dioscorea: Lexapro taper

[dioscorea]

Hi, all. Dioscorea here, trying to taper off Lexapro. Again. Sigh.

 

My personal timeline gets pretty wonky starting in 2022, but for the full thing:

2018: started Lexapro 5mg
2019: switched to Lexapro 10mg
2020: switched to Lexapro 15mg
2021: switched back to Lexapro 10mg
Sept 2021: accidental cold turkey from Lexapro; basically off all month and then back on (at full dose) in the beginning of Oct. Bad, bad, bad WD symptoms that took me forever to realize they were WD symptoms. That was a wild time.
Jan 2022: official ADHD diagnosis, yay!
April 2022: added Wellbutrin HCL SR 100mg
June 2022: added Vyvanse 20mg
July 2022: switched to Wellbutrin HCL XL 150mg, switched to Vyvanse 30mg

Sept 2022: official autism diagnosis, yay again!
Dec 2022: switched to Wellbutrin HCL XL 300mg
Jan 2022: started my first (intentional) Lexapro taper; general approval by my psych but did my own schedule. Went way too fast - immediate decrease to 5mg, was at 0 at a month. WD was, once again, terrible, and I was back on my full dose by mid-Feb.
June 2023: started second (intentional) Lexapro taper; this time went with my psych's schedule, which did an immediate decrease to 5mg again
July 2023: decreased Lexapro to 2.5mg - in hindsight, my current WD symptoms began here
August 2023: decreased Lexapro to 2.5mg every third day - intense WD, on par with my 2021 cold turkey symptoms.

 

And now here I am, trying to a) stay alive and b) fix the additional damage I probably just did to my nervous system again. The brain zaps are 95% gone, so physically I'm mostly just dealing with light sensitivity, nausea, and some headaches. Mentally, though, I'm a complete mess. It's admittedly a very stressful time right now, professionally and personally, so I honestly didn't think anything was really wrong for awhile. But a close friend brought up the possibility that it's WD, and after looking around here I'm thinking my latest taper did not go well at all, actually! S.I. is through the roof; my anxiety is so bad I've been shaking for days at this point. I have no appetite. I tried: writing everything down, box breathing, weighted blankets, working out, talking to friends, trying CBD tabs, and doing a handful of EFT videos; nothing has helped calm me down or make any of the other symptoms go away (beyond sleeping. At least I can still sleep).

 

I'm going to start taking 2.5mg again on a daily basis, which is my last lowest dose. I don't know if I should instead immediately jump back in at 5mg, though; I didn't have much, if any, of these symptoms at 5mg, but since it's been almost 2 months since I took 5mg, and about 2 weeks since my last full week of Lexapro before skipping days, is that pushing it? Part of me wants to stay as low as possible for the very sensible reasons posted in this forum, but there's a large part of me that's losing her mind and panicking that I can't get through how I'm feeling right now without a higher dose. I'm just so frustrated and upset with myself right now. I don't want to be on this anymore, and it's looking like I ruined myself enough that it might not ever be possible. It's just insult to injury that the dose I'm stuck on is so close to 0. Blah.

 

 

[dioscorea]

22 hours ago, dioscorea said:

Jan 2022: started my first (intentional) Lexapro taper

 

As a quick edit, this was supposed to say 2023, not 2022 🤦‍♀️

 

Today was my second dose of 2.5mg. Still no appetite, but no brain zaps at all today. My anxiety is still very high but not as much as yesterday. I don't know if it's psychosomatic or not but a win is a win right now, so I'll take it. 

 

I forgot I had bought fish oil capsules last week and they were delivered today, so I took one at lunch. The kind I got was Sports Research triple strength omega-3, which is 1250mg of fish oil in a once a day capsule. Curious to see what, if anything, comes from this. 

 

Still trucking. Gonna make it through today. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

[dioscorea]

Ohhhkay today was rough. So, so many emotional spirals. I might have jinxed myself after posting yesterday because within a couple hours the anxiety was through the roof again. At this point I'm basically just repeating "anything you feel over a 7 out of 10 isn't real" out loud to try to convince myself I can calm down. Really just spent a lot of time reminding myself that I can feel bad - there is a good reason I looked to meds for help in the first place - but I shouldn't feel THIS bad. There's discomfort, and then there's this. The goal is some nice, calm, regular-ass discomfort. 

 

To that extent, kept the same Lexapro dosage as yesterday, and had another fish oil capsule with lunch. Oh my god, and I HAD lunch!! I ate three entire meals today!! Because I was hungry!! That was wild.

 

Stopped at the pharmacy to pick up my latest refills, and one was a brand new rx for Adderall (10mg I think? Don't remember off the top of my head) my psych wrote for me as a booster to the Vyvanse, intended to be used as needed. I just put it away with the backup meds in the cabinet. As much as I would love to feel/be productive right now I know adding that in the mix right now is a terrible idea. We'll see about revisiting that in the much distant future.

 

Hope no one minds I'm talking into the void here. I do feel better just writing it all down in a place where other people are experiencing similar things, so I feel less insane.

[dioscorea]

Short update today because I just woke up from a 2 hour 8pm nap and I'm still exhausted: 2.5mg of Lexapro, but no fish oil (my food intake was wonky because of my schedule so I decided to skip it). Can't really speak to any physical or mental symptoms today since I had a competition that required all my concentration, and I have no idea what I felt was related to this and what wasn't. I didn't think about it earlier but reading some posts in the window/wave thread has me really concerned tomorrow is going to be absolute garbage as I rebound from everything today. Guess we'll find out? I'm going back to bed.

[dioscorea]

actually none of this is withdrawal, is it? this is probably just me not knowing how to be an adult. just realized how dumb is it for me to think it. if a mod ever sees this post can you delete the thread? i still don't have editing ability. thanks

[Altostrata]

Welcome, @dioscorea

 

On 8/10/2023 at 6:44 PM, dioscorea said:

July 2023: decreased Lexapro to 2.5mg - in hindsight, my current WD symptoms began here
August 2023: decreased Lexapro to 2.5mg every third day - intense WD, on par with my 2021 cold turkey symptoms.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 6:44 PM, dioscorea said:

I'm going to start taking 2.5mg again on a daily basis, which is my last lowest dose.

 

We advise people not to taper while they have withdrawal symptoms -- to wait until the symptoms go away. You did the right thing in taking 2.5mg again. How do you feel now?