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Ihaveaspergersapparantly: Aspie - Cold turkey? Why!?!?

Ihaveaspergersapparently

By Ihaveaspergersapparently
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Ihaveaspergersapparently Newbie

Ihaveaspergersapparently

Posted
Posted

Hello everybody. Usually I have no online presence and would not dream of it, but I am seriously lacking in support. My GP no longer accepts psychiatric appointments and my therapist is on leave.

 

Please read my signature. I have stupidly gone cold turkey from paroxetine, feeling that it would be the same as going cold turkey from citalopram, which I have done before. I was seriously wrong.

 

I would be indebted to anybody with experience in this and who could offer me some support or advice.

 

Thank you.

I'm 28, male, from London, at Cambridge University and failing... this is why...

 

I have a long history of depression and anxiety, first being diagnosed with depression at 8. From 2001-2007 I took 60mg of citalopram. What followed was excessive sleep. When life became busy, sleep became a problem, so I shifted to sertraline. I was sectioned following a psychotic reaction. Then I switched swiftly to fluexotine. For 3 months I was pretty agoraphobic. I was irritated. I quit cold turkey. I then had 6 weeks of mild brain zaps and, after that, a brief period of serenity.

In 2011 I had a breakdown. I have been back on the citalopram until last July. Sleep, again, became a problem, so they put me on paroxetine. This was by far the most disgusting thing I have ever ingested. I was on paroxetine for 5 months and then, probably quite stupidly, I quit cold turkey. This was following a diagnosis of Asperger's from a new therapist who was shocked to find out that nobody had recognised it before. He advised me to quit the SSRI's and seek therapy.

I have experienced 8 weeks of brain zaps and vertigo and aggression and lethargy and diarrhoea. The worst is a burning sensation all over, in my skin, that prevents me from relaxing. It is constant. Even when I am shivering from cold, my skin crawls with heat and my face flushes red. Today (21st February 2016), after 3 days of relative calm, all of these symptoms have returned tenfold, all at once: my head is swimming, my skin is crawling, I feel aggressive and insomnic and have a strong craving for whiskey, which I am, at the moment of writing this, knocking back. My studies are suffering. My symptoms are getting worse. I am here for support.

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coldturkmama Contributor

coldturkmama

Posted
Posted

I went cold turkey from 40mgs of paxil....worst time ever.

Paxil 20mg from 1998-2011 

Paxil 40mg from 2011-2012 while experiencing poopout

October 2013 quit cold turkey

Oct-mid Nov 2013 great window

Late November WD nightmare 

Windows and waves pattern 

Now: 28 months cold turkey...doing decent learning to deal with the windows/waves pattern fighting it every step of the way. 

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btdt Newbie

btdt

Posted
Posted

I don't know what to say except magnesium might be a bit better then whiskey to take the edge off things maybe....but I am not going to pretend I did not drink at times when I was in a bad state... I have and paid for it.  If tomorrow is a problem I recommend pedalite ... fluid replacement for babies.. great for hang overs and the wd runs ect... but tastes like crap.. I was once addicted to it ... the only thing that helped me. Orange is the best of the evil flavours. 

 

So if I have this right you have been drugged continually since 2001... no therapist should advice to quit ct unless your were having a severe adverse reaction... that should likely be supervised not pretending I have not quit ct...before that is how I do it all the time usually because a doctor told me to but not always.  

 

Is there any reason you can think of for the up surging in symptoms ..not that it does not happen on its own it does but sometimes if we can sort out what caused it ... sometimes there is a cause... 

 

chinese food for me is one... chemicals is another... 

 

are you still here... hydrate if you can magnesium citrate... epson salt bath may help till something more serious can be worked out... 

or this

My time on paxil was brief and I went right from it to another drug... I can't recall it all now...sorry but there are many here with tons of paxil experience they will be along... 

I wish you peace... 

This too will pass... know it. 

 

WARNING THIS WILL BE LONG
Had a car accident in 85
Codeine was the pain med when I was release from hosp continuous use till 89
Given PROZAC by a specialist to help with nerve pain in my leg 89-90 not sure which year
Was not told a thing about it being a psych med thought it was a pain killer no info about psych side effects I went nuts had hallucinations. As I had a head injury and was diagnosed with a concussion in 85 I was sent to a head injury clinic in 1990 five years after the accident. I don't think they knew I had been on prozac I did not think it a big deal and never did finish the bottle of pills. I had tests of course lots of them. Was put into a pain clinic and given amitriptyline which stopped the withdrawal but had many side effects. But I could sleep something I had not done in a very long time the pain lessened. My mother got cancer in 94 they switched my meds to Zoloft to help deal with this pressure as I was her main care giver she died in 96. I stopped zoloft in 96 had withdrawal was put on paxil went nutty quit it ct put on resperidol quit it ct had withdrawal was put on Effexor... 2years later celexa was added 20mg then increased to 40mg huge personality change went wild. Did too fast taper off Celexa 05 as I felt unwell for a long time prior... quit Effexor 150mg ct 07 found ****** 8 months into withdrawal learned some things was banned from there in 08 have kept learning since. there is really not enough room here to put my history but I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things especially any of the drugs mentioned above.
One thing I would like to add here is this tidbit ALL OPIATES INCREASE SEROTONIN it is not a huge jump to being in chronic pain to being put on an ssri/snri and opiates will affect your antidepressants and your thinking.

As I do not update much I will put my quit date Nov. 17 2007 I quit Effexor cold turkey. 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1096-introducing-myself-btdt/

There is a crack in everything ..That's how the light gets in :)

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coldturkmama Contributor

coldturkmama

Posted
Posted

Chinese food for me as well! Always makes things worse.

Paxil 20mg from 1998-2011 

Paxil 40mg from 2011-2012 while experiencing poopout

October 2013 quit cold turkey

Oct-mid Nov 2013 great window

Late November WD nightmare 

Windows and waves pattern 

Now: 28 months cold turkey...doing decent learning to deal with the windows/waves pattern fighting it every step of the way. 

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nz11 Newbie

nz11

Posted
Posted

Welcome to SA.

 I'm sorry to hear about everything you have been through and the difficult position you are now in.

 

  If I were you I would strongly doubt the Asperger’s  diagnosis.

 

I know nothing about medical things but I have just read some symptoms of Asperger’s diagnosis are inability to socialize, communicate or use imagination. Well SSRI use and withdrawal will do that to a person.

 

So I wonder if wannabe therapists are taking that into consideration. How did your therapist come to this conclusion? And how can an eight-year-old be diagnosed with depression? And hit with large amounts of a drug.

 

I also like btdt question the ethics of your therapist to tell you to quit the drugs. With what seems to be complete ignorance of the outcome. Even the drug companies don’t say cold turkey. These drugs need to be tapered very slowly often for many with long-term use over many years. How is it that your therapist can overrule your doctor? When you say therapist are you referring to a psychiatrist?

 

It seems very wrong to me that you can diagnose a brain that has been altered by drugs especially when very serious and dangerous negligent drug withdrawal (non-existent) tapering has been triggered.

 

I find it very disappointing that your GP is no longer taking psychiatric appointments. And your therapist is on leave and can’t be contacted. There seems to be a black hole of responsibility for your health care if you ask me.

 

I would find a new doctor (and consider filing a complaint against your old doctor).

 

Going off any psychiatric drug changes the game should exposure to these drugs occur again imo leaving the nervous system vulnerable to escalated problems in withdrawal.

 

The breakdown you refer to in 2011 may not be due to a flaw in you but highly likely caused by perhaps an external stressor to a very de-stabilized and healing central nervous system, causing an implosion,  caused by exposure to citalopram, sertraline, and prozac and what appears to be a cold turkey of all 3.

 

Personally I feel that to cold turkey someone of 60 mg of citalopram is unacceptable. This site would recommend about 40 months of tapering to get off that.

 

It appears you've been on citalopram the longest. You are a citalopram addict. Maybe if you have some left you could consider taking a very low dose of the drug, such as 2mg, which can help relieve withdrawal syndrome.

See http://survivinganti...rawal-symptoms/

If it works, you'd stay on it for a good while, some months, and then taper off by very small amounts. If you get a bad reaction, you can stop it right away.

 

 Citalopram comes in a liquid form for titration, see http://survivinganti...exa-citalopram/

 

The alternative may be a small dose of paroxetine.

You have been exposed to this for five months did you ever feel stable while on it. To ri this would be your call.

 

The other option is to stay the course drug free. I would be the first one to say do it if I felt it was on.

However after coming off such massive amounts of drug for what appears to be 15 years of use and even after two months drug free it may be rough for a very long time (we could be talking years) and so the wisest option may be to try a small dose reinstatement.

 

It would be very wise to remove alcohol out of the equation at this time.

 

This thread is well worth reading

Brain remodeling

As well as this one on tapering

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1024-why-taper-by-10-of-my-dosage/

 

 

Good luck with your decision-making. You are not alone.

 

You are currently suffering classic signs of withdrawal symptom. I would be pointing the finger at that rather than any kind of ethnic food.

When I quit Paxil I had an embarrassing amount of diarrhea and many accidents. And after five years I still have loose bowels.

The first two years of withdrawal I vomited so much in the morning that anyone would have thought I was pregnant.

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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romina95 Newbie

romina95

Posted
Posted

I switched cold turkey from lexapro to prozac and from prozac to paxil and i almost didnt feel it.. But when i cold turkeyd/tapered extremely fast paxil,it was a different story

2011~ lexapro 40-60 mg (mom,why didn't you stop me I was 15..)

2013~ prozac 40mg ,seroquel 25mg (here we go poop-out and merry-go-round!

2014~ paxil 40mg, seroquel 100mg (thanks psych ward for the benzo trial and WD too)

2015~ (worst year of my life):

- basically CT'd from paxil (40 to 20mg in one day,then 10 then 0 in one month total)

and seroquel (cold turkey) in May, horrible withdrawals with every decrease. I said " well Imma ride this out", yeah right.. Two weeks off I couldn't take it anymore.

- Drs. Lab rat( they tried prozac,lexapro,also for a few days cymbalta,venlafaxine,and for anxiety olanzapine and different doses seroquel)

- started wellbutrin (which "cured" my by then 1/2 year withdrawal in a few days,what?)

2016~zoloft 100mg,wellbutrin 300mg,seroquel 50mg

I hope to be med-free one day,I started at such a young age so, Who am I? No idea. :)

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KarenB Newbie

KarenB

Posted
  • Moderator Emeritus
Posted

Hi Aspie,

 

Sorry to hear things have gotton so bad.  From this position, there are two options.

 

1.  Stay off drugs and wait for months or years for the w/d symptoms to stop.  They may get worse before they get better.

2.  Reinstate a small amount of Paroxetine (this was your last drug?) in order to stabilise.  You could then plan a gentle taper.  The amount will depend on what your last dose was.  Could you put that in your sig. too?

 

I know going back on doesn't sound great, but it's probably your best way through all this. 

 

I think the others mentioned this above, but alcohol will make your w/d symptoms worse.  The reason is that your Central Nervous System is now so destabilised, that other strong influences (alcohol, coffee, intense exercise...) are too much for it.  Right now your body needs calm and stable. 

 

The reason you've had some better days and some awful days is due to The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilisation

 

Have a read of those links and see what you think.  There is no guarantee with reinstating, but the sooner one does it the more likely it is to work.  You can come back to this thread to discuss things further.  This will be your place to ask questions and record your progress.

 

It's good to have you here,

Karen

2010  Fluoxetine 20mg.  2011  Escitalopram 20mg.  2013 Tapered badly and destabilised CNS.  Effexor 150mg. 

2015 Begin using info at SurvivingAntidepressants.  Cut 10% - bad w/d 2 months, held 1 month. 

Micro-tapering: four weekly 0.4% cuts, hold 4 weeks (struggling with symptoms).

8 month hold.

2017 Micro-tapering: four weekly 1% cuts, hold 4 weeks (symptoms almost non-existent).

2020 Still micro-tapering. Just over 2/3 of the way off effexor. Minimal symptoms, - and sleeping well.
Supplements: Fish oil, vitamin C, iron, oat-straw tea, nettle tea.

2023 December - Now on 5 micro-beads Effexor. Minimal symptoms but much more time needed between drops. Symptoms begin to increase.

2024 April - Updosed to 6 microbeads - immediate increase in symptoms for 4 days. Decreased to 5 microbeads.

 'The possibility of renewal exists so long as life exists.'  Dr Gabor Mate.

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  • Administrator
Altostrata Grand Master

Altostrata

Posted
  • Administrator
Posted

Welcome, Aspie.

 

Please consider reinstating 5mg of paroxetine immediately. This topic explains how to make a liquid from a capsule or tablet so you can take a small dose: Tips for tapering off Paxil (paroxetine)

 

After you stabilize, which can take some months, you can think about tapering off by tiny amounts. In the meantime, you can explore other ways to deal with your depression.

 

Do NOT drink alcohol. For the most part, it makes withdrawal syndrome worse.

 

Please let us know how you're doing by posting in this topic. Please bookmark it or follow it so you can find it again.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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nz11 Newbie

nz11

Posted
Posted

I have ass burgers apparently

(lmao...sorry im using dragon software to dictate voice and thats what it wrote! lol Couldn't help myself I left it in... Will do again manually.... I kind of like dragons interpretation of the DSM... Dragon is normally pretty good it knows how to spell akathisia even...wonder if you get fries with that?)

 

Ihaveaspergersapparently

 

How are you doing have you reinstated some paroxetine ?

What have you decided? If you decide to tough this out it may be a rough ride for quite some time and that might be an understatement.

Thought for the day: Lets stand up, and let’s speak out , together. G Olsen

We have until the 14th. Feb 2018. 

URGENT REQUEST Please consider submitting  for the petition on Prescribed Drug Dependence and Withdrawal currently awaiting its third consideration at the Scottish Parliament. You don't even have to be from Scotland. By clicking on the link below you can read some of the previous submissions but be warned many of them are quite harrowing.

http://www.parliament.scot/GettingInvolved/Petitions/PE01651   

Please tell them about your problems taking and withdrawing from antidepressants and/or benzos.

Send by email to petitions@parliament.scot and quote PE01651 in the subject heading. Keep to a maximum of 3 sides of A4 and you can't name for legal reasons any doctor you have consulted. Tell them if you wish to remain anonymous. We need the numbers to help convince the committee members we are not isolated cases. You have until mid February. Thank you

Recovering paxil addict

None of the published articles shed light on what ssri's ... actually do or what their hazards might be. Healy 2013. 

This is so true, with anything you get on these drugs, dependance, tapering, withdrawal symptoms, side effects, just silent. And if there is something mentioned then their is a serious disconnect between what is said and reality! 

  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped."  Dr Mosher. Me too! 

Over two decades later, the number of antidepressant prescriptions a year is slightly more than the number of people in the Western world. Most (nine out of 10) prescriptions are for patients who faced difficulties on stopping, equating to about a tenth of the population. These patients are often advised to continue treatment because their difficulties indicate they need ongoing treatment, just as a person with diabetes needs insulin. Healy 2015

I believe the ssri era will soon stand as one of the most shameful in the history of medicine. Healy 2015

Let people help people ... in a natural, kind, non-addictive (and non-big pharma) way. J Broadley 2017

 

 

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