Getting off Paxil

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I have been taking Paxil for the better part of 13 years. I feel it’s time to get off for various reasons.

The past weekend I ran out of my prescription and just didn’t fill it. In the past when I did this, on about the third day I would start getting weird physical symptoms such as a headache and brain zaps. That didn’t happen this weekend so I went to the fourth day with no Paxil. However the fourth day I felt an overwhelming depression and could barely get out of bed. So I filled my prescription and within a few hours I was feeling normal again.

Obviously stopping cold turkey is not the answer. Does anyone have any recommendations for weaning off this? I do not have a psychiatrist to talk to and my regular GP has suggested cutting my 20mg pills in half and doing that for a couple weeks, then cutting down to 5 for two weeks and then stopping. That sounds reasonable, but he said he is no expert in SSRI discontinuation.

Looking online seems to just bring up hysterical horror stories of Paxil use.

Any thoughts?

2

Just FTR, self-discontinuing an antidepressant sounds like a staggeringly dumb idea. I’d talk to the prescribing doctor first, and see if/how they need to wean you off, or move you to a different one or something like that. Your GP isn’t a good substitute.

3

I would try to find a doctor more expert in the use of the SSRI. In the meantime, ask the pharmacist about weaning and cutting the pills. Some pills can be cut and some can’t, so if they can’t it might have to be something like every other day, etc. The pharmacist knows a lot about drugs, so use them as a resource to double check what your doctor is saying.

4

Cold-quitting Paxil is an express trip to hell. Tapering still isn’t fun, but it’s bearable.

I tapered off Celexa in about that time frame. If it were Paxil, especially after 13 years of use, I might be inclined to stretch it out longer, over two months or more. (Just my opinion, based on my past experience.)

And good luck. It’s going to suck, but it does get better.

5

Please correct me if I’m mistaken about any of the following points:

You have been addicted to Paxil for 13 years.

Paxil is a mood altering substance (aka a drug) and anyone who takes it daily for 13 years has a serious addiction.

Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Paxil I have no experience with it.

But, I do have some experience with people trying to terminate a long term addiction and there are a few things I’d like to say to you.

One of the most important things I can tell anyone who is struggling with terminating a long-term addiction (13 years is definitely a “long term”) is that they will almost certainly need help from someone else. It is very difficult to stay off a drug by yourself.

In most cities, there are many people who would be glad to help you because someone has helped them and they would like to pass this along if possible.

There are organizations such as NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and they are listed in the phone book. If you live in a large city, there will almost certainly be meetings held daily near your neighborhood.

You may think it’s silly to sit down with a group of strangers and talk with them and listen to what they have to say. But, believe it or not, sharing your story with others and listening to their stories is one of the greatest sources of faith, hope and strength you can ever find.

Damn! I forget the exact wording. There are 3 words that are part of the “N.A. Manifesto” that are known to most every member of NA. It’s just been such a long time since I attended a meeting.

But if anyone here is a member and knows those words, I sure would appreciate if you would post them here. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can always send a PM to a moderator or to me and I will pass it along by posting it in this thread.

The very first day that I stopped using my drug (which was Codeine for what it’s worth), some goofy looking guy came into the Addiction Research Facility and told the people there (I was one of those people) that there was a meeting in twenty minutes and everyone who would like to come would be welcome.

I kind of snickered to myself thinking, “What would a bunch of druggie losers like myself every have to say that would help me?” But attending that meeting, I listened to a few people who talked about what addiction had done to their lives and the lives of their families and I was never the same again.

There are many ways that you can find help. But I would like to encourage you to attend one of those meetings or anything else you can think of that would put you in touch with some other people.

Other people can be the greatest source of strength that an addict can ever find.

If you don’t want to attend a meeting, there are plenty of other ways that you can find strength and hope from other people.

A great doctor that I knew once told me, "The most important thing that you need to do is to ‘show your face’ to some other people. What he meant was that by telling your story (about how you became addicted and what it has done to you and your family) is one of the most important steps you can take to get yourself on the road to recovery.

All my best wishes to you and yours.

Damn! I can’t believe I forgot those three words. I listened to them every day for more than 20 years.

6

Now I can’t remember which SSRI I was on. I was on one for a couple of months and I forgot to take it two days in a row. Then I was all “Well, I don’t think this is doing anything, so I think I’ll just keep not taking it!”

I started to feel like I had a whole hive of bees in my head. I get shivers just thinking about that feeling.

7

Tapering off medications can be a very complex process. Talk to your doctor about the best regimen.

I recently finished tapering off of a medication for a chronic lung condition. We reduced the dosage (originally six tablets per day) by one tablet per quarter. It took a year and a half to get down to nothing!

8

My wife uses a different SSRI. If you want to alter your dose, I urge you to do so only with the consultation of a psychiatrist. My wife discovered that when she tried to dial her dose back too fast, she had severe depression/anxiety and had to go back on a higher dose than she was on previously just to get her back to where she was before she tried to wean herself.

9

Darn! I got beat by the 5 minute limit. But that’s no big problem.

The phrase is: “Faith, Strength and Hope”.

I found it here: http://www.justfortodaymeditations.com/tag/narcotics-anonymous/page/71/

OMG! I was gone for about 2 minutes and there were three more posts made to this thread. At this rate, there will be more than one hundred post in this thread today.

I guess lots of people want to help you. I hope you will take advantage of their good intentions.

10

Paxil is a prescription drug used to manage a serious medical condition. It is not an addiction you can (or should try to) deal with through something like NA, any more than you would try to break an “addiction” to blood pressure medication.

11

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I was prescribed Paxil shortly after its initial release. A year or so later when I wanted to go off it, the shrink told me I could just quit, no problem.

I soon began to experience the dreaded “brain zaps,” and had no idea what was happening to me. When I described them to my doctor, he was baffled and probably thought I was nuts (electric shock through your skull when you move your eyes to the left or right, you say? Hmm, yes, that’s certainly unusual…) Now it’s a well-known and well-documented side effect of quitting, but at the time there was no information about it. Scared the shit out of me.

12

First of all I am not addicted to Paxil. And to think I need NA meetings is even more insane. You clearly know nothing about antidepressants. If you were genuinely trying to help, I appreciate it. But you should probably understand a situation a little better before giving such horrible advice.

I get that most people have horrible reactions from quitting Paxil. However, I went off it once before about 6 years cold turkey and had very mild withdrawal. Just a little discomfort.

Talking to the pharmacist is a good idea. These pills can be cut in half because I take the old Paxil that is not controlled release.

13

Yeah I had the “brain zaps” when I quit the first time. It lasted about a week. Very, very strange.

14

Oh. Thank you so much for setting me straight on that.

In that case, the OP should definitely see a doctor and should thank you for making that known.

15

I accept your criticism and I apologize to you. I can see that you are right about going to NA meetings. It was bad advice and I take it back.

I still wish you all the best and hope everything works out well for you.

16

I was prescribed both Paxil and Effexor when they were very new drugs. I’ll never forget telling my shrink that I was having difficulty speaking. I knew the words, but couldn’t get them from my brain to my mouth. Her comment? “Oh, that’s a reportable side effect.” So what if I sounded drunk all the time. Those were not fun days. At least with Paxil you should have an easier time of withdrawal. Effexor is double hell on earth. A very slow titration, under a psychiatrist’s supervision, is what I’d want for you. GPs just don’t have the specific knowledge of these drugs. Don’t be surprised if, when you’re down to the lowest dost of Paxil, you doctor recommends Prozac to make the final stage of withdrawal easier.

I was so mentally beaten up by years of improper treatment, that I went close to 10 years without an antidepressant. I wanted to prove the doctors wrong. I ended up hospitalized, again, and left with new antidepressant and anti-anxiety prescriptions. I’ll stop taking my current three drug cocktail when that very warm place freezes over. My life isn’t worth living without my meds.

Find a psychiatrist, do your homework, and give your brain the time it needs to adjust.

You can do it; you’re stronger than you know.

17

I took 3 months to taper of Paxil! My shrink suggested a month and a half, but given my own cold-turkey experience, and the fact that my dose was pretty high, I wanted to be extra safe. (He was okay with this) I chipped away at the dosage little by little and eventually got to zero with no withdrawal symptoms.

Cutting your dose in half all of a sudden is a bad idea. I’m surprised your GP doesn’t even know that you have to be super careful tapering of Paxil!

18

If it’s not to much of a hijack, I want to know a bit more about what these “brain zaps” are like. I keep hearing about this withdrawal symptom, with Paxil specifically, but haven’t seen much of a description beyond Vinyl Turnip brief remarks above.

My story, briefly: I got chemically dependent on clonazepam (Klonopin), even though I was using a very low dosage. At that low dosage, I though I could quit cold turkey. (At least one doctor, some time after the fact, told me he would have recommended the same.) Wrong. I had a nasty withdrawal experience that took about 16 months to get over, and even then I didn’t feel quite right for another year after that.

During the worst part of this, which lasted for at least a month (maybe more; it was 12 years ago), I had an experience that I would have called “brain zaps”. But I don’t know if my brain zaps were like Paxil brain zaps. It felt like someone had put electrodes to my left and right temple and periodically sent shocks through – like about once every 30 seconds, 24/7 for week after week. (I don’t recall that it had anything to do with eye movements.)

It got real old real fast, and the worst thing was that it also kept me awake. I literally could not sleep for more than 30 seconds at a time because every zap jolted me awake again. I got so sleepy that I began falling asleep again within just a few seconds, only to get jolted awake again.

19

I went off an SSRI so I could try a new medication without overlapping side effects. The process was pretty much what your GP recommended. While I’d never heard them described as “brain zaps,” that is what happened to me when I tapered off. I also felt like my body was vibrating sometimes, it was really weird. It took a few weeks to get over the withdrawal symptoms, you’ll probably have to just grit your teeth and wait them out. Any immediate signs of depression are likely side effects of the withdrawal, so don’t panic about it. You may have to wait a few weeks to determine whether or not you feel okay without it. It sucks but it takes time.

20

What’s your diet and exercise like?