Upnorth: reinstating

[Greatful]

@Upnorth  What do you mean it keeps saying it's unsafe?  You could try to put Baylissa Frederick in your search engine. and the find the link there.  I clicked on the link I sent you and it went there.🙃

 

You should ask Altrastrata if you might be having a bad reaction to the Zoloft.  You tried the reinstatement last February, is it coming up on 6 months with no improvements and when you tried to increase it got worse right? 

 

I wish I had the answer.  Most of us are in similar situations... Do I taper, no hold, is the drug causing problems UGH this is so hard. 

Don't worry about crying your eyes out> I do it sometimes. It's a good way to release some energy or stress. 

Hang in there. I feel your pain.

 

[Upnorth]

4 hours ago, Greatful said:

 Do I taper, no hold, is the drug causing problems UGH this is so hard. 

@Greatful

Exactly what I was thinking.  So exhausted and I never get the restful sleep I desperately need. Hard to find the needed strength when you're so depleted. 

I will try to check the site out again,  maybe my server or settings are not allowing access .

 

[Upnorth]

Don't know how much more I can endure.  Been at 3.0mg zoloft since March 27th,  no improvement. Lots of headaches, extreme neuroemotions, feeling hopeless. Hardly any sleep. Rarely get a break,  so worn down. Trying hard to carry on and hoping for better days but this is brutal.  Feel like I'm being turned inside out.  I used to think I was a fairly strong, reasonable person but this has ripped away my strength. Is the reinstatement of  zoloft doing this? 

I've lost my business,  my wife is fed up. Will this ever end? So sick of being debilated. I'm not in a good place and the dark thoughts are hard to ignore.  How do people survive this torture? 

[OldDodgy]

Hi @Upnorth

 

I have been following your trials over the last few months.  Several of your down days remind me of the Long Covid which I am battling with at the moment. 
 

I assume you have excluded that as part of the issue. 
 

OD 

Edited June 9, 2022 by OldDodgy
Typo

[Upnorth]

I don't have covid.  My system seems to be flooded by chemical induced anxiety.  I feel body tension,  unreal amounts of nervous dysfunction.  Nausea and air hunger are overwhelming.  Can't calm myself,  even doing breath exercises.  This is unbelievable.  I've never been this bad,  don't know what to do. .

[Altostrata]

Hello, @Upnorth How do you feel before and after you take Zoloft? How has your symptom pattern changed in the last month?

[Upnorth]

4 hours ago, Altostrata said:

Hello, @Upnorth How do you feel before and after you take Zoloft? How has your symptom pattern changed in the last month?

@Altostrata

Before I take it, I have nausea and air hunger about 7/10. This doesn't change after dosing, but I do take it late,  10 pm.  I usually stay up late because that's the only part of the day that's somewhat bearable.  It was like that before reinstatement,  late evenings where bearable. 

In the last month it seems my nausea, air hunger, irritability /anxiety are worse during the day .  I'm not sleeping well so that probably doesn't help. During the day ,  the body tension is really bad as well.  

[Altostrata]

Suggest you move 3.5mg Zoloft by an hour earlier each day until you are taking it at noon. Be sure to keep daily notes as you do this: Times o’clock you take your drugs, their dosages, and your symptoms throughout the day. We need to know how you feel before and after taking each drug, and your symptoms in between. Post 24 hours of notes at a time in this topic, in a simple list format with time o’clock on the left and notation (symptom or drug and dosage) on the right. We need to see your symptom pattern more clearly.

 

It's very possible you're not taking enough Zoloft for a reinstatement.

[Pens]

On 6/8/2022 at 6:03 PM, Upnorth said:

@Greatful

Thanks.  Really bad day today. Nausea is off the chart.  Hard to function like this,  so distressing. Just wanna ball my eyes out. Bad headache as well. 

Tried to look at the website but it keeps saying it's unsafe. Have to try something different I guess. 

 

@UpnorthHave you tried ginger root for your nausea. I know it helps me a lot. sending hugs your way.💕

[Upnorth]

6 hours ago, Altostrata said:

Suggest you move 3.5mg Zoloft by an hour earlier each day until you are

@Altostrata

I'm only at 3.0mg at the moment.  Do you want me to increase to 3.5?

I've been at 3.0 since March 27th. 

[Altostrata]

Please update your signature  Suggest you move 3.0mg Zoloft by an hour earlier each day until you are taking it at noon.

[Upnorth]

@Altostrata

Do you think I might be having a bad reaction to the zoloft? 

Also,  if I  may  ask, I'm wondering what you think changing the time of the dosage might do ?

[Altostrata]

As before, I cannot tell what's going on, as taking any amount of Zoloft seems to make you feel anxious about taking any amount of Zoloft.

 

On 6/9/2022 at 7:47 PM, Upnorth said:

@Altostrata

Before I take it, I have nausea and air hunger about 7/10. This doesn't change after dosing, but I do take it late,  10 pm.  I usually stay up late because that's the only part of the day that's somewhat bearable.  It was like that before reinstatement,  late evenings where bearable. 

In the last month it seems my nausea, air hunger, irritability /anxiety are worse during the day .  I'm not sleeping well so that probably doesn't help. During the day ,  the body tension is really bad as well.  

 

It appears you might feel better after the 3.0mg Zoloft takes effect, but you can't tell because it's when you're in bed anyway. Taking it earlier may extend the period in the day that you feel better.

 

Also, taking the Zoloft late may be interfering with your sleep.

[Upnorth]

2 hours ago, Altostrata said:

 

It appears you might feel better after the 3.0mg Zoloft takes effect, but you can't tell because it's when you're in bed anyway. Taking it earlier may extend the period in the day that you feel better.

@Altostrata

I don't go to bed before 3:30 am  sometimes later. When I take my 3.0mg dose at 10pm,  I don't seem to notice any difference in symptoms . So I'm up for 5 hours or more after taking my 3.0 dose.  Do you think I should be feeling effect in that time frame? 

[Altostrata]

Have we discussed keeping regular sleep hours before?

[Upnorth]

@Altostrata

You did ask before. 

This has been the way I am for many years,  even before when I was on my regular dose of 100mg.  I've always been a night hawk.  

 The difference now is I don't get any restful sleep. It's always fragmented and I get the cortisol spikes, intrusive thoughts. Then the rest of the day is filled with nausea/vertigo and air hunger. 

In the past when things were "normal" I was always up till 3am .

 Even when the withdrawal started January of 2021, I was able to sleep a good 8 hours if not more but since June of 2021 , that has changed. 

 Since the WD started,  staying up late is the only time I get a break and feel somewhat normal , even before reinstatement. 

 I don't think the 3.0mg is doing anything and you're probably right, it's not enough but each time I tried to updose, I would get sweating spells.

[Altostrata]

Your natural sleep cycle is from nightfall to dawn. When your sleep pattern is substantially off from that, your habits are working against your biorhythms. You may sleep better if your sleep schedule was closer to your biological schedule.

 

If 3.5mg made you sweat, you might try divided doses of 3.0mg Zoloft, such as move 1mg gradually earlier by an hour each day until you are taking it at noon and take the 2.0mg at 10 p.m. This may enable you to increase your daily dose by gradually increasing the earlier dose. Please let us know how you're doing.

[Upnorth]

@Altostrata

Thanks.  Ruff day, nausea 7, air hunger 7 ,  ab muscle tension 7. And lately been having unrealistic feelings of loneliness and agitation . Wish I could stabilize,  my brain feels like mud and like I'm falling apart. 

[Upnorth]

@Frogie @Altostrata

 I know this is a slippery slope but should I keep trying to get an ativan prescription so I can taper off the zoloft? 

[Upnorth]

@Frogie @Altostrata

 

[Upnorth]

Are there,  by any chance,  any new ideas or suggestions for the morning cortisol.  Maybe some type of sedative? 

[Healingcontinues]

Hi Upnorth. I’ve just read your thread and I am really sorry to hear that you are struggling after such a long time. Withdrawal can be relentless and all consuming as most people on this forum know. 
 

I noticed that you have been asking the same questions to the mods a few times already. I don’t want to be cruel in anyway and I really feel for you I do, but they have already given you some solid advice and I wonder how much ‘non drug’ strategies you are trying in order to help yourself.

 

I took from what I read that your most prominent symptoms are anxiety, nausea and restless sleep? What are you doing to help yourself with these? what does a typical day for you look like? Who are you able to speak to about this/lean on for support? Have you tried meditation, no devices before bed, getting out and going for a walk everyday, melatonin to help you get to sleep earlier for example? These things may seem really insignificant and they won’t take withdrawal away, but they will certainly help and let you forces your energies on the things that you can control.
 

I think it would be really helpful for you and the mods to see more of a structure to your updates so that they can see how you respond to the zoloft/what a typical day looks like for you, and you can really keep tabs on any changes to your situation. This is so helpful because often healing happens at such a snail race that we can’t see much improvement until we step back and re-read diary entries from weeks/months prior.

 

The mods won’t be able to determine how you are really responding to the Zoloft reinstatement until you post almost hour to hour daily entries for a while including your symptoms throughout the day and at what times these occur. I keep a diary everyday of how my symptoms change and use a colour code to help monitor how I am- green means good day (considering), orange means ok day, and red means terrible day. I found this easier than rating ALL symptoms out of 10. It wasn’t until I started to do this that I realised not all days were red, and also I could see a bit of a pattern. I would highly recommend trying this for a while as it will give everyone on here so much more information to work with so that we can help and support you.

 

It is also very unlikely that Ativan will take away your issues from Zoloft unfortunately. It will also likely come with so many further issues unless you are able to find a doctor who will prescribe it to you for a long long time as you will need that in order to taper off that one properly without ending up in a similar situation. So it is something that I would think very carefully about and is a decision that nobody can make other than you. 

Hang on in there, post regularly and reach out to people. You are not alone in this and we are all wanting to help you in anyway we can but you need to make a commitment to help yourself too. Take care and I hope that you are able to get some relief today and some hours of sleep.

 

warm wishes. 

 

 

 

 

 

[OldDodgy]

Hi @Upnorth

 

Your situation is complex and Alto has been heavily involved and I do not want to rock the boat but I will make two observations. 
 

Your sleep pattern is causing chaos with your cortisol levels. Only when you allow your melatonin to do it’s calming work by sleeping in a normal pattern will the cortisol be less of an issue. 
 

I would never add another psychotropic drug to ease a physiological problem. 
 

Secondly there are a group of us ( can’t find the video link to this at moment) who are very intolerant to the reintroduction of an Ssri after coming off it. Personally I suffered extreme agitation on ten percent of my previous AD dose. 
 

However @Altostratais your specialist advisor and I do not want to question her longstanding wisdom. 
 

OD 

[ChessieCat]

This looks to be very good information.  But just like learning and using non drug coping techniques you are the only one who can do it.  You might find it helpful to write out a program of how you are going to do it (eg plan for 1 week) and when you reach a target give yourself a small reward.

 

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/how-to-reset-your-sleep-routine

 

 

[Upnorth]

12 hours ago, OldDodgy said:

 extreme agitation 

I have this as well, can't seem to calm myself.  The nausea/vertigo is debilitating and when I move around I get dizzy.  I have to force myself to eat and have no appetite. 

I do lots of deep breathing for the air hunger and try to get myself to relax but just seem overwhelmed lately. 

Not sure what's going on. Just feel weak and sick. 

 

[Altostrata]

Thanks, @Healingcontinues and @OldDodgy

 

@Upnorth, as you may have noticed, I am unable to get a read on your symptom pattern. This limits my ability to suggest anything. I cannot tell if the 3.0mg is helping. What I do know is that you don't want to take it or increase it.

 

You have expressed a desire to take clonazepam many times, as you have found occasional use relieves some of your symptoms. If you want to take clonazepam regularly, you'll have to work that out with your prescriber. To get you past your antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, this likely would be a long-term prescription of months rather than weeks.

 

It's possible that once you're stabilized on the benzo, you could taper off 3.0mg Zoloft. But you'd probably continue the benzo.

 

As we have advised you before, you probably will get yourself into another situation where you will need to taper the benzo to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

 

Your sleep pattern is, as noted above, very far from what your natural sleep-wake rhythm might be. You can bring it closer to a natural sleep cycle, which may improve your sleep. It's up to you to do that.

 

It's up to you to make these choices. I feel we have hit a brick wall with Zoloft reinstatement because you plainly do not want to do it.

[Upnorth]

@Altostrata @Frogie

            July 12th 

5:00pm-- nausea 7, air hunger 7,abdominal tension 7.

6:00pm -- pork stir fry. Magnesium 250, probiotic, ginger pill. Nausea 7, air hunger 7, ab tension 7.

8:00pm -- nausea 7,air hunger 7, ab tension 7.

10:00pm-- zoloft 3.0mg.toast.  nausea 7, air hunger 7, ab tension 7. Agitated. 

11:30pm-- nausea 7, air hunger 7. Ab tension 7. Agitated. 

      Monday July 13 

12:30am-- nausea 7 , air hunger 6, ab tension 6, mild sweating. 

1:30am -- same 

2:30am -- nausea 6, air hunger 6, ab tension 6. Agitated. 

3:30am-- 50 mg anti nausea. Go to bed. Symptoms the same. 

3:30-10:30am -- fragmented sleep, wake up with cortisol spike. 

10:30-12:00-- restless. Not sleeping, intrusive thoughts. Agitated. 

12:30pm -- 1coffee. Nausea 7, air hunger 7, ab tension 7.

1:30pm-- oatmeal, mag 150,probiotic, 2 ginger pills. 

Nausea 7, air hunger 7, ab tension 7.agitated. 

4:00pm -- same. Glass of ginger ale. 

5:45 pm-- pizza, mag 250, probiotic,  2 ginger pills. Nausea 7, air hunger 7, ab tension 7.agitated. 

 

[ChessieCat]

I'm just wondering why you go to be so late/early in the morning.

 

Is it because you get scared about it?

[Upnorth]

8 hours ago, Altostrata said:

 

You have expressed a desire to take clonazepam many times, as you have found occasional use relieves some of your symptoms. 

@Altostrata

The ativan does help but I have been trying to stay away from it.  I haven't been able to get a long term prescription. I know you and frogie said this was an option but I haven't been able to move forward on it because of Dr's. 

[ChessieCat]

The reason I ask is because I sometimes feel fear at bedtime.

[Upnorth]

2 minutes ago, ChessieCat said:

I'm just wondering why you go to be so late/early in the morning

I've always been a night owl. This was my work shift for many years and it's the only part of the day that I sorta feel okay 

[Upnorth]

12 minutes ago, ChessieCat said:

The reason I ask is because I sometimes feel fear at bedtime.

I have that too, somewhat. 

Hate the morning cortisol and panick 

Sometimes gravol helps. 

[Upnorth]

@Altostrata @Frogie

      Monday June 14th

7:30pm-- nausea 7,air hunger 7, abdominal tension 7.

9:00pm--nausea 6, air hunger 7, ab/muscle tension 7.

9:30pm-- zoloft 3.5mg. 1 toast. Nausea 6,air hunger 7,muscle tension 7. Agitated. 

11:30pm -- nausea 6,air hunger 6,ab tension 7. Agitated. 

      Tuesday 14th 

1:00am -- same. Agitated. 

2:30am-- 50mg gravol, nausea 5,air hunger 6, ab pressure 6,agitated .

3:30-- still awake, agitated. 

4-10:30am -- fragmented, restless sleep. Cortisol spike at 9:00am. 

9-11:30am -- trying to sleep more.  Fatigued, intrusive thoughts. 

12:00pm -- 1/2 coffee. Nausea 7,air hunger 7, ab muscle tension 7. Agitated. 

1:00pm -- oateal. Mag 150,2 ginger pills. Nausea 8,air hunger 8,ab muscle tension 7. Dizzy. 

2:00pm-- ginger ale. 

4:00-- nausea 7,air hunger 7,muscle tension 7. Agitated. 

6:00pm -- soup and tuna sandwich.  Mag 250, 2 ginger pills.

 

 

[Altostrata]

If you wish, you can stop posting your daily notes, @Upnorth They're not communicating anything to me other than you still appear to be experiencing withdrawal syndrome.

[checkmate]

Hey @Upnorth, sorry to hear you're struggling so badly. 

 

I am by no means an expert, but I have a few suggestions:

 

It looks like you are still drinking coffee on a daily basis and I read in one post that you are also a smoker - is that correct?

 

If so, I would highly recommend eliminating both coffee and cigarettes completely from your life until you can get some semblance of balance back. 

 

Sleep has to be the absolute #1 priority at this point. Both coffee and cigarettes are completely detrimental to that goal, especially in the state you are in. 

 

I myself have struggled with nicotine over my withdrawal period and without a doubt, any time I smoke, it makes my symptoms worse. I can almost guarantee that if you commit to eliminating these things from your routine for at least 2 weeks, you will start to see massive improvements in your sleep and conversely, your mood. Do not even think about doing them again until you have had a prolonged period of feeling well.

 

Also, as Alto suggested, moving your daily SSRI dose earlier in the day should also be beneficial to your sleep as it can be stimulating. Again, as you know already, you NEED to sleep. Anything you are doing that is potentially harming your ability to do that needs to be either modified or removed. Once you sleep, the body will heal and you WILL get better. I have no doubt. 

 

Best of luck to you and please take care.

[Upnorth]

1 hour ago, Altostrata said:

If you wish, you can stop posting your daily notes, @Upnorth They're not communicating anything to me other than you still appear to be experiencing withdrawal syndrome.

@Altostrata

Yes,  the symptoms have changed very little in the last few months.  I have increased to 3.5mg.zoloft for 2 days now. Praying for relief.  Should I still do a split dose?  Thank you for helping me , I've just been really weak and ill lately and hard to think straight .