Madman270: What is wrong with me?

[Madman270]

Hi all. I had a relapse of depression/anxiety/ocd after being on paxil 10mg gor 15 years. I also drank alchohol heavy the whole time I was on it. After my relapse I quit alchohol cold turkey. It has been 7 months of hell. During this time of sobriety my pacil was uped to 20mg and mirtazepine was added and 40mg, gradually. The med changes didn't help at all and gave me side effects.

 

I quit paxil about 3 months ago and mirtazepine 2 and a half months ago. I pretty much feel the same accept the side effects are gone. The last 7 months on and now off all meds I have had extreme anxiety,crying spells,depression,anger loss of wieght. I don't know if I have been experiencing withdrawl the whole time or if it's my mental illness, which was never this bad at all.

 

Looking for help and advise.

Edited September 20, 2017 by baroquep
White Space

[baroquep]

Hi Madman270, 

 

Welcome to Surviving Antidepressants (SA), and very glad that you found the site.  Congratulations for stopping alcohol that can only have a positive effect on your life moving forward.  Rest assured that there is nothing wrong with you, what you are experiencing, while very uncomfortable, is completely normal under the circumstances.  You are feeling the effects of tapering too quickly and the ill-timed addition of mirtazepine.  Unfortunately few doctors have any experience tapering people safely off of these drugs and oftentimes add additional drugs to the mix which just make things worse.  

 

SA recommends tapering by no more than 10% of your current dose followed by a hold of about 4 weeks to allow the brain to adapt to the changes in the central nervous system (CNS) before making another decrease.  When changes are made too quickly, doses are alternated/skipped or the drug is discontinued abruptly, the brain is unable to adapt to the changes and this results in uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms.  Some people may have to taper at a more conservative rate as they are sensitive to even the smallest drops.

 

What is Withdrawal Syndrome?

 

To answer your question whether whether what you are experiencing is withdrawal or relapse.  Typically, in withdrawal symptoms such as melancholia, anxiety, and disorientation come in intense waves, sometimes only a few minutes long, which differentiates them from relapse of a psychological condition.  In withdrawal, symptoms are much more intense than the original psychological condition. People suffering from withdrawal often say things like:

- "This doesn't feel like my depression."
- "I've never had symptoms like this before."
- "I feel very weird and not like myself."
- "I can't feel my feelings."

It's up to you to decide whether your body and brain are behaving "normally" as they did before you tried medication, or if you are feeling differently. No one else, not even a doctor, can determine this.

  
Unfortunately, without having more detailed information with respect to your drug/tapering it will be difficult to make any specific recommendations. We ask all of our members to fill out a signature so that all of your information can be read at a glance.  This helps moderators determine you current situation and we would ask that you follow the instructions at the link below.

 

Instructions:  Withdrawal History Signature

 

 •    Please leave out symptoms and diagnoses.
 •    A list is easier to understand than one or multiple paragraphs. 
 •    Any drugs prior to 24 months ago can just be listed with start and stop years.
 •    Please use actual dates or approximate dates (mid-June, Late October) rather than relative time frames (last week, 3 months ago)
 •    Spell out months, e.g. "October" or "Oct."; 9/1/2016 can be interpreted as Jan. 9, 2016 or Sept. 1, 2016.

 

In the meantime, please feel free to connect with other members of the community by posting in their Introduction Threads, Surviving Antidepressants has a very supportive community, they know what you are going through and are here to help.  If you have any questions or need clarification, please post all of your questions in your own Introduction Thread where all of the moderators will be able to respond and provide you with suggestions to get you back on track.  

 

Best,

BaroqueP

Edited September 23, 2017 by baroquep

[Madman270]

Hi all, I am new here and I am looking for any advise as to what others might do in my situation. I know this isn't the place for medical advise but I just don't want to end up going backwards. I have tourettes/ocd/add anxiety and depression. I have used alchohol just about my whole but have been sober for 7 months now. I was on paxil the last 15 years which I went on due to a depressive episode.  I really don't know what normal for me is and if I really do have to be on some sort of medication. I know I needed to drink to feel good or normal but I don't know if it was because I was addicted. Paxil seemed to get me thru the days and alchohol at night would really let me live. Eventually I started getting depressed feelings and anxiety when I wasn't under the influence. I am not sure but after researching I believe I started getting tolerance withdrawl from being on paxil or maybe it stopped working, if it ever was in the first place, from drinking  alchohol on it. I am now sober and drug free. I just don't know if I should stay like this for a year or so to try to learn what the real me will feel like without drugs,alchohol or withrawls. I am going to the nurologist in 2 more weeks and I know there going to want to play antidepressent roulette again? I really don't know if I can handle starting or stopping medication again this soon. All the medication did was give me terrible side effects. Maybe I need a different med? I have just about lost all my sanity and just don't know what to do.

[Madman270]

Ocd is what is driving me absolutely mad. I have tourettes so I always have had a touch of ocd. I had the kind where things had to be neat and if I walked left instead of right something bad would happen,etc. Since my ad stopped working? But still on it and now off of them I have had constant intrusive thoughts that scare the heck out of me and my anxiety is threw the roof. I ruminate and anelize ever second of every day. I really hope this is from wd and it will get better. I never had ocd control my life like this. I never had anxiety wake me up in the middle of the night and stay with me 24/7 iether.

[baroquep]

Thank you for filling out your signature, it gives moderators a better understanding of what you are dealing with and what recommendations might help.  Rest assured that what you are going through is totally normal under the circumstances.  It is never recommended to abruptly stop an antidepressant as the central nervous system doesn't have the capacity to adapt quickly to the change which results in withdrawal syndrome. 

 

I am having a hard time following what has been going on with you over the last seven months specifically and it would be helpful if you could clarify further.   

 

A request: Would you summarize your history in a signature - ALL drugs, doses, dates, and discontinuations & reinstatements, in the last 12-24 months particularly? 

• Please leave out symptoms and diagnoses.
• A list is easier to understand than one or multiple paragraphs.
• Any drugs prior to 24 months ago can just be listed with start and stop years.
• Please use actual dates or approximate dates (mid-June, Late October) rather than relative time frames (last week, 3 months ago)
• Spell out months, e.g. "October" or "Oct."; 9/1/2016 can be interpreted as Jan. 9, 2016 or Sept. 1, 2016.
• Link to Account Settings – Create or Edit a signature.

I would also like you to take a look at our reinstatement topic as this might be something that you would want to consider to help alleviate your withdrawal symptoms.  Please have a look at the link below so that you are familiar with the benefits and risks of doing a reinstatement at this time.  

 

About Reinstating and Stabilizing to Reduce Withdrawal Symptoms

 

What is known about reinstatement from reading and from patient experience as posted on online support sites:

• According to medical knowledge, reinstatement is the only way to alleviate withdrawal symptoms.
• Reinstatement is best done immediately upon appearance of withdrawal symptoms. The more time that passes, the less likely it is to work.
• The length of this window of opportunity varies according to the individual. Sometimes people can reinstate successfully months after quitting. Others cannot.
• Often a partial dose will relieve withdrawal symptoms. If, for example, you were taking 20mg Paxil and quit rapidly only a few days ago, 5mg or 10mg may be enough. Others find they need a higher dose.

Once we have your updated history, it will be easier to determine what the best course of action for you would be.  In the meantime, I am attaching a few links that might be helpful in managing the symptoms you are currently experiencing.  

 

OCD Obsessive Thoughts, Compulsive Behaviours

Fear, terror, panic, and anxiety

Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

 

Edited September 23, 2017 by baroquep

[Madman270]

Hello baroquep. I don't know for sure if I am in withdrawl or not from ad's. I have alot of the symptyms but I was having these symptyms while still on the ad's. 

[Martina23]

Madman, I get also weird intrusive thoughts in withdrawal, hopefully it will disappear one day, so you are not the only one, it is a shared experience. I also didnt have them before.

 

I also sometimes feel like a madman respectivelly a mad woman :-)

[Madman270]

I have a question, for some of us anti depressents make us feal horrible, for me it was when it stopped working, that is what i am thinking happened anyways. for many years I was doing well on 10mg of paxil along with alchohol for my issues. After being off meds for the last 3 months or so my head dosnt feel like it's full of wool, the burning sensations in my arms are gone, brain zaps are gone and the ringing in my ears has quieted a bit. I am still however dealing with waves of anxiety, depression and ocd. I don't recall those symtoms being that bad pre anti depressents. My question is, At the end of withdrawls if we still have nervous illness what are we supposed to do? 

[Martina23]

This is not nervous illness. I have the same. The acute withdrawal I had for four month (burning, akathisia, wool in the head) and afterwards the remainibg symptoms like anxiety, intrusive thoughts. They get better. But I have them still two years later. They improve continuously and as I heard they should be one day gone. But it takes a lot of time- most probably it is harder to repair it than these first symptoms.

[Madman270]

3 hours ago, Martina23 said:

This is not nervous illness. I have the same. The acute withdrawal I had for four month (burning, akathisia, wool in the head) and afterwards the remainibg symptoms like anxiety, intrusive thoughts. They get better. But I have them still two years later. They improve continuously and as I heard they should be one day gone. But it takes a lot of time- most probably it is harder to repair it than these first symptoms.

Do you have the kind of anxiety that wakes you up all hours of the night? I wake up panicy, scared, heart racing and my mind races. For me songs are playing in my head as well during the episodes. 

[Martina23]

I had, but have no more anxiety which wakes me in the night. I had it first 4 month after c/t. The looping songs I have till now sometimes-this is normal. And mind racing I have till now but much better than before-it subsides slowly. All these huge symptoms you are mentioning I had up to the end of 4 month after c/t.

 

But looping thoughts are definitely withdrawal symptom-one of the most typical ones.

[Madman270]

Thank you. The whole phyciotry system is a farse. I went to emergency 7 months ago for help do to extreme anxiety/depression and obsessive thoughts. They basically locked me up in a waiting room to observe me with people that were insane and dangerous. I was there for 17 hours and they just wanted to know if I was suicidle and then sent me home. After a month or so I finally got to see a phyciotrist. From there they recommended a alchohol rehab. The rehab said my problem sounded more mental. I then saw my regular doctor again wich got me a nurologist oppointment 3 months later. So after seeing them today they recommended some phyciotrists. I am back to square one and have been suffering for 7 months now. I guess I have no choice but to suffer until this sorts itself out if it ever does. I don't know how much more I can take or what to do. 

[baroquep]

Hi Madman270, have you had a look at the link that talks about waking with panic?  What you are experiencing is a very common symptom of antidepressant withdrawal ... It sounds like your medical team is passing the buck rather than try to help you with what you are dealing with and I am not surprised.  There are very few doctors who are aware of the problems these drugs cause despite all the information that is out there to the contrary.  

 

 

Have you given any though to reinstatement?  I did provide you with the links above.  As reinstating at a very small dose of your original drug, is the only known way to help alleviate withdrawal symptoms, I would encourage you to look at this option rather than suffer through hoping the symptoms will resolve.  

 

 

[Madman270]

Does anyone think my whole problem is alchohol withrawl? I quit drinking cold turkey and this is when all heck broke loose, major anxiety, depression and ocd. I stayed on my regular dose of 10mg of paxil at this time. About 2 weeks later I get it upped to 20mg and I felt worse. I continued on 20mg of paxil for another 4 months but never got rid of my symptoms. I still felt the same way as I did sinse the first day I quit drinking accept I had side effects. Now even off the a/d for 3 months I still have the same anxiety/depression/ocd accept the side effects are gone. I had ringing of the ears, wool stuffed head, and burning sensations. I don't know if the paxil stopped working a long time ago and when I stopped drinking is when I could feel the a/d withdrawl? Is it possible to get withdrawls from an a/d if you were still taking them but they wern't working anymore? I am so confused and cant get an answer from physc, nuro, or rehab. Anyone have any ideas? 

Edited September 26, 2017 by baroquep

[brassmonkey]

Hi Madman--  Welcome to SA Hopefully we will have the answers all the others were't able t give you.  First off congratulations on the seven months sober they're some of the hardest.  There seem to be several different factors in play here.  All are interrelated and are causing you to have symptoms.  I agree, it appears that the paxil stopped working a while ago.  The correct term is that you reached tolerance.  The point where your body is fighting against the drug so hard the drug is losing the battle.  the typical thing to do is to updose, which you did.  However, updosing in tolerance rarely works for long and sometimes can have the opposite of the desired affect.  As you are thinking the alcohol was masking the symptoms of the tolerance and when you removed the alcohol the all those symptoms came on full force.

 

Stopping the paxil CT has only made things worse.  These drugs work by making physical changes to the body that require the presence of the drug to keep functioning.  Remove the drug and the body doesn't know what hit it and causes all sorts of WD symptoms.  If the drug is removed slowly the body can undo the changes in an orderly fashion and keep functioning with a minimum of upset. The only way to stabilize those symptoms is to reintroduce a small amount of the drug, wait for the body to stabilize and then taper off very slowly.  Unfortunately, there is a very short window for doing this where it will be predictable and effective.   Being 3 months out from the CT is a long time, but it still is possible to reinstate a small amount of the drug and get some relief.  DO NOT take a full dose, as this will cause a lot of problems.  The best thing would be to take a very small amount, about 1-2mg of the drug and see what happens. 

 

It will take at least 4 days for the drug to become steady state in the blood and then several weeks to several months for the symptoms to stabilize.  But it will happen.  Once things are stable we can start to think about a very slow taper to finally get you off of the drugs.  I know this is hard to hear, but we have done this very many times before and the process does work. It just takes a long time.

 

Things are probably pretty confusing right now so ask a lot of questions here on your intro thread.

[powerback]

Hi Madman270 welcome from a fellow member that's 2.6 years sober and dam proud of that ,good on ye on 7 months .

Ive thought about the alcohol also being the catalyst but the worst of my symptoms came a year or more after giving up drink so there's no denying its the drugs ,I'm also in tolerance and its gone on way to long embarrassingly for me ,so do yourself a favour and don't look at my thread maybe for the time being ,I'm struggling badly .keep to yourself for the early days maybe and be aware some stories mite trigger you .

to back track a bit ,I have to open to the fact that drinking played some part negatively in my life meds or no meds .

 

I was a binge drinker not dependant on it to function so when I stopped I didn't  need the help from a doctor to deal with it so that's were your withdrawl would come in I reckon ,the DTs is it called .withdrawl from these drugs makes my drinking and hangovers  look like  nothing .I reckon being sober is a big help for me even though its been tough .so path yourself on the back and keep sober is my opinion and advise .

I'm a broken record on here about cleaning up diets and doing exercise ,even walks is good .

Take care and good luck .

PB