6 months off today

6 months off today after 3 months use and almost 2 years taper.

Main symptoms are.

Slight chemical fear in the mornings.

Mornings I have started having intense hunger may be because of prozac taper..

No physical symptoms.

 

Tapering prozac and I'm currently on 15mg.

Bexlan

Bexlan, a big congratulations to being off benzos for six months.  Those at BB who have traveled the journey you did can understand how huge this is!

 

Kate 

Bexlan, a big congratulations to being off benzos for six months.  Those at BB who have traveled the journey you did can understand how huge this is!

 

Kate 

Thank you Cate.Hope all is well.

Three months of use, my goodness, you've had to pay a huge price for that short time taking the drug!  I'm happy so much is in the rear view mirror for you, I hope your remaining symptoms leave you soon.

Three months of use, my goodness, you've had to pay a huge price for that short time taking the drug!  I'm happy so much is in the rear view mirror for you, I hope your remaining symptoms leave you soon.

I hope so too Pamster. As I'm tired of this whole chapter of life. Need to move on.

6 months off today after 3 months use and almost 2 years taper.

Main symptoms are.

Slight chemical fear in the mornings.

Mornings I have started having intense hunger may be because of prozac taper..

No physical symptoms.

 

Tapering prozac and I'm currently on 15mg.

Bexlan

 

Because my depression lifted a day after I stopped escitalopram, I shelved ketamine therapy. So now I'm in Mumbai with nothing to do. I'm traveling around Mumbai to scenic spots and after a week or two I'll return home.

 

I'm surprised by what happened.

 

Hope you feel better after dumping fluoxetine. Nobody really knows...

 

If you stop fluoxetine you will have to wait for a good 14 days to rediscover your natural self - cos of the long half life. I waited only ten days when I stopped fluoxetine and started escitalopram because I was not feeling better - mistake in hindsight.

 

 

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Blue waters.Honestly I was doing pretty amazing before this ssri stuff.I had normal withdrawal which was predictable but no personality changes. Constant doom.I really suspect this prozac crap.

6 months off today after 3 months use and almost 2 years taper.

Main symptoms are.

Slight chemical fear in the mornings.

Mornings I have started having intense hunger may be because of prozac taper..

No physical symptoms.

 

Tapering prozac and I'm currently on 15mg.

Bexlan

 

Because my depression lifted a day after I stopped escitalopram, I shelved ketamine therapy. So now I'm in Mumbai with nothing to do. I'm traveling around Mumbai to scenic spots and after a week or two I'll return home.

 

I'm surprised by what happened.

 

Hope you feel better after dumping fluoxetine. Nobody really knows...

 

If you stop fluoxetine you will have to wait for a good 14 days to rediscover your natural self - cos of the long half life. I waited only ten days when I stopped fluoxetine and started escitalopram because I was not feeling better - mistake in hindsight.

 

 

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Did you quit prozac cold Turkey

6 months off today after 3 months use and almost 2 years taper.

Main symptoms are.

Slight chemical fear in the mornings.

Mornings I have started having intense hunger may be because of prozac taper..

No physical symptoms.

 

Tapering prozac and I'm currently on 15mg.

Bexlan

 

Because my depression lifted a day after I stopped escitalopram, I shelved ketamine therapy. So now I'm in Mumbai with nothing to do. I'm traveling around Mumbai to scenic spots and after a week or two I'll return home.

 

I'm surprised by what happened.

 

Hope you feel better after dumping fluoxetine. Nobody really knows...

 

If you stop fluoxetine you will have to wait for a good 14 days to rediscover your natural self - cos of the long half life. I waited only ten days when I stopped fluoxetine and started escitalopram because I was not feeling better - mistake in hindsight.

 

 

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Did you quit prozac cold Turkey

 

Yes I quit cos turkey. You can safely quit fluoxetine cold turkey because it is self tapering.

 

I'm with you in this decision. It's time to rediscover yourself before contemplating further action. Best of luck bro.

 

Yes I quit cos turkey. You can safely quit fluoxetine cold turkey because it is self tapering.

 

 

I've not heard this before, could you provide a citation?  Thanks,

 

Pamster

Here you go Pamster:

 

https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(16)30172-4/pdf#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20Due%20to%20long%20half,is%20%E2%89%A540%20mg%2Fd.

 

 

Kate

Here you go Pamster:

 

https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(16)30172-4/pdf#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20Due%20to%20long%20half,is%20%E2%89%A540%20mg%2Fd.

 

 

Kate

 

Thanks Kate. 

 

Yes I quit cos turkey. You can safely quit fluoxetine cold turkey because it is self tapering.

 

 

I've not heard this before, could you provide a citation?  Thanks,

 

Pamster

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(16)30172-4/pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjs5IWJ1efrAhVByjgGHYsYDt8QFjASegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw1cQG9CHrkeDyEaW-hxbuOI&cshid=1600052877362

 

Fluoxetine: Due to long half-life, tapering is usually not required; may reduce gradually over a minimum of 2 weeks if dose is ≥40 mg/d.

 

https://psycheducation.org/prozac-bridge/

 

Thus, Prozac is generally assumed to “self-taper”: it does not require careful dose reduction as we would do for Effexor

 

----

 

As per some sites, one should wait at least a month for the drug to leave the system (and not 14 days)

 

 

So I should quit cold Turkey..

Here you go Pamster:

 

https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(16)30172-4/pdf#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20Due%20to%20long%20half,is%20%E2%89%A540%20mg%2Fd.

 

 

Kate

 

Thanks Kate. 

So I should quit cold Turkey..

Here you go Pamster:

 

https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(16)30172-4/pdf#:~:text=Fluoxetine%20Due%20to%20long%20half,is%20%E2%89%A540%20mg%2Fd.

 

 

Kate

 

Thanks Kate. 

I won't all drugs  should be tapered, your cns needs time to heal

Here is my bedtime story about how an SSRI works. Don't ask me for citations please. But it's more or less on the periphery of truth. It isn't a bunch of lies.

 

SSRI works like a ladder to an attic. The attic is depression or depression concomitant with anxiety. Currently we know of no way to reach depression directly with drugs, to be able to tackle it, and, to be honest, we don't know much about depression to begin with. We know only about doorways and ladders to reach it indirectly.

 

Through trials and errors of the last century, we know that serotenergic compounds are able to alleviate depression when the availability of serotonin is increased in the brain. This is not to say that depression occurs because of low serotonin. Depressed people have been observed with low serotonin in the blood but they have also been observed with normal serotonin levels. It has also been observed that drugs that deplete serotonin (like mirtazapine) also resolve depression. So the results are inconclusive and the best we can say is that these serotenergic agents resolve depression indirectly. Also, and most importantly, blood levels of serotonin say nothing about serotonin levels in the brain and we have no method of measuring serotonin levels in a live brain.

 

So we can say serotenergic drugs work as a ladder and allow us to reach and upset things in the attic. That's why these drugs take 1/2 months to work. Once one is in remission, is a maintenance dose required or should the ladder be removed? I don't think it is required. (This subject is also of dispute in the medical community and doctors are influenced by pharmaceutical companies's led research in their practices. They make a compromise by continuing a low dose of the drug than stop it completely - called maintenance or prophylactic dose). But, to be honest, once depression has lifted, the drug can be considered to have done it's job. It's continued presence is a redundancy in the brain which carries the potential to turn into a menace. It should be removed to be used again when there is another episode of depression.

 

That the drug or ladder is a menace is evident by the so called start-up effect that the body and brain undergo to get used to the presence of the drug in the brain. But it is not necessary one always will or every person will get used to the excess (or drug induced depletion of) serotonin. The brain might continually resist to the daily introduction of the drug or might develop a resistance over time (I used to take mine in the morning and I suffered most during the first half of the day until I switched to taking it in the night).

 

It's thus possible that the drug has resolved the depression but continues to agitate the brain resulting in a thoroughly confused patient and a confused doctor. In my case, stopping the drug stopped the agitation and also the pre-existing depression.

 

The start-up syndrome, I believe, is just a milder form of serotonin syndrome. Serotonin syndrome, it has been observed, can also occur in monotherapy with a serotenergic drug. In most cases it goes away once the serotenergic agent is withdrawn.

 

How long should such patients suffer before their depression can be considered to have been treated (despite the ongoing suffering)? God knows... Possibly 2 months should be the upper limit. It's also possible that the drug failed to work despite the resistance.

I am currently doing a liquid taper but a faster one though. I cannot taper longer than the duration I was on the drug as it was for the case of benzo withdrawal. I used it for 3 months and tapered for almost 2 years.It didn't make sense to me.

I am currently doing a liquid taper but a faster one though. I cannot taper longer than the duration I was on the drug as it was for the case of benzo withdrawal. I used it for 3 months and tapered for almost 2 years.It didn't make sense to me.

 

What was your bad reaction to amitriptyline all about? Shouldn't that have alerted your doc about reactions to SSRIs? I'm not insinuating that you are having a reaction to fluoxetine. Only time will reveal this.

I am currently doing a liquid taper but a faster one though. I cannot taper longer than the duration I was on the drug as it was for the case of benzo withdrawal. I used it for 3 months and tapered for almost 2 years.It didn't make sense to me.

 

What was your bad reaction to amitriptyline all about? Shouldn't that have alerted your doc about reactions to SSRIs? I'm not insinuating that you are having a reaction to fluoxetine. Only time will reveal this.

Restlessness. Anxiety and fear.

The same happened when they tried to put me back on it after jumping from benzos.

They mess with insulin that's what I found out.When sugar fluctuates even a bit.Anxiety and mood swings kick in.

I am currently doing a liquid taper but a faster one though. I cannot taper longer than the duration I was on the drug as it was for the case of benzo withdrawal. I used it for 3 months and tapered for almost 2 years.It didn't make sense to me.

 

What was your bad reaction to amitriptyline all about? Shouldn't that have alerted your doc about reactions to SSRIs? I'm not insinuating that you are having a reaction to fluoxetine. Only time will reveal this.

Restlessness. Anxiety and fear.

The same happened when they tried to put me back on it after jumping from benzos.

They mess with insulin that's what I found out.When sugar fluctuates even a bit.Anxiety and mood swings kick in.

 

The universe is complex. A brain needs to develop a lot of gumption to face this universe. And within this universe, the brain finds that maximum complexity is in an area inside the human skull in what is called a brain. So if your brain itself is in disarray, then the level of complexity that it faces is (complexity)^2. A normal brain, overwhelmed by the complexity of the universe, cannot comprehend (complexity)^2 and it's understandable. When I'm normal, I myself forget what it is to be depressed.

 

 

Please do not listen to the opinion that prozac is self tapering. I cold  turkey prozac in 2012. 1 months later i started getting weird symptoms and had no idea what was going on. Then started getting DP/DR for the first time. Then i felt like i was going to die if i walked a few feet and then i thought everyone around me was going to drop dead. This went on for weeks before i reinstated and went back to normal.  Im done with this dangerous and toxic forum for good.

Please do not listen to the opinion that prozac is self tapering. I cold  turkey prozac in 2012. 1 months later i started getting weird symptoms and had no idea what was going on. Then started getting DP/DR for the first time. Then i felt like i was going to die if i walked a few feet and then i thought everyone around me was going to drop dead. This went on for weeks before i reinstated and went back to normal.  Im done with this dangerous and toxic forum for good.

How did you taper off.?

Prof. Ashton said you should taper antidepressant the same way you would taper a benzo.

Prof. Ashton said you should taper antidepressant the same way you would taper a benzo.

Doing a liquid taper but holding each ml for 2 days.

Having a hell of a week.Guessing it is prozac withdrawal.