RoseNettle: tapering Lexapro 10 months in

[RoseNettle]

On 1/17/2024 at 7:23 AM, LukeUK said:

 

If this advice is a bit off then apologies- I haven't been able to pick out the sizes of reductions you've been making and what symptoms they caused.

 

 

Thank you all for the insight. Slow and steady wins the race. <3. 

 

As for Luke, my reductions are all written in my signature. I never clearly wrote out my past symptoms (feeling worlds better, thank God!) so I'll do that now for anyone curious (these all become prominent in August 2022, five months after reducing and holding a .5 mg reduction): 

 

-Needing to sleep 10–12 hours per day, hard to open eyes without

 

-Muscles twitching, fork-in-an-electric-socket kind of zapping

 

-Brain zapping

 

-Tremoring and shaking when crying

 

-60lb weight gain over five years

 

-Unable to listen to audio at full speed (people talking way too fast)

 

-Wiped out exhaustion from doing  “not much”

 

-Heat radiating from solar plexus/chest (burning hot, need ice to cool) down arms

 

-Phantom sharp pains that radiate (jaw, elbows, knees, shoulders, hands)

 

-Five-day long headache stretches

 

-Weepy crying, howling (for about 3 months — howling was primal, animal)

 

-Weeks-long diarrhea (serotonin lives in the gut, after all)

 

-Extensive eyelid twitching (alternates between left & right)

 

-Dizzy spells 

 

-Difficulty speaking, throat tightens

 

-Difficulty holding eye contact for too long, feels too intense

 

-Fluorescent light sensitivity — elevates heart rate 

 

-Extreme nausea, need nausea bands days on end 

 

-Disturbing intrusive thought loops (bizarre, freakish)

 

-Severe nausea after sex (for about four months)

 

-Vibration sensitivity and panic (from bass, motorcycles, cars, or soundbars)

 

-Car traffic illicit panicky sensations

 

-Extremely overheated, can’t cool down or sweat; feels like I’m going to combust

 

-Very painful Charlie horses in calves when stretching/ waking up (dehydration/minerals depleted)

 

-Elevated heart rate with any exercise, even slow walking 

 

-Elevated heart rate in heat/humidity above 80 Fahrenheit, even sitting  

 

-Needing to apply ice to body in summer on chest, bottoms of feet, and brainstem  

 

-Skin feels like it’s burning from the inside out (face) 

 

-Survival stress after eating — throat tightening, feeling the need to run away

 

-Frightened in stores, malls, or enclosed spaces where I cannot visually see the outside world 

 

-Head/ear pressure and lightheadedness when standing up too fast and after sitting for a while/ laying too quickly (especially in heat)

 

-Tightness in solar plexus/chest — Constricting, tensing tightness, hard to expand for a full breath

 

-Gasping for breath, over-breathing, hyperventilation, unable to take a satisfying, full breath

 

-Breath is shallow, shaky, trepid (biggest help: don’t do breathwork at this stage and do not “change” your breath — let it BE as it is)

 

-Blurry eyes — the world feels overwhelmingly blurry and too bright simultaneously; difficult to focus visually

 

-Body odor when cutting a dosage (deodorant brand didn’t change)

 

-Waking up in pools of sweat

 

-Waking up gasping for air and/or screaming for help (no emotions attached)