Sweetpetite: Issues with paxil withdrawal on low doses

[Altostrata]

What is the timing of your symptoms relative to when you take your drugs?

[Sweetpetite]

I have been taking the seroxat in the morning, usually around 9am. My symptoms do tend to get worse in the evenings. It's been a few days since I last posted and I am starting to come out of the wave I think, i have been plotting how I'm feeling out of 10 and have identified that the waves and windows seem to be around 5-7 days each. I'm glad I haven't given in and updosed yet

[Altostrata]

Do the waves correspond to your menstrual cycle?

 

Yes, it sounds like your system is still settling down.

[Sweetpetite]

hi, not been around for bit but really needing some help right now as I'm really struggling

 

as my signature says i had to updose back upto 0.4ml (0.8mg) seroxat in may this year as I was really struggling. I left it for 5 months until October and I stabilised a bit enough to attempt to go back down to 0.38ml (0.76mg) a 5% drop, i thought going more slowly would help. Its been 3 months now and I feel horrendous, worse i've ever felt. there are still waves and windows but the waves seem to be getting longer and more extreme and the windows less and shorter nothing seems to be getting easier. I now feel numb yet still depressed and also bad DP/DR, life is really hard right now. I live abroad away from my family I have friends but rarely talk about how I feel because I struggle to describe it and not sure they couldunderstand, i don't want to discuss with a doctor because i'm worried they'll just stick me on more medication. this is my only outlet at the moment. i just feel so isolated and defeated.

 

if i'm honest i've been really struggling for a year and half since i cut by 20% to 2mg in May 2014.I just feel like updosing to feel better again as I can't cope with how I'm feeling. I was so determined to come off this stuff but i feel like i'm losing the fight and i should just updose till i feel okay again even if it does mean coping with the side effects again. numb and detatched is better than how I feel right now at least I could live some kind of life

 

Sarah

[bubble]

Hello Sarah and welcome back.

 

I'm sorry to hear that you are still struggling. Struggling is always hard and even more so at this time of the year. I'm afraid I don't have a solution but wanted to get back to you because I know very well what it is like to be all alone with this kind of symptoms (even if we are not physically alone other people can't really understand). 

 

I looked at your very clear signature. It speaks of lot of effort and thought put into a taper which was much slower than what we usually see around here. It would be good to update it with more recent changes after May. As you yourself realised going faster at low doses seems to have destabilised you quite a bit. On the other hand you have managed to come to such a low dose where any side effects of the drug are really minimal.

 

My personal credo is: when in doubt, hold. It seems to me that you have analysed your situation very well and if I was in your situation I would reach the same conclusion: you seemed to have had a good experience with updosing before. For me this general impression of whether waves are increasing or decreasing is also very important. Although I naturally feel worse at this time of the year taper or no taper, if you have this impression of things getting worse despite holding that would speak in favour of updosing as well. Updosing is not losing a fight. You have come so far and you are still coping. That's a huge victory. Maybe next time you can give yourself an even longer hold. 5 months is long but it seems your brain would've appreciated an even longer one.  

 

I can't help much more than giving my take on things and showing that you are not alone in all this. Writing here helps me to get a perspective on things and makes things clearer for me so I hope it helped you in this way too.

 

Keep us posted about what you decide and how you feel. I just remembered our dear moderator Brassmonkey who is at the low dose of Paxil also. Maybe reading through his thread and getting to know some other fellow travellers will make you feel less alone.

 

Best,

 

Bubble

[Sweetpetite]

hi bubble,

 

thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply. means so much to be able to speak to someone who can understand and sympathise

 

i currently only have a small amount of liquid seroxat left until i get a new prescription in the new year so my plan is to try and hold at least until then. I am tracking how i feel on a daily basis but if i continue to feel like i do and the waves are as bad as they currently are i think i will need to updose. i am a bit of a perfectionist and am hard on myself so i have to remind myself i have done well so far and am not a failure for updosing if i need to. i need to be able to feel like i'm coping (i have a fairly stressful job) and at the moment i don't.

 

it's shocked me how much this drug can affect me at such low doses, i definitley think the end is the hardest part of the battle

 

i wiill have a look at brassmonkey's thread and update my signature

 

thank you

[Rachelina]

Oh, I relate to you so much. I thought I was tapering Paxil SO slowly, dropping by 0.1 mg per month. Was feeling fine most of the way and suddenly at 0.5 mg I crashed: the worst imaginable depression, derealization and pure terror. Updosing to 1 mg did not help after 5 weeks so I have gone up to 2 mg and am still waiting for relief. I do have some decent days and have a feeling that I will slowly stabilize over the next few months. Just sharing this so that you know you are not alone. For some of us who are extra sensitive, the last 1 mg is the hardest and may actually take years to taper. Wishing you healing whatever you decide to do.

[bubble]

I was reading through your thread and came across this post below. This strikes me as very important because you mention you are near the end of your bottle. Could that be a factor that might explain increase in your symptoms?

 

 

Sweetpetite, I guess it is possible your liquid had lost potency, if it had a shelf-life of only a month.

 

 Have you considered this? How long have you had the bottle?

 

Maybe give it a little more time, you only updosed just over 2 weeks ago, and you had a small window, sometimes it can take a couple of months for things to settle after a change. If it were me, I would wait a bit longer before trying another updose and then if you do, only try another 10%.

 

The risk you take if you keep updosing is that you may never stabilize on any dose and you are going in the wrong direction. At least if you hold where you are, you will stabilize eventually, then when you do, you can wait a little longer and then continue with a much slower taper.

 

Keep notes of your symptoms to see if there are any patterns. Are your symptoms diminishing? Staying about the same? If there are even slight improvements happening, I think I would hold.

 

I was actually going through your thread to see if we shared with you the thread which explains why it is so difficult to taper at small doses. It's rather technical and I don't understand all the details but it seems to me that the general idea is clear: 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/6036-why-taper-paper-demonstrates-importance-of-gradual-change-in-plasma-concentration/

[Pokeshaw]

Hi Sweetpetite,

 

I just wanted to chime in and say that i understand your situation. I am tapering off Lexapro and am down to .430 mg and can say that i have had to do very small micro-cuts since anything more that 1-2% causes me w/d symptoms. So, you are not alone. The good folks here convinced me that i should not worry about doing micro cuts and holding as long as needed. I am ok with that now and doing much better.

 

I hope you get some stability. I understand about the stressful job too. I find I have to make a real effort to do stress relief exercises like daily meditation/prayer and breathing otherwise it is all too much. I hope you have some kind of options in that regard. this is one of my favorites. I found it on this site on someone's thread a while back. it is so soothing and helpful that i went to the site and ordered others.

 

 

Take good care ~

 

Best, Pokeshaw