TikkiTikki: going slow off Celexa to avoid "relapse"

[TikkiTikki]

Just wanted to note that two days ago, on Saturday 1/12, I had a perfectly awful night and spent most of it awake in such a state of anxiety I ended up taking 2x 7.5mg oxazepam before snatching a few hours of sleep at 6.30am. I couldn't really credit how bad I felt, it was out of proportion to anything I was thinking. I felt so afraid, so ashamed, so exposed and utterly unable to think outside of the desperate narrative of my life I had constructed. It sounds a bit ridiculous when I type it out, and from the vantage point of today's calm. But I haven't felt as clear as today in many weeks, if not months, and I guess it's been building up.

[TikkiTikki]

Feeling great today: calm, positive, negative head chatter completely quiet, actually felt like going shopping and wandered around shops just enjoying feeling content. 

Saw psychiatrist and have a script for Valdoxan but no intention of taking it. 

I can't possibly be relapsing/ experiencing depression if I can feel this clear and fine for three days in a row? 

I woke last night a few times, but no panic at all. Just remained sleepy and relaxed and drifted back to sleep.

Note: Feeling relief on Monday coincided with getting my period. 

[TikkiTikki]

Still feeling good. Despite having to break out the lice comb again ... is it even possible to get rid all of the little critters? i just want to shave everyone's heads.

[TikkiTikki]

I started Valdoxan a month ago. It gets me to sleep, and I rarely wake in the night, but still wake quite early (between 5.30 and 6.30am). This past week I've felt really horrible in the mornings, very nauseous with dry retching, dizzy and just all over awful. It passes. Total self-loathing and despair about my life too, which recedes somewhat after about an hour.

 

Also upped Citalopram to 5mg on 26 Dec, then 10mg on 28 Dec. No side effects from reinstating other than that fluttery stomach feeling. Thought I felt better first day, but honestly I am so up and down all the time it's hard to say. But seems to indicate I am not an sensitive to dosage changes as others.

 

I'm really finding it hard to explain in emotional terms what is going on for me. I want to keep updating but I feel like a failure and I can't organise my thoughts into a narrative about why I'm doing what I'm doing. Obviously I want to feel better than I do, and be there for my kids and partner. I'm tired of hating myself. I'm caught between the paradigm of this site and the paradigm of psychiatry in terms of how best to manage my mind. I wish I didn't need help. 

[ChessieCat]

Thank you for updating your drug signature.  Please move this up so that the citalopram is altogether:

 

             5mg  26 Dec            10mg  28 Dec

 

Please add the year to this:

 

Added Valdoxan 50mg 12 Dec

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by ChessieCat

[Altostrata]

Tikki, how are you?

 

It looks to me like you have a lot of difficulty going off Celexa, don't blame yourself!

[TikkiTikki]

HI Alto,

 

Yes, things got grim. But 20 days after upping the Citalopram,  I felt relief I haven't felt in at least six months. I'm glad I did it. Life is SO much easier now.

I'm going to stick with 10mg for a while, and consider this a slight hiatus in the tapering effort. I don't feel good about 'failing', but I was just not coping with my life and I needed to function better for my kids and partner.

 

When I upped to 5mg for 2 days, and then 10mg, I felt a little worse moodwise, and suffered morning nausea (typical startup for me, but much milder), but then sudden relief on day 20. From what I've read on here, relief should have come sooner if symptoms were due to withdrawal. Or do you think that the size of the dose increase interfered with that? 

 

I know all my symptoms were consistent with withdrawal, but they were also consistent with depression, and I just couldn't eat, exercise or think my way out of it. Through 2018, I had just wound down lower and lower and despite getting a new job, completing a degree, walking regularly, magnesium, sleep routines, and forcing myself to be social, everything I did was just a joyless, angry slog. I hated the person I was.

 

So as much as I badly want to keep the faith and become a success story here, I just can't be as angry and miserable as I became in the hope that two or three years down the track I will feel better. Maybe when my kids are older. 

 

Thank you for taking an interest in my story among so many here. I'll keep updating, as I've found SA a real haven these past two years.

 

 

[eymen23]

Tikki,

 

The important thing is that you’re feeling better and able to maintain the responsibilities in your life. Perhaps even enjoying your spare time too!

 

There is always another chance to taper further. Reading through your intro, I’m wondering if the taper gradually caught up with you over time. Some people seem to make a cut and then notice an obvious pattern of feeling worse after x many days and then back to baseline after y days. It seems you started to slowly display symptoms of ‘depression’ and ‘anxiety’ after many months of tapering, which steadily became more intolerable. 

 

You’ve done extremely well to get down to 10mg and it sounds like you made a sensible move. 

[ChessieCat]

15 hours ago, TikkiTikki said:

getting a new job, completing a degree

 

These in themselves were stressful times.  After things settle down and you stabilise you could always do a slower taper:

 

Brass Monkey Slide

Micro-taper instead of 10% or 5% decreases

Rhi's "Start Small, Listen to Your Body" Taper Plan

[TikkiTikki]

Thanks, peeps. Really, thank you.

 

I am grateful to feel better, however it is achieved.

[kirby]

Hey, I like your profile picture! I'm a fan of teen titans go too, especially the earlier episodes, they had lots of silly humor in them. It sounds like sometimes things are really rough with all the withdrawal symptoms - can I share something that really helped me? 

 

Essential oils, they calm down my body. Perhaps it is placebo effect, or perhaps it really works, but when I feel jittery, think too much, or ect sometimes I take out a bottle of essential oils and smell them. And i gradually forget things that bother me, because it smells good. 

 

Hope that helps! It might be really different for you, but I'm willing to lend out as many helpful advices that I can, because I felt that pain of withdrawal before.

Good luck,

kirby 

[ChessieCat]

aromatherapy-and-essential-oils

 

[kirby]

11 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

aromatherapy-and-essential-oils

 

Hey awesome forum! I looked at it and posted the oils I use.

[TikkiTikki]

I've started Wellbutrin. I've had a hell of a time getting it here in Australia - no one knows it's an antidepressant. Hoping I can get off the Celexa in time.

[DaveB]

3 hours ago, TikkiTikki said:

I've started Wellbutrin. I've had a hell of a time getting it here in Australia - no one knows it's an antidepressant. Hoping I can get off the Celexa in time.

 

Oh I am sorry Tikki, from your last update it seemed you were doing better, why was the Wellbutrin added?

[TikkiTikki]

On 2/12/2019 at 1:29 AM, DaveB said:

 

Oh I am sorry Tikki, from your last update it seemed you were doing better, why was the Wellbutrin added?

 

I wanted to feel better. And from what I had read, Welbutrin was less likely to cause weight gain, emotional blunting and general apathy. 

 

I know it seems like a sudden turnaround, but I had been trying for so long to feel better and felt that I was wasting my time, ruining relationships and running my life into the ground.  I guess I lost faith that tapering off ADs would make me a better version of myself? I suppose that's the narrative I had come to believe - that I would feel clearer, more engaged, more energetic and more in touch with my true self. And to some extent that became true as I tapered, but I also became persistently negative, fearful, angry and anxious; I had a lot of trouble sleeping, constant depressed rumination, persistent self-hate and life was a joyless struggle. Whether that was an effect of AD withdrawal, damage caused by ten years of AD use, or just who I am, I don't know. And I guess I stopped caring.

I'm feeling much better now, and doing better - working, thinking, creating and building better relationships. So I'm grateful.

 

Thanks so much for checking in.

 

 

[Altostrata]

Hi, Tikki, how are you doing?

[TikkiTikki]

Hi Alto,

 

I'm doing really well. I'm taking 150mg Bupropion and 10mg citalopram, and feeling better than I have in years. I did try to taper off the Citalopram, but things got grey again and I couldn't see the point.

 

It's hard for me to separate the pharmaceutical from the psychological and lifestyle in terms of why I am feeling so good. In the two years I was tapering, I tried so hard to exercise, find meaningful work, make better connections with people, meditate, be kinder to myself, find structural solutions to the stress in my life, and I do feel that a lot of those efforts came to fruition this year. But upping to 10mg Citalopram, and adding bupropion, gave me so much relief that I could really seize on all those changes.

 

I don't feel foggy and distant on this combo. It could still be honeymoon effect, I know, but at the moment I'm just taking it at face value.

 

I think I am a person who benefits from medication. Whether that's because my system has become reliant on the drugs I took for so long, or I really have 'endogenous depression', I don't know. But either way, I feel lucky because I feel good and clear and positive, and other then trouble sleeping and weight gain (though potentially turning that around?), I suffer so few of the side effects that so many here have to cope with. 

 

I really believed, with all the solid evidence on this site and elsewhere, that becoming psych drug-free was the way to find a better version of myself. It was hard to accept defeat. But I have found a better version of myself, someone I recognise, and if it takes this particular drug combo, meaningful employment and attention to my diet, then I'm all in. 

 

I'm 44. I'm aware I probably felt like this when I first took citalopram at 31, and the trouble crept up on me much later, at an insidiously slow pace that was difficult to discern. So perhaps expect me back in a few years, when the drugs start turning on me. 🙂 But until then I'm making up for lost time!

 

Thanks for checking in. There seems to be a lot more in the media about the difficulty of psych drug withdrawal; the message is getting through to some extent. And I've referred a few people to SA who were questioning what they were feeling on drugs or trying to quit. Thanks for your tireless efforts to provide this invaluable resource for people. It changed my life.

 

Best wishes.

[TikkiTikki]

Just an update for my own purposes - **not about intentional tapering** 

 

Wellbutrin shortage in Australia, so I ordered some from Canada. That ran out in late Oct, and the next shipment hadn't come through so I had about a month without it.

 

Withdrawal was nothing like SSRIs. All I really noticed was a slight (my partner may disagree!) rise in irritability, and after a week or so some darker thoughts coming back - things bothered me more, felt more vulnerable, would wake in the night and feel a bit desperate. Hadn't felt that way for so long that I could identify it and acknowledge it was probably the pills. Motivation was lower. Took small amount of benzos or melatonin for sleep at night.

 

Shipment came 25 Nov. 5th day taking it now. Feel quite jumpy and a bit strung out - which I remember from the beginning. Harder to sleep. Nauseous/ fluttery stomach today. On edge. I remember feeling quite 'up' last time (Wellbutrin honeymoon), don't quite have that now. More a racy, caffeine-type feeling. Still taking 10mg Citalopram.