ASkyFullOfHappy: PGAD from Paxil?

September 15, 2017

There's no way to go back in time and figure out what caused what, Sky. Forgive yourself, take care of yourself, and move on.

September 15, 2017

6 hours ago, Hopefull said:

Hi Askyfullofhappy,

You will heal. You need to let time do the healing. You will be okay.

Tapper slowly and you will be triumphant at the end.

Take care, Hopefull.

Thanks Hopefull your words always really help me in hard times. You're also right, it seems sometimes I get a bit impatient. Ill wait it out again, even if Im scared. Thank you!

September 15, 2017

3 hours ago, Altostrata said:

There's no way to go back in time and figure out what caused what, Sky. Forgive yourself, take care of yourself, and move on.

Thanks Alto this means a lot, I'lll just keep going with what I have now. I'll try my best to stay positive and try and move in from my obsession.

September 17, 2017

Hello Sky,

I hope you are doing well.

Try not to worry too much, if you tapper slowly, your PGAD won't take control of your body I got PGAD from Sertraline because I withdrew from it too fast. I went from a 50 mg to a 25 mg dose in a day because a doctor told me to do so and that's what started my PGAD. I have just started the drug, my neurotransmitters couldn't cope with the disturbance. I am sure that if I had slowly tappered from my 50 dose and stabilise for few weeks, then again tapper slowly... I wouldn' t have had PGAD. If you go slow you will be ok and I think you should stabilise for several weeks then continue. Iam not a moderator and I don't know how to taper but ask them for guidance and don't worry but you have to go very very slow. You are also very young and usually PGAD affects women in premenopause or menopause or after childbirth, your body and brain are young so they will recover fast. I went to see a physiotherapist, she is great, she told me my pelvic area is too tight and she is teaching me to relax the muscle around the pelvic area (if you relax your pelvic area, you won't get PGAD), Homeopathy helps, yoga helps, sitting on a hot bottle helps, putting ice on the genitals helps.

PGAD symptoms are complex and usually you get other symptoms with arousal (pain in the back, lubrification, genital engorgement, bladder pain etc arousal is only a part of it) If you don't have all these symptoms, don't worry it means that the PGAD shouldn't stay.

Take good care and hope you are feeling better

Cathy

September 20, 2017

On 9/17/2017 at 11:50 AM, cathyfrench said:

Hello Sky,

I hope you are doing well.

Try not to worry too much, if you tapper slowly, your PGAD won't take control of your body I got PGAD from Sertraline because I withdrew from it too fast. I went from a 50 mg to a 25 mg dose in a day because a doctor told me to do so and that's what started my PGAD. I have just started the drug, my neurotransmitters couldn't cope with the disturbance. I am sure that if I had slowly tappered from my 50 dose and stabilise for few weeks, then again tapper slowly... I wouldn' t have had PGAD. If you go slow you will be ok and I think you should stabilise for several weeks then continue. Iam not a moderator and I don't know how to taper but ask them for guidance and don't worry but you have to go very very slow. You are also very young and usually PGAD affects women in premenopause or menopause or after childbirth, your body and brain are young so they will recover fast. I went to see a physiotherapist, she is great, she told me my pelvic area is too tight and she is teaching me to relax the muscle around the pelvic area (if you relax your pelvic area, you won't get PGAD), Homeopathy helps, yoga helps, sitting on a hot bottle helps, putting ice on the genitals helps.

PGAD symptoms are complex and usually you get other symptoms with arousal (pain in the back, lubrification, genital engorgement, bladder pain etc arousal is only a part of it) If you don't have all these symptoms, don't worry it means that the PGAD shouldn't stay.

Take good care and hope you are feeling better

Cathy

Hi Cathy, Thanks so much for your reply, I hope you are feeling better as well, healing is such a long process sometimes. I have to be patient I guess. Thank You for your kind words.

September 20, 2017

Hi everyone! Im doing a bit better, still kinda being a bit pessimistic right now, but Im trying my best.

My fear of arousal is still there but I have noticed that my need to "check" if I feel aroused constantly has gone down.

The tingling has been much better lately, sometimes its not even there, it feels like life is slowly getting normal, or that at least Im stabilizing on the Paxil.

One more week till taper. Im very excited and scared.

I do however, have started to have symptoms of like, when you first start Antidepressants... the cold shivers, twitching, hard to reach climax again, electricity feeling after climax. heartburn... a lot of stuff..

Im wondering if that's normal?

right now I have been updating on a weekly basis or whenever I have a flare up which seems to be every few weeks, so like every 2 weeks Ill have a bit of a flare up. When I start taper I will definitely Update or try to update every day and put my daily activities and so on.

Wishing luck to everyone.

I cannot seriously express my thank you to everyone who helped last flare up, Cathy, Alto, Hopefull, miT, and Martina, you guys have been so much help. Thank you for your words of healing.

September 20, 2017

This what you describe with antidepressants that you can not reach orgasm is fully normal. Therefore the antidepressants shouldnt be even prescribed for PGAD, because they dont minimize erection and make orgasm (release) impossible

Here it is even written on PGAD website, that the doctors shouldnt prescribe for it antidepressants

http://www.psas.nl/en/doktoren.asp

But also please dont try Lyrica or benzos, because their addictivity may cause even bigger problem than PGAD.

September 26, 2017

Hi everyone! I have been doing good so far, today there was a flare up of slight tingles but it might be because I took my medication late? Or maybe Im anxious...

Anyway, its been 6 weeks and Im ready to taper! How can I start this process? Can I get some mod help please?

September 27, 2017

Hi everyone. Im struggling so much right now. Yesterday for some reason my PGAD flared up. Lots of tingling in one area down there. It was really distressing. I had not even tapered. Maybe it was because I took my medication late that day. I hate setbacks like that it makes me feel like Im never going to get better.

Today I took 27 mg of Paxil

Im sick at the moment as well so I woke up late, when I woke up the tingling was gone but as Im awaking more, the tingling s starting to be there, very small tingling, but nonetheless still there.

Im holding the 27 mg of Paxil for a month I think that's what you're supposed to do.

September 28, 2017

11 hours ago, ASkyFullOfHappy said:

Hi everyone. Im struggling so much right now. Yesterday for some reason my PGAD flared up. Lots of tingling in one area down there. It was really distressing. I had not even tapered. Maybe it was because I took my medication late that day. I hate setbacks like that it makes me feel like Im never going to get better.

Today I took 27 mg of Paxil

Im sick at the moment as well so I woke up late, when I woke up the tingling was gone but as Im awaking more, the tingling s starting to be there, very small tingling, but nonetheless still there.

Im holding the 27 mg of Paxil for a month I think that's what you're supposed to do.

Make yourself not crazy with it. Believe on your body that it does everything to repair it. It was tingling? So what. If you hurt your finger, it also pains. It will hurt or tingle or whatever for some small time and then problem will solve itself.

September 28, 2017

Bless You for this Martina , you always fill me with hope. I will keep at it then I wish you lots of healing and success in all your trials and troubles. Lots of Healing. Thank you :)

5 hours ago, Martina23 said:

Make yourself not crazy with it. Believe on your body that it does everything to repair it. It was tingling? So what. If you hurt your finger, it also pains. It will hurt or tingle or whatever for some small time and then problem will solve itself.

October 2, 2017

Hi everyone.

Bad news, my pharmacy ran low on the Paxil pills so for the last 3 days I have been taking nothing. Its been hell since I can feel the withdraw so much, my stomach is upset and the tingles are back. they are usually concentrated to my clitoris its horrible.

Might this be because of the lack of medication? I finally got my pills tonight so hopefully I can start the taper at 8am next morning. I hope I did not damage my nerves.

Im so scared this might have screwed me up for good.

think my PGAD definitely has to do with the lack of Paxil. Does anyone know if the slow taper I have will help? Can I still heal? ah sorry everyone.

October 2, 2017

Hi Sky. It's unfortunate that your pharmacy ran low on your Paxil. It's always wise to have some in reserve so that this doesn't happen again in the future.

I was concerned when you mentioned tapering. I assume you mean that you will go back to the 27 mg that you started last Wednesday 27th. Is this correct?

It would be best if you could stabilize fully after this recent glitch without any further reductions for at least 4 weeks , if not longer. You are probably feeling the withdrawal effects of being 3 days without Paxil. I would take your dose as soon as possible. Try not to worry too much, as some of your symptoms will hopefully settle down over the next few weeks.

Wait until your symptoms largely subside before tapering again. Tapering approximately every 4 weeks is just a guide but really the best indicator is you and your individual symptoms. We always say to listen to your body.

The question to ask yourself before tapering is : how deep and broad a foundation of stability do I want before my next cut? The more stable you are each time before cutting, the less symptomatic you will be , as you slowly progress down in your dose.

The slowness of slow tapers

Edited October 2, 2017 by AliG

October 2, 2017

7 hours ago, AliG said:

Hi Sky. It's unfortunate that your pharmacy ran low on your Paxil. It's always wise to have some in reserve so that this doesn't happen again in the future.

I was concerned when you mentioned tapering. I assume you mean that you will go back to the 27 mg that you started last Wednesday 27th. Is this correct?

It would be best if you could stabilize fully after this recent glitch without any further reductions for at least 4 weeks , if not longer. You are probably feeling the withdrawal effects of being 3 days without Paxil. I would take your dose as soon as possible. Try not to worry too much, as some of your symptoms will hopefully settle down over the next few weeks.

Wait until your symptoms largely subside before tapering again. Tapering approximately every 4 weeks is just a guide but really the best indicator is you and your individual symptoms. We always say to listen to your body.

The question to ask yourself before tapering is : how deep and broad a foundation of stability do I want before my next cut? The more stable you are each time before cutting, the less symptomatic you will be , as you slowly progress down in your dose.

The slowness of slow tapers

Hi! yes I meant to go back to the 27 mg dose I was taking. I took 27 mg this morning. Should I go back to the 30 or stay on this 27 mg?

Yeah I will stay on this 27mg for a while I think. 4 weeks at least as you said, my symptoms did for sure flare up. The tingles were very very distressing last night but fortunately and maybe this is a good sign, the discomfort only lasted like maybe an hour or so and then it passed. right now I feel okay, of course Im only worried about it coming back.

I find that when I was holding 30mg I had days I felt almost normal and then some days the tingling was there again even after 6 weeks holding. Should I after waiting atlest 4 weeks wat for these windows to reduce again?

hope that as I slowly taper and hopefully when I reach 0 Ill be able to not have so many PGAD issues and finally be able to go back to normal.

October 3, 2017

This is just me kinda putting my experiences out there.

PGAD is so frustrating. Ive actually been feeling well this past day, but like. its such a frustrating thing to go though. Theres so little knowledge on it and less when it comes to PGAD that is induced by SSRIS.

It pollutes your head. You feel like you have a part of you robbed. When you feel better you feel paranoid of it creeping up one day. When you're feeling it you feel as if it will stay that way for good. You feel like you'll be the exception to the stories. That even though everyone tells you that you will heal, you wont.

It's so draining. I became afraid of sex.

I just want to be back to not being so scared of my body anymore. I want to be normal again. I want my life back.

I just hate this.

Sorry its just me rambling

October 4, 2017

Hi everyone! I have a bit of a breakthrough. I have been seeing that lately, when PGAD flares up its more of a, it gets really bad for a bit (like a minute or so) and it makes me have a mini panic attack, and then it goes away pretty much completely for some hours or so or until I get nervous about it again. I see these bursts happing way more often. Which not sure if that is a good thing?

Sometimes the window in between those bursts lasts a day or two. This is a big change from how every so often I would have a mild two day flare with constant tingles.

Im not sure if this is my body healing or not and Im kinda scared to be honest.

Not sure what to make of this? Maybe a Mod can help?

October 5, 2017

Sky. It's great that you have been feeling a little better. It sounds like you are experiencing the usual windows and waves pattern of withdrawal. Your windows are lasting longer and that is a positive sign.

The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization

Have you read through this topic yet? There are lot's of great ideas on ways to calm the anxiety when it's problematic.

Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

I find walking helps greatly and legs up the wall, yoga pose is very soothing and seems to help when fear is starting to take over.

This link may also help with calming anxiety:

Hope this helps.

Edited October 6, 2017 by AliG

October 6, 2017

Ali G. Thank you s much for your support on this and keeping an eye on my posts I cannot thank you enough it means a lot to me.

Yes, it seems my windows are getting a bit bigger. or at least the flareups don't last as long as they used to.

Before it was like....1-3 days of pretty much normality and then 2 days of tingles non stop almost would shut down those days.

Now it's like, 2-3 days of normality and then maybe a day where I have small "bursts" of like an anxiety attack down there and then all of a sudden bam! they are gone for a while.

2 days ago a burst happened when I was driving, and then yesterday I was doing super good. today is a relatively normal day!

So maybe yes I am slowly improving.

Hopefully this keeps going as I keep tapering over the months. (No worries right now though, Im still on the 27mg till the end of the month)

Thank You

October 6, 2017

Also another break though! I went to see my psychologist yesterday afternoon, and she is worried that Im having a bit of somatization going on since, when I start worrying about the PGAD iI start to have an increase in symptoms. Like for example I was there to see my psychologist at 1pm but she had to move my appointment to 5pm because she had an emergency, I had been nervous that morning about me talking to her about PGAD and saying it was hopeless, well when I left her office at 1 pm since I could not see her at the time, that worry built up so much and thats when I started to have the mini bursts while in the car heading home. When I came back to see her, she said it was me doing a somatization of symptoms (I have had Health OCD for the past 3 years and Im notorious for the somatization of symptoms, it feels so real to me sometimes ) Well that afternoon when I felt some tingles before sleeping again, I said to myself "okay this is not real" and surprisingly they went away for the most part.

This makes sense to me since I watched a video of a woman wth severe PGAD say that riding the car was the worse because it was so painful for her, and ever since Im hyperaware when Im in the car, only when Im distracted do I not have tingles.

Actually when Im distracted I don't have tingles.

So maybe that's something else gotta look out for, somatization. Is there any posts on that?

Thanks again to everyone that has been reading my stuff I appreciate you

October 6, 2017

That is not somatization. Every person in worry presses unvoluntarily the muscles down there. It is an involuntary reaction to control the stress. And if you have PGAD then the pressing of muscles down there causes more errection, tingling and you feel then more these PGAD feelings (whereas on the contrary relaxing of muscles down there easies the erection) . It is normal. What makes me more worry is your psychologist. He seems the usual kind-knowing nothing about these things and making you only more worried and taking only more medicaments. Your PGAD will solve itself with the time.

October 6, 2017

10 minutes ago, Martina23 said:

That is not somatization. Every person in worry presses unvoluntarily the muscles down there. It is an involuntary reaction to control the stress. And if you have PGAD then the pressing of muscles down there causes more errection, tingling and you feel then more these PGAD feelings (whereas on the contrary relaxing of muscles down there easies the erection) . It is normal. What makes me more worry is your psychologist. He seems the usual kind-knowing nothing about these things and making you only more worried and taking only more medicaments. Your PGAD will solve itself with the time.

Hi Martina, Thanks for your input, however I just I don't think thats the case, maybe thats the case for some parts of my PGAD or maybe half of it, but I think my psychologist is right. She has known me for 5 years and although she did suggest medication at first, she respects my decision to not take it. She actually does homeopathic medicine as well. Her evaluation actually made me less nervous about it and helped me lots. She has been also supporting me though my withdraw and agrees with the slow taper method, she always has recommended me that, its more my psychiatrist that has recommended the fast tapers and cold turkeys.

I think she does know what she is talking about in this sense, I have been suffering with health OCD for a while now and its a habit of mine to do the somatization of symptoms, once thought I had stomach cancer, I started throwing up and feeling nauseous all the time, I even threw up blood once, turned out I had given myself an ulcer from all the stress. I thought I had schizophrenia at one point, and I started hearing hallucinations. I thought I had a rare kind of breast cancer called "Inflammatory Breast Cancer" once and my breast even swelled up and got red and would hurt. I think she might be right as well. Since Im a medical student (in the pre-medicine phase) I tend to do this a lot sometimes.

I think it might be a combination of the two, what I feel, and what I think I feel. But I thank you so much for your input Martina it's always good to hear both sides of the coin.

October 6, 2017

Hi everyone. I would like tho give a big thank you to everyone here. seriously.

I was really really old medical journals and I thought to myself "Wow, how did they not know they were so wrong!'

Then I realized, psychology is, in relative terms, such a young field of medicine. Everything is really, even medicine in itself is pretty young. But psychology, even more so.

Think, 60 years ago, lobotomies were the go to treatment for doctors pf psychology. It was performed on everyone and anyone with a sign of psychological illness.

And how many lives were ruined because of it. Yes it helped some but ruined others. Although doctors at the time were just really trying their best, unfortunately that comes at an expense of others as most cases are with human medicine.

I realize, science isn't perfect. there are some things we know 100% like, we need water to survive, and food, but what kind of water or food helps us or harms us, thats up for so much debate. there are better options but not a concrete 100% answer. As a scientist myself, I love when Im proven wrong in a sense. Its always great to discover new ideas, but unfortunately for the medical field, that usually involves sometimes learning from mistakes. and sometimes those mistakes can hurt people. Hypocrites said "First do no harm" but yet he prescribed medication that was sometimes lethal to patients because, well he thought he was doing good. Its not malicious its just, medical science is fickle I guess because people's lives are at stake. In a sense, doctors are doing no harm to the best of their knowledge and extent . "Do no harm" sometimes just cannot be achieved, especially since humans are so complex, while a medication o practice might work for a lot of people, there will always be some that will unfortunately be harmed, but I think its the job of doctors and scientists to reduce that number and also cater to the people that were harmed and help them get better.

What Im trying to say is not all psychologists, or psychiatrists or heck, even doctors are non progressive. They are still learning, and sometimes while they think they are doing the best they might be hurting people, it's nothing malicious most of the time, it is just misinformation and ignorance. As my psychologist likes to say "medication sometimes just masks the symptoms but does't get to the root of the problem" I think psychiatrists should think of that and only reserve medication to the most dire of cases, and if the patient asks for it, wile also disclosing ALL the risks

So I would like to say thank you to this forum, especially to Alto for what you are doing, as an up and coming medical student I appreciate your efforts to increase the knowledge of psychiatry, and hopefully their practices.

I hope to one day see a world where drugs are not the Go-To for doctors of psychiatry. Where maybe one day we look and say... geez what were doing? I hope as the field of psychiatry and medicine in it's whole progresses, we can come to a future where less people are harmed.

October 6, 2017

Sky. It sounds like you are making progress. You are fortunate to have found a psychologist that you feel comfortable with and who is helpful. There aren't any threads on Somatization - maybe you could start one as there are probably others who have experienced the same/similar conditions.

October 6, 2017

7 minutes ago, AliG said:

Sky. It sounds like you are making progress. You are fortunate to have found a psychologist that you feel comfortable with and who is helpful. There aren't any threads on Somatization - maybe you could start one as there are probably others who have experienced the same/similar conditions.

Thank You I hope did not offend anyone with my posts, especially Martina. I really care for everyone here. I hope everyone is healing. Thank you Ali G.

Also thank you for the suggestion, I will start making research and drafting a post to make soon!

October 7, 2017

Hi everyone, Im doing great lately that past few days Ive had little to no PGAD symptoms, Im feeling very normal, however I do have a very serious side effect, it started by me feeling super sleepy all the time. I could sleep for a whole day and still wake up exhausted. And then I started convulsing. My eyes go all crazy and spin around and around and my body feels like it NEEDS to move so it starts almost involuntary convulsing, wriggling, and stretching. I dare say it almost looks and feels like a seizure. Its very scary.

Any help?

October 11, 2017

I need help. Does anyone here have ADD?

So just last year I was diagnosed with ADD, although I have been placed in all honors and advanced classes, I always have had so much trouble focusing and starting tasks. It has been absolutely detrimental to my success in school. Around May, I took Focalin which is a medication for ADD, In a few weeks I went from having Cs in all my classes to A+, I felt like finally I was the student I always felt like I was. I was so focused and on top of things... bad part is it made my OCD crazy, it led me down this horrible rabbit hole of obsessions.

So, I have been doing so much better with PGAD, I honestly believe a big part of it was somatization as as soon as my psychologist pointed it out and I have been on top of it, being mindful about it, it has almost completely gone away now.

Anyway, Im going back to school in January and my doctor (Psychiatrist) has been suggesting putting me back on something for my ADD something less agressive than focalin, and switching me to another antidepressant I took in the past that helped me.

However I feel like Im so stuck here. On one hand I want to succeed and become a doctor, and do well in school, be able to actually get things done. On the other hand I really really don't wanna be on medications again. Im so scared about them.

I don't know what to do. Im so stuck

October 13, 2017

Hi, I have decided to end my journey here on SA.

I will no longer be posting.

I feel that this website is just not for me, there is a lot of hostility towards the psychologic, and psychiatric field, that for me, it just reached a point, it was too much.

I also feel like sometimes i have questions that are left un-answered or that are ignored all together.

As I have said before, in one of my other postings, the medical field, and especially the psychiatric field is always evolving, they are always finding new and better ways to help people, however, the human body is so complex, and everyone so different in their physiology, that it is an unfortunate inevitability that some people will get hurt, the job of doctors, and what is being worked on at the moment is for the least amount of people to get hurt on these medications. Eventually I hope there reaches a point we find a way where no one gets hurt if they need to take medication, but we are far from that right now, and being hostile towards doctors and professionals that are trying to improve and help is not fair.

I have seen doctors being compared to "sleazy car sales people" that sell people lemon cars because all they care about s money. However I think that is just not fair to use such a blanket statement for ALL doctors out there, or all psychologists out there. After all, a lot of them put us on these medications with good intentions with the knowledge that at the time thy head to help us. Yes, it went bad for a lot of us but that does not mean that doctor or all doctors have a malignant agenda for you or us. The difference between a sleazy cars person and a doctors is that a sleazy cars person knows that what they are doing wil harm or even kill someone, a doctor, does not. They prescribe medication with the best intensions possible, after all it's "first do no harm"

Doctors used to prescribe mercury or cocaine as medication once upon a time, they did it in their best faith that it would help, and in hopes it would help. not for malicious reasons. With patients speaking up, and them seeing the bad effects, medical science was able to advance past mercury and cocaine and come up with something way less harmful and toxic or addicting to help people. I think we have a similar situation here.

Just because a psychologist or psychiatrist says something does not mean it's automatically wrong. I have seen some people here automatically discredit what my psychologist says just because of their profession, and make outlandish remarks (especially about PGAD ) that frankly make no physiological sense. i get these are will intentioned, but they still come off as incredibly hostile.

Anyway, I hope that everyone here, who has helped me heals, I really do, I wish you all luck on your journey. Thanks for everything everyone.

October 16, 2017

ASky, Im sorry you are leaving. Your story is actually very similar to mine in many ways. I understand your struggle, you will heal from PGAD. I experienced it too at first with Paxil but after lowering the dose, I found I felt so much better, it has not reared its head in my life for a while now.

Also, listen, if I may be candid, I am also a pre-medical student, and you need to be a slight bit more sympathetic to these people. They have gone though a lot. As MamaP was alluding to; you should take this as an opportunity to learn from these people's and your own experiences to become a doctor. That is what I am doing, even if my field will not be psychiatry.

Best wishes.

ASkyFullOfHappy: PGAD from Paxil?

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