Evon7: My medication journey and now withdrawal

[Evon7]

Looking for support, hopefully someone will take the time to read my story🙏🏻

I was on Celexa 40mg for about 9 years.... I started to experience horrific health anxiety and bad intrusive thoughts! I then decided to find a psychiatrist to see if I should try a different medication. I found a telehealth psychiatrist and we had about an hour long initial visit and in that visit, she had diagnosed me with bipolar. I was skeptical about the diagnosis from the beginning, seeing as I've never experienced any of the symptoms that come along with bipolar, I've always just had severe anxiety with a little depression...She told me to wean off my Celexa, which I did very slow slowly over the course of a few months. The taper was really hard for me, but I made it through. I felt OK when finishing about two weeks after the Celexa was out of my system, she had told me to try Latuda the day I started that I became extremely depressed, crying spells, weak limbs, and loss of interest. I stayed on that for about 10 days before I realized the side effects were too much for me. I waited about 10 days of being off of that and then she started me on caplyta which also gave me the same symptoms so after about a week on that, I also stopped, during this whole period of time I had been taking about 40 mg of THC Delta nine she had told me to wean off of that and I did and in that time, my intrusive thoughts and heightened anxiety had gone away, I realized it wasn't the Celexa that was causing my heightened anxiety. It was the THC so I had asked my psychiatrist if I could get back on my Celexa since it worked so well for me for nine years, she agreed and said I could go back on and also added on 10mg of buspar when I started that night, I experienced severe debilitating insomnia ,about 4 weeks in My doc told me to stop the buspar for a week to see if that help and it didn't change my sleep only made my anxiety worst so I started my buspar again... then a month into it all I started to develop this crazy nervous feeling, different than my normal anxiety and my pharmacist said that  nervousness is a side effect of buspar, but I didn't start to notice till after a month of taking it ! 

I have  tried trazodone and Seroquel for sleep , and they only seem to work every so often and they're still numerous nights where I don't get even an hour of sleep and I build up dose tolerance very quickly...She had then advised me I should probably wean off of my Celexa again as she assumed that was causing my insomnia, the first two weeks off of my celexa sleep started to come back not great but very fragmented. I'm now about a month off of my Celexa and I feel as if my sleep is getting worse again I have multiple days where I get either an hour or two or zero hours of sleep! I also stopped buspar cold turkey and I'm still dealing with the bad nervousness 3 weeks later... please tell me I will adjust and sleep and withdrawal side effects will eventually subside!?? I feel completely defeated! Any advice or encouragement welcome!

[Jane318]

Greetings @Evon7 and welcome to SA. We are a community of volunteers providing peer support in the tapering of psychiatric medications and their associated withdrawal syndromes. 

 

Thank you for completing your drug signature.  Can you please edit to correct the year "2025" - this should be 2024, correct?  Also, more details about your Celexa tapers would be valuable - dates and doses.

 

I am sorry that you are suffering so much right now.  I can assure you that you will feel better, although it will likely take some time.  From your narrative, you tapered Celexa much more quickly than we would advise.  This by itself can lead to severe withdrawal.  Here at SA, we recommend the hyperbolic taper method, which you can read about here:  Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

So it seems that you are experiencing severe withdrawal due to combination of too-fast tapers of multiple drugs perhaps worsened by adverse effects from the TCH and/or buspar.  Your central nervous system has become highly sensitized and is trying hard to stabilize from all these changes. 

 

You have two options.  First, is to wait this out - it will likely take many months for you to stabilize.  Or, since it has been only a few weeks since stopping Celexa, you might consider reinstating a small dose.  Reinstatement of a very small dose of the original drug is the only known way to help alleviate withdrawal syndrome.  It isn’t a guarantee of diminished symptoms but it’s the best tactic available. 

 

Reinstatement predictably works up to 3 months after last dose.  It is best to reinstate as soon as possible after withdrawal symptoms occur. We usually suggest a much smaller reinstatement dose than your last dose.  These drugs are strong, and when reinstating it is better to start with a small amount and increase if symptoms remain unbearable. Your system has become sensitized and if you take too much it may be too much for your brain and can cause you become unstable.  Sometimes it can be hard to regain stability after this happens.  Then, once you've stabilized on that dosage, which can take several months, you can begin a 10% per month taper down to zero.   Please read:

About Reinstating and Stabilizing to Reduce Withdrawal Symptoms

How long does it take to stabilize after reinstating or updosing?

Hypersensitivity and kindling

If you want to try reinstatement and would like our input on an initial dose to try, we will need your taper details.

Regardless, it will likely take several months to stabilize, but symptoms will gradually subside with time.  Yes, you will recover with time and patience.

 

You may want to read / view the following information about withdrawal syndrome:

What is withdrawal syndrome?

Brain Remodelling 

Video:  Healing From Antidepressants - Patterns of Recovery

 

On 12/7/2024 at 10:52 AM, Evon7 said:

I have  tried trazodone and Seroquel for sleep , and they only seem to work every so often and they're still numerous nights where I don't get even an hour of sleep and I build up dose tolerance very quickly.

We discourage the use of benzos for sleep because it is easy to develop dependence, adding another drug that must be tapered.  Here is some information about non-drug strategies for improving sleep: Tips to help sleep -- so many of us have that awful withdrawal insomnia

 

As you hold and later when you begin to taper to zero, it is very normal to have periods where you feel better, and periods where you feel terrible.  This is what we call the windows and waves pattern of stabilization.  This is actually a good sign of healing!  Read more about windows and waves here:   The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization

 

It’s important to keep tabs on your symptoms.  This will help you identify your windows and waves and reveal your progress, which is encouragement we need!   You can use the following list of typical withdrawal symptoms to track the severity of your symptoms over time:  Daily Checklist of Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptoms (PDF).  You may choose to also track your foods and activities to identify things that trigger symptoms as well. 

 

In terms of coping with symptoms, we have many, many threads on this subject here at SA- I will link some of them below.  It is extremely important that you start working on some non-drug coping mechanisms early in your journey, in order to maximize your chances of getting off of these drugs and staying off of them for good!

Apathy, anhedonia, emotional numbness, emotional anesthesia 

 Derealization or Depersonalization

 Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

 Easing your way into meditation for a stressed-out nervous system

Music for self-care: calms hyperalertness, anxiety, aids relaxation and sleep

Ways to cope with daily anxiety

"Change the channel" - dealing with cognitive symptoms

Dealing With Emotional Spirals

Symptoms and self-care

Getting Started With Mindfulness

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for anxiety, depression, withdrawal symptoms, insomnia

 

There are a few things you can do to help your nervous system heal.   Eat a balanced, whole foods diet, stay well hydrated, engage in gentle exercise, and get adequate rest/sleep.  Avoid all neurologically active substances, like caffeine, alcohol, nicotine and recreational drugs- these are like pouring gasoline on a fire for your symptoms.  Avoid adding any further psychiatric medications to deal with your withdrawal from psych meds- the effects of these meds on a destabilized nervous system is unpredictable, and taking something else could make you worse.

 

We recommend only two supplements here - magnesium (glycinate is a good form) and omega 3 (fish oil). Many people find these to be calming to the nervous system.

Magnesium, nature's calcium channel blocker 

Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) 

 

This is your introduction topic.  Each member gets one intro topic- please post updates and questions here, in this thread.

 

I look forward to following your journey, and helping out in any way I can.

 

Best wishes.

[Jane318]

Greetings @Evon7 - Wondering how you are doing and what you decided about whether or not to reinstate a small dose of Celexa?  Wishing you the best for the holidays.