was the first diagnosed episode. When I was a teenager, I’d be “sick” and would go through all of these blood tests, EEGs, glucose tolerance tests - yet they could find nothing physically wrong with me. Then why did I always feel like crap?

First line of treatment? Prozac - surprise, surprise. It kind of worked for a while until I made some changes in my life (living more healthily) and I was able to go off it for about a year.

Then came the burnout. I had a job that was working me to the bone (and not paying me nearly enough), I had problems in my life, and one night, I just snapped. I went to the ER and was put on Serzone, sleeping pills, and given a week off work. I tried going back to work, but started having uncontrollable panic attacks. I had to go back on medical leave. I was switched to Paxil because of the side-effects I was having on Serzone (tunnel vision, for example), but that did nothing for the panic/anxiety.

Finally the anxiety was too much to handle. (I’ve told this story before here.) I was pacing around my apartment, and the only thing I could think of doing was throwing myself out my 12th floor window because it felt like a thousand ping-pong balls hitting every corner of my head from the inside, each hit bringing with it a new worry, a new reason to panic. Enough was enough. I took a bath, and managed to make it back to the ER (though the bus ride there was terrifying) where I demanded something be done about the anxiety.

I was put on clonazepam (Klonopin/Rivotril). Within 24 hours, the anxiety was gone.

I tapered off Paxil and took Wellbutrin for about a year, then was switched to Epival (Depakote), a mood stablizer. Now that was a disaster. I went off of that one while my shrink was on vacation (per his instructions if things went bad). I stayed on the clonazepam, and figured I’d be fine, given that I was moving back out on my own, having lived with a bitch slob roommate for far too long.

A few months passed, and I slipped again. This time I tried Celexa, because my father had responded so well to it. For the first year or so, it was a miracle.

Unfortunately, now, I’m not sure if it’s working anymore. My shrink has left town for good, so I’ll need to contact the doctor he recommended.

Everything I’ve read has been essentially, Three strikes, you’re out. I’ve resigned myself to probably being on medication for the rest of my life. There’s no need to go off meds when things pick up, only to slip back into that pit again.

I realize a lot of what I’ve said might seem like it all has to do with my environment and life situation, but there’s far more to it than that. There’s no reason why I should deprive myself of feeling good - or at least OK - just because there’s a stigma about taking psychiatric drugs.

Let me have my antidepressants. Let me have my tranquilizers (which I don’t abuse). Let me have the non-addictive sleep aid I take on occasion. It’s between me and my doctor.

Best of luck to all of you.

  • s.e.
9

I tried going off Prozac at a time when I was feeling quite good. At the beginning, I had some minor side effects (the sound of pounding in my ears when I went to bed, and vivid dreams for a few weeks). Then I felt fine for a couple of months, so I thought it was going to work. But then I gradually started becoming like I was before I went on the meds (which was NOT good), so I went back on them. It took a couple of months before I felt good again.

So the “good” thing that came out of this was that I proved to myself (and my therapist) that I really do need to continue taking meds.

I would recommend staying in close touch with your therapist about this. You might want to consider seeing him/her a bit more frequently than normal while you’re going off the meds. Also, you mentioned that you might be moving, I hope that you won’t be out of range of your therapist. That’s important. Going away to school can be a very stressful experience. If it’s a distance away, you will need to find a therapist at school, even if you’re off meds.

10

I should also add, FWIW, that personally, I’ve never felt emotionally “flat” on any of these meds. I’ve always been able to feel, to empathize (well, less so on Wellbutrin), to laugh, to cry.I guess I’m lucky in that respect.

11

the only therapist i’m seeing is the one at school. i stopped seeing my otherone becuase she said that I was making up my family situation.

12

All I can do for the other one is growl! Sandalfeet, I know of a very good therapist who happens to be Wiccan, but she’s in Maine. If that’s doable (no guarantees on her part, of course), e-mail me. Meantime, the best help I ever got was at a free clinic, although the current one’s pretty good too.

CJ

13

I’ve been off meds for 3 years now, having been reliant on various anti-depressants since the age of 13. My insomnia is still atrocious, dealing with my social phobia is a day-today struggle, and I still get a ‘wobble’ every so often when that big wave of dread and despair washes over me and makes it impossible to deal with even the simplest things. But 12 years of therapy has taught me enough to be able to recognise what’s happening and counter it effectively; it’s exhausting, but I manage it and am proud of that. I’m not med-free because I have any problem with the idea of medication, and am usually the first to recommend seeing a doctor if a friend is no longer coping with everything. I’m doing it more because it is something to do for me, and stops me defining myself as a depressive person, which is tough after a history of hospitalisation, self-harming and suicide attempts.

Even now, after the last 3 years, the first thing I’ll do (after figuring out that I am not, in fact, going insane and a terrible, evil person, but just that my brain is conspiring against me) is consider making a doctor’s appointment. The last time I did this was last week, after 2 weeks in the new job from hell. It feels like my knee-jerk reaction will always be to go back on meds, I am guessing much like an alcoholic will consider reaching for a drink. But the thing is, I know I don’t need them anymore, I am aware that I no longer suffer from depression to a degree where I need medicating (which for me is anything other than being curled up in a ball on the floor crippled with all the hurt). I doubt that I’ll ever get to the point where everything is whoop-de-doo, I will probably always be prone to depressive train-of-thoughts, but the longer I am med-free and just trying to deal with everything life throws at me, the further it distances me from the illness and a part of my life I am trying my hardest to put behind me.

I just really hope you’re not setting yourself up to feel like a failure if you do need to go back on meds. Or that you’ll refuse a prescription when/if it’s what you really need. Keep in mind (or a written list if it’s easier) which thoughts/feelings/behaviours are unacceptable for you, so you are better able to see how well you’re dealing; it can be tough to recognise how things are going when you’re in the middle of it all. It is difficult to do this during school, but try to rearrange your schedule as much as you can to allow sleep when you are ready for it, rather than trying to force it to happen (which, I am sure you realise, never works). Best of luck, but please make sure you don’t deny yourself medication if it’s looking like that is what’s best for you for the time being.

14

i have no problem going back on meds if i truly NEED to. And I’m keeping a close eye on how I feel. The only thing thats bad right now is my sleep, but that was always horrible, even on meds.