Definez: Need help to try and figure out best possible moves for me

[Definez]

Hello all I’m new hopefully you all have insight.. 

 

So I’m new but I’ll try to keep my story quick and concise with enough info back I’ve always struggled with ocd anxiety and depression and have been on mends in the past back in 2017 I was eventually on 200 mg of quetipine and 60 of Prozac where I made a full recovery during that time I was taking 3 mg of Ativan daily for about a month was able to quit all medications with no issues Ativan in a month with no symptoms i noticed and Prozac and quetipine 7 months after no issues I ended up smoking cannabis after that till about December 11 2023 I quit cannabis out of choice and my ocd anxiety depression no sleep came back waited out a month before I decided to go to a psych cuz I though maybe my old symptoms came back and I needed meds to chill for a bit till then so December 20, 2023 I started taking lorazepam on and off for high anxiety moments while I waited  a psych appointment on February 1 where I went and got back on Prozac 60mg to start  and 100 of quetipine where on the 4 day of taking it I would increase to 200. When I did that increase too 200

I had an adverse reaction head burning and developed akathaisa after that we discontinued the quetipine  the day after so four days total use but  I took Prozac for two more days before  we took me off that aswell. During that time we tried a few other meds in conjunction to the lorazepam to alleviate akathaisa symptoms proponolo and gabapentin. I couldn’t tolerate the gabapentine so stopped it after taking for only three days but continued to take the proponolo and lorazepam .My Akathisia started to improve in record time the doom feeling, s, burning ,  anxiety and pacing was there but not as bad as the beginning eventually leading up to me thinking it was healing for good but I knew I had to get off the lorazepam so I started planning to get off it.  I was taking anywhere from 0.5-1 mg of lorazepam some days 1.5 rarely and about 20-40 mg of proponolo daily. Eventually my akathaisa let up a bit and  I felt good so was taking 0.5 of lorazepam starting February 12 daily for before an appointment I had on the 21st of February .I was doing ok with just that morning dose of 0.5 I still had  anxiety at points but I was managing. February 21st I had an appointment with a doctor that suggested I switch to clonazepam since it was longer acting and I did. Took one dose of 0.25 clonazepam that night and felt ok. Woke up the next day and didn’t dose the normal lorazepam  I took every morning.  by  night time  where I had most my windows this particular night after trying this  my window was  gone so I dosed another .25 of clonazepam  with no relief but went to bed . Woke up the next day and took another .25 of clonazepam instead of of my lorazepam and again no relief and things were getting worse by 5 pm I figured it out that I was possibly having withdrawals from no lorazepam and dosed 0.5 of lorazepam and felt much better not 100 but way better so I figured I pretty much had failed the switch since I didn’t do it right by slowly crossing over. I stopped dosing the clonazepam and went back to taking lorazepam but the dmg I believe was already  done I had to take 1 mg daily split into two doses instead of my usual 0.5 only with everything flaring back up burning sensations restless anxiety off the charts all came back from that one move. I probably should have just kept dosing in pill form and tried to stabilize but I  also figured since I was gonna be tapering lorazepam sometime in the future  I may aswell inform myself in taper methods. I had settled on wanting to do a water taper and figured I could start to practice it now taking my full dose split into water so started to dissolve 1mg of lorazepam in 200 ml of water and splitting the dose three ways to avoid interdose withdrawal as much as possible . I have never taken it like and was not suffering from interdose withdrawal  at any point in time that I can think off and I knew that I would be dropping the dose I took in the morning from 0.5 to 0.335 and the second dose ro 0.335 and the third dose would be 0.33 as that’s how it splits in water to split the doses evenly but pushed forward since ide still be taking my meds. Since dosing in water form    my anxiety has been weirder not sure if the ct flared my aka or if I’m adjusting to taking it water. Ive recently developed muscle spams and jerks that come and go through the day more when im stressed out or when going to bed that  were not there before the the faiked

switch then now am attempt to adjust to taking my doses in water. Mylonic jerk  that happened only once at this time and muscle spasms that started 8 days into dosing in water that woke me up at night only beginning of switching to water they were not there but slowly started to develope with the muscle

spasms still present. I kept going like this for 3 weeks seeming some improvement so tried to drop 3.5 ml over four days my anxiety started to spike so I got scared and reinstated the small amount I had dropped two days later after the drops. I then help my dose still taking in water because I had a wisdom tooth removal so held for two more weeks. Was doing ok but on week three of holding  my aka came back out of no where  and now I have been declining ….  My doctor thinks I should stabilize first by going back to dosing pills, he did not like the idea of dosing in water. He wants to add Guanfecine instead of my proponolo to manage my anxiety first. then if we can manage my anxiety and Akathisia with the Guanfecine we can start to worry about the taper he says I’m looking to forward  to the future and in need to slow down . I feel stuck but recently did see improvements when my dose of proponolo went up form 5mg twice a day too 10 mg twice a day but he feels like Guanfecine will cover me longer and won’t be as strong as clonodine .he thinks my body is not absorbing the pills in the water and believes my dosing could be going down the drain when I pee when I first started dosing in water I did notice a lot of things had changed in a bad way  compared to when I took my doses in pills maybe my body didn’t like the water dosing but now I’ve been doing that for more than 6 weeks . He wants me to go back to pills 0.5 twice a day but I’ve been doing three doses a day I wonder if this will make it worse I guess any changes will at this point I could also just add another 0.5 I know this is an increase in doses but I don’t know how in the world I could start a taper with Akathisia already if anyone could help ide appreciate it..

[Onmyway]

Hi @Definez

I am so sorry you are suffering so badly with the drug changes and likely withdrawal. Akathisia is awful. 

 

We are a site for going off psychiatric drugs in the safest way possible through tapering slowly. We are not a site that advises on drug cocktails or how to manage such drug cocktails and their side effects. This you can do best with your doctor. We have no expertise in that area. 

 

If you decide to come off of your drugs, however, we are your people!  We can help you do that with the least amount of damage and suffering. 

 

Please let us know how we can help. If you do want our help with tapering advice we'd need you to create a drug signature - pls see instructions on the front page where the link to create an account on the site is.

 

Hope you start feeling better quickly. 

Omw

Edited April 18 by Onmyway

[Definez]

13 hours ago, Onmyway said:

Hi @Definez

I am so sorry you are suffering so badly with the drug changes and likely withdrawal. Akathisia is awful. 

 

We are a site for going off psychiatric drugs in the safest way possible through tapering slowly. We are not a site that advises on drug cocktails or how to manage such drug cocktails and their side effects. This you can do best with your doctor. We have no expertise in that area. 

 

If you decide to come off of your drugs, however, we are your people!  We can help you do that with the least amount of damage and suffering. 

 

Please let us know how we can help. If you do want our help with tapering advice we'd need you to create a drug signature - pls see instructions on the front page where the link to create an account on the site is.

 

Hope you start feeling better quickly. 

Omw

I’ve updated my signature what I wanna do is come of lorazepam safely and not trigger my Akathisia I had it actually go way down for about almost two months but once I started dosing my lorazepam on water I began to have issues. I have since 4/17/24 started taking my doses back in pills. I believe the water titration set me back and I pushed myself thinking I would adjust but most of my problems started after that for the most part. I have since updosed to 1.5 for two days now in an attempt to calm my system and buy time to readjust to pills. I figured it would be the best option I had as the water taper did not agree with my body and I was pretty much dosing it like that for a month and a half. My hope is with this updose I will stabilize then I can try to come off slow and safe with a micro dry cut method and avoid flaring up my Akathisia as much as I can during this process. I’m still afraid of the updose but it seemed like the best option as to let me stabilize since I haven’t really dropped anything besides once while on my water taper I went from 1mg daily to 0.9825mg daily and went back up after 5 days. I hope this updose and switch back to pills will set me up for success…