thecowisback: wondering why I'm giving up Prozac

[thecowisback]

will do, i keep forgetting 

the aloe vera gel helps a lot. 

 

do you think it would be worth trying 3mg to see if that helps the feelings of panic? 

[Altostrata]

Has your symptom pattern changed in the last week? Do you feel any effects from taking Prozac and candesartan in the morning?

 

How do you feel from about noon to 3 p.m.?

[thecowisback]

the only thing that's been different is i've had bad headaches in the evening on a couple of days, but i think that may have been dehydration. 

my depression seems to have lifted a lot, possibly due to stopping the amlodipine, but the panic and intrusive thoughts are still very bad. 

noon until 3 is usually pretty much the same as the morning - scared, panicky etc. evenings seem to be a bit calmer. 

saturday to tuesday last week were a lot calmer, then from wednesday onwards the fear and panic set in again 😞

[thecowisback]

16/03

7 am took 2.5mg prozac, 4mg candesartan. fairly good night's sleep, only woke twice. feeling a little anxious. 

10 am starting to get feelings of panic, almost had a panic attack but managed to stave it off. very scared. feeling on edge and panicky for most of the day. 

5.30 started cooking dinner. family had to finish it as i was feeling too scared and tearful to finish. ate a little but had no appetite. 

tried to watch films with the family but ended up going to bed and reading on my own. feeling too scared to be around anyone. cried a lot. 

11.00 took  Levothyroxine 75 mcg, Magnesium citrate 200mg,Sage leaf 50mg. kept waking throughout the night. every time i fell asleep i had bad dreams and woke up hot and sweating. 

[thecowisback]

i think i might risk it and try upping the prozac in the morning. the fear just keeps on rising. i'm trying to engage with other things but my mind is just a whirlwind of fear and scary thoughts. 

[thecowisback]

i'm wondering if anyone knows about the waves and windows and reinstatement. i seem to have a pattern going over the past couple of weeks of about 2 or 3 good days, then a week or so of bad days. this is totally different to how i was before reinstatement. i was having 1 good day every week or so but then those disappeared last autumn and every day  was a constant wave. 

does the brain still keep recovering even though i'm taking a small dose of prozac? does the healing get put 'on hold' while i'm still taking the drug? or is it healing and these three good days are windows? 

i'm wondering whether to up to 3mg to see if it helps the bad days or should i wait it out and see if the windows get longer and the waves shorter. 

[Ather]

This is my own experience this may not be for you, I faced a lot of panic, extreme panic, after 2 months of quitting my Zoloft 50 mg cold turkey in 2015, doctor told me to start taking 75 mgs but I was very scared I started 25 mg, took it for like 2 months and I was going nowhere.

I was walking around 4 to 5 hours a day maybe lost around 50 pounds I was going nowhere after about 1 - 2 months in such a state my Psychiatrist himself came and put the medicines in my mouth, then he kept coming to check if I was taking my medicine or not, I can remember how stiff my stomach Zoloft made, I couldn't even swallow water, but my psychiatrist did not move an inch, from 2nd or 3rd week I started to feel the old me again and then it got better and better, Thank God, I thought I will never be OK again.

 

I have learnt a lesson, I do not research my symptoms anymore, neither do I research about my drug's side effects, what it can do in the long run etc., this is what made my case a bad one, I was researching again reading material on the net and on SA but that is gone now, I do not even touch such topics.

 

In short, researching your own sickness and medication's effects is extremely bad for you, you will stay in that hole.

Good, positive advise from Seniors is the only thing you should be looking for.

[Ather]

8 hours ago, thecowisback said:

i'm wondering if anyone knows about the waves and windows and reinstatement. i seem to have a pattern going over the past couple of weeks of about 2 or 3 good days, then a week or so of bad days. this is totally different to how i was before reinstatement. i was having 1 good day every week or so but then those disappeared last autumn and every day  was a constant wave. 

does the brain still keep recovering even though i'm taking a small dose of prozac? does the healing get put 'on hold' while i'm still taking the drug? or is it healing and these three good days are windows? 

i'm wondering whether to up to 3mg to see if it helps the bad days or should i wait it out and see if the windows get longer and the waves shorter. 

 

2 or 3 good days means you are progressing and it is because of the tiny dose you are taking, that dose in my humble opinion should be upped.

[thecowisback]

i reckon i'll up it in the morning.

i haven't got notes for yesterday as we had visitors all day. 

[ChessieCat]

If your symptoms are bearable my suggestion would be to hold at the dose you are on.

 

You might still be experiencing the change over:

 

26/02/2019 started candesartan 4mg, discontinued amlodipine

[Ather]

11 hours ago, thecowisback said:

i reckon i'll up it in the morning.

i haven't got notes for yesterday as we had visitors all day. 

 

This is what you need, getting so busy that you Forget your problem

 

I was writing notes in 2015, now I only write the most important one, sometimes after days, sometimes after weeks, writing everything every day won't let me out. This is just me, I do not recommend it to anybody else, do what you are comfortable with.

 

And the medicine you are taking, take it with Full confidence, this is the medicine you took for 20 years, upping the dose bit by bit after discussing with Alto.

[thecowisback]

i've taken the same dose this morning as per chessiecat's advice. my ocd is terrible right now though and i've been up since 3 am wrestling with scary thoughts. 

[thecowisback]

18/02

7 am took 2.5mg prozac, 4mg candesartan. very anxious. bad night's sleep. 

very high anxiety all day, lots of intrusive thoughts. tried hard to engage in other things but by evening my ocd was really bad. 

8 pm tried to watch a film but found it very hard to concentrate. 

11 pm took  Levothyroxine 75 mcg, Magnesium citrate 200mg,Sage leaf 50mg. fell asleep around midnight. up at 3 am and couldn't get back to sleep. extremely scared. 

[Vonnegutjunky]

5 hours ago, thecowisback said:

18/02

7 am took 2.5mg prozac, 4mg candesartan. very anxious. bad night's sleep. 

very high anxiety all day, lots of intrusive thoughts. tried hard to engage in other things but by evening my ocd was really bad. 

8 pm tried to watch a film but found it very hard to concentrate. 

11 pm took  Levothyroxine 75 mcg, Magnesium citrate 200mg,Sage leaf 50mg. fell asleep around midnight. up at 3 am and couldn't get back to sleep. extremely scared. 

I know how you feel -I get ocd thoughts too during my waves - try to stay calm and remind yourself it’s only withdrawal and work on labeling the thoughts as such - don’t give importance to the thoughts themselves, my ocd thoughts change from one year to another- 

 

i am sending positive energies to you 

[thecowisback]

thankyou. i'm having a tough time convincing myself my thoughts aren't real at the moment. i feel like i'm on the crest of a very large wave right now. 

[Altostrata]

TCIB, have you ever gotten any counseling for your OCD? Do your scary thoughts tend to always have the same content?

 

Over the last two weeks, has your anxiety gotten worse, on the average? Why are you taking candesartan and Prozac at the same time of day?

 

We need to see what happens in the hours after you take candesartan and Prozac at 7 a.m.

 

Your nervous system is adapting all the time. When you keep your drug schedule consistent, your nervous system is settling down around it. If it has adverse reactions to the drugs, those would also happen on a schedule.

 

While your nervous system is stabilizing, it can wobble in irregular patches of waves and windows. Over time, the waves should become less frequent and less intense, while windows become more frequent. The wave can still be scary and frustrating, though.

[thecowisback]

i've had counselling a few times in the past but have never found it very effective. 

over the past couple of weeks i've had 3 or 4 better days where i felt a lot calmer but the rest have been full of high anxiety.

i take the candesartan in the morning as the side effects in the first few days were keeping me awake, same with the prozac.

should i keep on the same prozac dose or up it a bit?

[Altostrata]

What side effects do you attribute to candesartan?

[thecowisback]

i was very dizzy and had a very bad headache for the first 2 days or so but then nothing after that. the only thing i can maybe attribute to it is i get a little dizzy if i bend over to tie my shoes.

[Vonnegutjunky]

6 hours ago, thecowisback said:

thankyou. i'm having a tough time convincing myself my thoughts aren't real at the moment. i feel like i'm on the crest of a very large wave right now. 

It is hard cow, I know, for me the ocd thoughts feel like they have happened or are happening. It feels like my reality testing is not intact, and it’s the scariest feeling ever. Almost like being psychotic with out the benefit of losing touch with reality. 

 

This is was the exact symptom that made me updose by .02mg and it helped, 

 

its ironically the exact reason I got put on Paxil. I see a therapist now for it and always remind myself I have an obsessive tendency with intrusive thinking. I don’t focus on the thoughts as much as the fact that I have pure O as a whole. 

 

They are still terrifying, and the best I can do is try to distract or I lay here on couch and close my eyes and let them come over and over and let all of the nasty feelings come over and over until I realize they won’t hurt me. They still cause anxiety but I know what they are.

 

also I learned that they come from the same exact area of the brain that produces anxiety, thye are a result of the fight or flight response in the brain, so they are basically the same exact thing as an anxiety attack but in the form of a thought instead  of a feeling. 

I see a therpist who specializes in ptsd and Tbi. I am learning a lot and it is helping. 

[thecowisback]

thankyou - that's really good advice 🙂 i had physical problems with withdrawals in the beginning and as bad as they were i'd gladly swap them for the mental problems i've had since. i took prozac for all those years for ocd but it was never this bad before i took the meds. on a better day i can dismiss the thoughts as ocd, not my own, but most of the time a thoight gets stuck in my head and nothing can convince me it isn't real and must be feared. i have a bookshelf full of books on ocd, anxiety, claire weekes and so on. the only one that's really helped is brain lock. i find the others too long winded to get my head around. 

 

[thecowisback]

19/03

7 am got up and took 2.5mg prozac, 4mg candesartan. very anxious after another bad night's sleep. 

11 am felt a panic attack starting, managed to calm myself down. very very anxious. 

4 pm started crying and couldn't stop. 

5 pm cooked dinner, still crying. didn't stop until nearly 6pm. exhausted from crying so much. 

felt much calmer in the evening. very tired and kept nodding off in the chair while watching tv. 

11 pm took  Levothyroxine 75 mcg, Magnesium citrate 200mg,Sage leaf 50mg. fell straight to sleep. woke up at 3 am but managed to get back to sleep until around 5 am. didn't sleep again after that. 

[thecowisback]

20/03

7 am got up after another night of disturbed sleep. took prozac 2.5mg. didn't take candesartan as i'm going to try moving it to bedtime instead in case it's affecting the prozac.

11 am drove to the city to run some errands. very anxious but took a friend along to help out. resisting ocd compulsions is very hard right now. 

3.30 pm picked up kids. still very anxious. headache. didn't drink enough this morning. 

5 pm cooked dinner. tearful again until around 6 pm.

7.30 picked kids up from friends house. very anxious. 

9 pm tried to watch a documentary but kept nodding off and had to keep rewinding it. feeling absolutely exhausted . 

11 pm took candesartan 4 mg, levothyroxine 75mcg,magnesium 200mg, sage leaf 50mg. took about an hour to fall asleep. woke at 5 am. 

[thecowisback]

if my ocd is still this bad by the weekend i'm going to risk going up to 3 mg of prozac. my depression is much better but the fear and panic from the ocd is terrible. i'm reading my books and refreshing my cbt work but it's so hard to focus on anything when my head is so full of scary thoughts. 

[Vonnegutjunky]

5 minutes ago, thecowisback said:

if my ocd is still this bad by the weekend i'm going to risk going up to 3 mg of prozac. my depression is much better but the fear and panic from the ocd is terrible. i'm reading my books and refreshing my cbt work but it's so hard to focus on anything when my head is so full of scary thoughts. 

I know exactly how you feel cow - those thoughts are near torture - they are so brutal and debilitating- I hope you get to feeling better soon - every day is chore - I now dress like I live permanently in an institution- sweat pants and slippers everywhere I go-  

 

sending you positivity 🙏🙏🙏

[thecowisback]

my husband says that no-one takes my withdrawals seriously because i'm the opposite - i still somehow manage to get up and out each day and look perfectly 'normal'. i put such a fake face on to the world that no-one apart from my closest family and friends have any idea anything is wrong and that i feel like i'm dying inside my mind. 

sending you best wishes for your recovery too Vonnegutjunky xxx

[thecowisback]

On 1/16/2018 at 2:04 AM, JamesF said:

Hello thecowisback

I recently tried to wait out severe withdrawals, for 7 months. I had previously done so for 9 months back in 2015. I thought it would get better but it didn't for me personally. I had to reinstate the original medication and now I'm perhaps 50% better after a few months of stabilising. 

I think if things get severe in terms of anxiety, insomnia, etc, this is a sign that the approach was wrong. It should not get severe, and you should not have to ride it out. That's a terrible place to be in, both for the stress and trauma, and also the not knowing when it will get better. Believe me, I wanted someone to tell me it would get better at X date too. It just doesn't work that way.

The key with this whole thing is to make changes that are so slow, and so gradual, that you feel almost no impact to your life and that you remain functional. I also tried to run to the finish line in the hope of being off the drugs for good. I hated the idea of the long term effects of these medications. In fact, I sacrificed my entire life and became housebound for months in order to try and get better.

It harmed me, rather than helped me. My withdrawals were so severe that I lost the components of a normal life: normal sleep, normal socialising, normal work, and so on.

All of these components are what help to heal. Symptoms were so bad that I was forced to give them all up in the hope of a magical recovery. It just doesn't work that way...

Anyway, the results of trying to rush to the finish line and being hard on myself by trying to out-endure withdrawals were that I had to go back on the pills. You could say that my months of enduring horrific anxiety were for nothing in a way. It only harmed me, because I was too brutal on myself. You must be gentle, you must be slow, you must be kind.

I see now, that the stress of withdrawals and the loss of ability to enjoy  your own life and be functional, is FAR worse than any potential long term effects of the medication.

If you simply wait, it could be months, or years, or longer. It might be that your brain simply can't adjust to a drastic jump you made over 2 months, no matter how long you wait. 


First. Do you think you're getting any better, are there longer windows of feeling good vs feeling bad? Or is it the same? Or is it getting worse? 

If it's the first two, maybe there is hope for you to heal quickly. (It wasn't the case for me, it simply got worse over time.)

If it's the same or getting worse, I'd encourage you to reinstate a small amount of the original medication. Not a new one or different SSRI, and not a different class of drugs. Exactly the same drug you were on before. 


They all have unique pharmaceutical properties, they effect receptors and remould the brain in unique ways. They are not substitutes. Especially after 20 years. 


I would say from experience, that when I reinstated, things got temporarily worse for a few weeks then got better. This was not an "adverse reaction" or "kindling" or some other language used on this site. I think it was just the onset effects of the medication on a hypersensitive nervous system. If I had quit after a few days and put it down to an adverse reaction, I wouldn't have known there was a future of getting better. 

So I can't advise you medically what to do, but will say that if or when you reinstate, it may get a little worse before better as it did for me. 

Wishing you all the best. Please don't try to endure it in the hope you will magically get better. This is a losing strategy and your normalcy can slip away faster than you are aware. Either be sure that there is evidence of improvement, or consider reinstatement at a low dose. 

Jay

how are you doing now jay?

[thecowisback]

i have no idea what is going on. 

2 weeks ago i had 4 calm days with very little fear or panic. i thought the prozac had kicked in and was relieving my symptoms somewhat, but things have slowly gone back downhill ever since. 

yesterday i had terrible ocd and the day ended in a huge panic attack and some very dark thoughts. 

i'm wondering now if the good days i had two weeks ago were a window and now i'm in a deep wave, and that the good days i had were nothing to do with the prozac.

i have no idea. i want to increase the prozac to see if that will help but i'm also concerned it may do nothing and then i've got more to taper off.

i'm feeling so desperate today it took a lot of willpower not to swallow the whole 20mg capsule. i have to keep convincing myself that a high dose isn't going to help. right now i would try anything to stop this horrible feeling of fear, panic and hopelessness. 

[ChessieCat]

Sorry but I don't know your age.  Could it be related to your monthly cycle?

[thecowisback]

i'm in perimenopause which doesn't help. i haven't had a period for almost a year but i guess the hormones are still rising and falling each month. 

should i try increasing the prozac? i'm so desperate for any kind of relief........

 

[thecowisback]

i've had a look through my diary to see if there are any monthly variations but there doesn't seem to be. i just seem to have the same level of fear then when i do get a window they pop up randomly. there doesn't seem to be much rise and fall in symptoms - it's all bad bad bad then suddenly a good day or 2 then back to normal.

[ChessieCat]

2/02/2019 started 3mg prozac

5/03/2019 dropped back to 2.5mg prozac

 

Q:  Why did you reduce from 3mg to 2.5mg prozac after 2 or 3 days?

 

26/02/2019 started candesartan 4mg, discontinued amlodipine

 

This hasn't quite been a month, so things might still be affected by this change.

 

21 minutes ago, thecowisback said:

i'm in perimenopause which doesn't help. i haven't had a period for almost a year but i guess the hormones are still rising and falling each month. 

 

This definitely makes things difficult to work out what's happening because at least with regular menstruation it would be easier to see if there was a pattern related to it.  I imagine that your hormones are erratic even if you aren't menstruating, so it might be hormonal changes causing the improvements and worsenings.

[thecowisback]

i went back to 2.5 on altostrata's advice as i'd taken the 3mg by mistake one morning. i felt really good that day so took it for another 2 days but then went back to 2.5.

 

[ChessieCat]

Q:  Have you had your blood pressure checked to see if the candesartan is keeping that under control?

 

I think I would do that before increasing your dose.

[thecowisback]

yes it's good at the moment. it's working better than the amlodipine actually.

[Ather]

What I have realized in my ordeal is that our thoughts play a major role.

 

For example If you keep reading a term like "sensitive" there are good chances you will become one,

the reality is every single one of us is sensitive, some a little less and some are more.

 

The other thing that I have come to know is that we must get better! we must come out of it, with medication, without medication or with little medication.

 

Psychiatrists would tell you to go full course, SA generally would say no drug, we need to balance, balance is extremely important.