sxp339: St John's Wort and initial anxiety

[sxp339]

Hi I’ve recently started taking St Johns wort 600 mg daily. I have been taking SSRIs for around 25 years but eventually managed to come off them in July 2020 after a very slow taper. I started on very low dose Mirtazapine (7.5mg) not long after but found it made me have intense anger but was brilliant for my chronic neck pain and insomnia. I reduced to 3.75mg which is still effective for my neck pain and sleep but my mood was awful. I started taking St Johns around 10 days ago and immediately noticed a difference. I felt happier and more confident. The only issue is that after a week of starting them I’m getting intermittent bouts of intense anxiety. I know this can be a side effect of SJ but could it also be similar to start up anxiety seen with ssris which will improve after the first few weeks? I can’t seem to find anything in the literature about this 😔

[ChessieCat]

 

 

Hi sxp and welcome to SA,

 

SA is a site for tapering psychiatric drugs.  You might find that a different website/forum is more suitable to your needs:  for example patientslikeme.com or depressionforums.org

 

However, you say that you did a slow taper off an AD.  At what rate did you taper?  SA recommends tapering by no more than 10% of the current dose followed by a hold of about 4 weeks to allow the brain to adapt to not getting as much of the drug.

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

Did you experience withdrawal symptoms whilst tapering and/or after you stopped your drug?  What were they?  It could be that you were experiencing withdrawal symptoms (some which you might not have attributed to withdrawal) from having tapered too quickly and/or jumping off at too high a dose and that taking SJW has helped to reduce those symptoms.  You will see on this symptom list that some withdrawal symptoms mimic depression.

 

Dr Joseph Glenmullen's Withdrawal Symptoms

 

Generally SA suggests reinstating a small amount of the drug which was last taken:

 

About reinstating and stabilizing to reduce withdrawal symptoms

 

Please create your drug signature following these instructions:

 

Instructions:  Withdrawal History Signature

 

If you are taking more than one drug/supplement I suggest that you use this to check for interactions:

 

Drug.com Interactions Checker

 

Here are SA's topics on SJW:

 

st-johns-wort-hypericum-perforatum

 

tapering-st-johns-wort

 

On 12/9/2020 at 4:28 AM, sxp339 said:

I started taking St Johns around 10 days ago and immediately noticed a difference. I felt happier and more confident. The only issue is that after a week of starting them I’m getting intermittent bouts of intense anxiety.

 

This might be withdrawal symptoms from your other drug/s and/or it might be interdose withdrawal from the SJW due to the half life and/or whether you are fast metaboliser.  If you keep daily symptom notes for yourself you might be able to notice a pattern.

 

This is your own Introduction topic which is the best place to post questions about your own situation and to journal your progress.  Once we have more information about your drug history and answers to the questions I asked we will be better able to offer suggestions.

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by ChessieCat