Rosetta: cold switch May 2011 & too fast taper Feb 2017

[ScottishLass]

Hi Rosetta, 

Thank you for your post on my thread.  As always, wise words and much appreciated.  I’m sorry to read of your Covid experience above.  It is rife among the kids at the moment in the UK.  Spreading through the schools like wildfire.  My siblings wee ones in England are all sick and locked down with it.  Glad to see though that your family are improving.  

 

I hope you are well. 

SL 💕

[Rosetta]

We are all fine.  Curiously, my test was negative.  I have been with my daughter more than my husband, but he is positive.  He’s doing well, but it’s been quite the bad cold.  He has very little energy.  
 

I feel so grateful that I had both doses of the vaccine.  The second dose was almost exactly two weeks prior to my daughter catching COVID — 13 days!  

[Erell]

On 7/22/2021 at 6:37 PM, Rosetta said:

We are all fine.

Relieved to read this, take care dear Rosetta 🙏

[Rosetta]

My husband isn’t quite 14 days past exposure, and his sense of taste and smell is returning.  It came back all of a sudden today at about noon.  It comes a goes.  He started to taste a bit yesterday it the day before.  Sometimes something has a much milder taste than it should.  He feels tired, but he has no other symptoms.  Most colds last a few weeks.  So, this is good news.

 

My daughter is completely over it, and she is past the quarantine period.  I haven’t had any symptoms that I can attribute solely to Covid, and my test was negative.  I had the Moderna vaccine; my husband had Pfizer.

 

 

[ShiningLight]

This is sounding good! I'm so glad you were vaccinated!!! None of us need hospitalization or long covid on top of what we have to deal with.

[Rosetta]

I’m doing ok.  I am in a wave.  Today was rough, but, oh, so much better than in the past.  I did a lot today — grocery store trip, baked brownies and blondies, colored my hair, and drove the obstacle course/freeway to a potluck — all without a major meltdown.  (I was on a twelve-lane freeway, and there was a carpet — a rolled-up carpet — in the middle of my lane — at 70 mph! I had almost no time to react.  It was nearly the same color as the road.  That I saw it and had room to go around it was a miracle.) So, yes, I’m healing, and I have no doubt I will recover.

 

@ShiningLight @HealthHopeHappiness @Erell @ScottishLass @Phoenixmama @Cheeky Thank you all for your kind words.

[Phoenixmama]

@Rosetta I’m literally cheeeeese’n 😁😁😁🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰😌😌😌 and got tears in my eyes at the same time and my heart feels full 💓 I’m so happy you Setta 🌞 you done a lot today 🥳🥳🥳🥳

[Cheeky]

Omg Rosetta your amazing. You really are healing ❤️‍🩹 I’m so happy for you, wow you’ve come along way since the beginning. I’m a hairdresser , so if I lived in your town I would’ve done it for you . 
Your going to make the Success Stories soon . 

[ScottishLass]

☺️🎉👍Rosetta. ☺️

[Rosetta]

Thanks, @Cheeky @ScottishLassand @Phoenixmama  The nights are hard.  The days are easier.  I’m having panicky wake-ups in the night, daymares after the wake ups, and intrusive thoughts about disturbing things including S.  I really feel tormented at times.  Mornings are hard as there are cortisol wake-ups and anxiety that eventually fades.  I’m having some dystonia, but it’s pretty mild.  
 

However, it’s nice to have the ability to do things I need or want to do like going to this potluck.  I have been horrifically lonely.  I would be at home if we hadn’t had Covid recently.  There were very few masks at the potluck.  It’s quite odd to be walking around talking to people I don’t know.  Surreal.

[ScottishLass]

@Rosetta you are so mindful of what’s good despite from your words still some deep struggles.  I am sorry you feel tormented at times and I get the panic, mares, disturbing thoughts.  It takes strength to turn that around which you always seem to display.  Really inspiring to me. I hope you continue to enjoy what you are doing. ☺️  But what’s a ‘potluck’.......I’m intrigued.... 

Take care

SL

[Rosetta]

Oh, ha ha, it’s a very American thing.  “Take potluck” means take a chance not knowing what will happen.  Here, people have potluck parties.  Each family’s cook signs a sheet beforehand stating which type of dish s/he will bring: meat, salad, vegetable, potato, bread, dessert, etc.  To have a party such as this at one’s own house would be out of the question in many cultures, but here, it happens across a wide socio-economic spectrum.  It’s an example of American rejection of class constraints — parties without caterers and servants.  Have you ever seen one in Scotland?
 

Cooks showoff at these parties, try foods from other cultures, and share recipes.  We have all sorts of special cookware with zippered insulated bags that perfectly fit and protect casserole or pie dishes.  People bring slow cookers and plug them in to keep the food warm.  There are cake or cupcake transportation containers.  Salad bowls with lids.  Tupperware of every shape.  On and on.  When I was little, we took our own plates, silverware, and cups with us.  Now, there are paper plates, plastic forks, etc., and a person signs up to bring those.  Some potlucks have a theme.  Imagine if every meat dish was a different meat pie.  (Potlatches are entirely different sorts of events.)

 

This was a pool party for children.  Yes, absolutely horrifying to have one in the middle of Covid.  There’s no way we would have gone if my daughter had not had Covid previously.  Thank goodness she has a chances to make friends again as she has only three left, and we rarely see them.  Her mood has improved so much these past two months since she has had Summer day camp outdoors.

 

[Phoenixmama]

I love to cook !!! Reading this was awesome , sound like so much fun ... I’m glad you felt well to attend 😌☺️ And I’m happy that your baby girl got to make new friends 💓

[ShiningLight]

I'm so sorry to hear about the torture that you are still going through. I get it. Glad to see that you are able to see progress. That is so important as it can fortify you for this journey for sure.

 

Your potlucks sound better than any I've been to! 😂

[Rosetta]

Last night was much better.  I did not have any bad wake ups.  Today, I have been reading too much.  It’s irritating my muscles and causing Dystonia im my eye and neck.  Otherwise, I’m ok.  The bead wake-up nights come and go.  It’s probably related to my cycle.

[Rosetta]

Switching Antidepressants
 

For anyone interested in my ideas, here’s a bit about switching antidepressants.  As many of you know, on the first day of my baby’s life, I was plunged into the Hell of anti-depressant withdrawal.  I wasn’t doing well on Celexa as it was.  I was probably in poop-out.  An OB I had never met before came to me and said that I needed to switch.  She said my baby might not feed if I continued with Celexa.  
 

What a lamb to slaughter I was!  It is now 10 years later, and I am doing pretty well, but it’s not over yet. Five years after that night, I decided to quit Zoloft because I was literally insane.  My dose had gone from 10 mg to 150 mg.  I have no doubt I had serotonin syndrome.  My heart rate, my rock hard muscles, my gait, — there were many signs.

Caveat: It is possible the switch could have been much less of a problem if a doctor had known that I should have tapered off the 10 mg of Zoloft after I was stable on that dose.  It is impossible to know if the kindling was more of a problem than WD in those first few months.  After years of dosage increases, the problem became kindling.

 

I’m not a doctor or medical professional.  I share what I have learned after having taken ADs and having been switched from one to the other out of the blue.  I have been on this site for almost 5 years.  I have been healing from a CT of 150 mg of Zoloft for that long, and I still have a bit more healing to do.  There are a number of pitfalls I have discovered by reading threads and topics here.  I try to point them out.  

 

There are many links on SA to various sources of information.  As the site is an amalgamation of information from the contributions of many different people — great strength — it can be a little difficult to navigate.  If one uses an outside search engine for “survivingantidepressants Zoloft” or any other term in place of Zoloft, s/he will be able to navigate to parts of the site relevant to her interests.  One can peruse this list of topics, as well, https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forum/8-symptoms-and-self-care/

 

Many of us arrive here with time being short to discover and avoid pitfalls.  Ideally, we will read about the pitfalls, talk with a doctor about these issues, probably realize that we need a new doctor ASAP, and side-step the pitfalls.   Many find this site when in very poor shape — I did — and can’t understand the wealth of information here.

I want to highlight a few issues that one should consider if s/he wants to switch ADs.  I think that once you have read through some links I will post, you will decide that you want to taper off of the drug you are taking instead of switching to another drug (unless you have been trying to taper that drug and need to switch as a last resort move.)

 

1. Dependency — avoid dependency on a new AD drug.

 

You are dependent one AD, of course, and you want to switch to another, but you don’t know that that endeavor will go well.    My understanding is that it takes about 4 weeks to develop a dependency on an AD.  (For benzos it can happen in less than two weeks.). The Royal College of Psychiatry in the UK has released information acknowledging such dependency can form with ADs, as you may know.

I urge you to avoid becoming dependent on a new AD unless absolutely necessary.  You may suffer withdrawal from the first drug AND also become dependent on second drug before you have been able to determine whether the switch is working out for you.
 

If your doctor is recommending a switch to anything other than Prozac, it’s a good idea to check with a Mod here.  The topic on switching can give you further information.  Some doctors have no idea that they are switching a patient to a drug that is stronger and more dependency forming (i.e., difficult to taper.)

 

For instance, Lexapro is the much stronger sister drug to Celexa (citalopram).  Lexapro is considered difficult to taper and to have more side effects than Prozac. (I took Celexa before I took Zoloft, and it caused awful WD syndrome for me.) I think the reason Lexapro was created was because the patent for Celexa was almost timed-out.  Why it is stronger, I don’t know, but I have suspicions.

 

2.  Reducing any AD more than 10% per month is not a good idea, in general.  We all know that.   SA recommends a 10 percent reduction every 4 weeks for all ADs, and for some people, that is too fast, but when switching, this is necessary.
 

The Royal College’s website states that some drugs can be reduced faster than SA would recommend.  However, for paroxetine (Paxil) the RC recommends a reduction by no more than 10 percent of the dose per month and notes that some people may need to go slower.  https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/stopping-antidepressants

 

Not surprisingly, Paxil is often a drug that people feel the need to switch.  In fact, Paxil is so notoriously awful to quit that it is not prescribed in the UK.  It was banned.

 

Of course, if one is switching to another drug that would be is a very good reason for a drastic reduction in the first drug.  Serotonin syndrome is a risk - absolutely.  (My doctor avoided that by taking away Celexa entirely and giving me 10 mg of Zoloft.  Not ideal at all.). 
 

However, switching is considered a last resort move precisely because the switch often involves problems caused by the drastic reduction of the first drug.  Getting down to a lower dose of the drug first before switching (if it is necessary) is a much better idea.  Some people can taper more easily until the last few milligrams and then consider switching if things gets too rough.  At that point, a switch to a more gentle AD, such as Prozac, would be preferable.  The hope, of course, is that no switch is ever required.

 

If you must switch, I feel that you need a doctor who will work with you.  You may need a liquid.  You may need to abandon the effort and get a lower dose of your first drug because you can’t tolerate the previous dose.  You may need the doctor to be open and flexible instead of rigid and authoritarian.  Someone who is dismissive of your needs and in denial about WD syndrome is not the one.

 

Switching ADs is discussed here

 

3. The risk of Kindling — extreme sensitivity caused by WD syndrome.  This happened to me.
 

When we quit a drug our bodies are stressed and they become very sensitive to all sorts of substances — drugs, allergens, even food.  Reducing the first drug is likely to stress your body.  Chances are you will have some WD symptoms. These drugs do not “cover” for one another very well. WD syndrome tends to start mildly and intensify over a period of months.  The intensification may be because of sensitivities to different substances or foods we take.  You may be hyper-sensitive to the new drug.  I was.  With every increase in the dose of the new drug, my condition deteriorated.

 

A part of switching is increasing the dose of the new drug.  That is simply a risk that must be taken.  Finding the right dose for the new drug may be difficult and there may be some experimentation needed.  Raising and lower a dose is always fraught with risk. 
 

For me, after I was taken off of Celexa, each increase in my dose of Zoloft caused more and more withdrawal symptoms.  (I did not know about WD syndrome at the time.) I never felt well again, and the doctors continued to raise the Zoloft dose from 10 mg to 150 mg without ever considering the possibility that my system needed less, not more Zoloft!

 

People talk about going on and off psychiatric drugs causing kindling, but a cause that is  just as common is taking a higher dose of the drug one has been prescribed previously.  My doses of Zoloft were doubled and doubled and doubled again.  My system couldn’t handle that.

 

See Límbic Kindling

4.  Tachyphylaxis.  Those of us who reach “poop-out” or tachyphylaxis, don’t have the option to stay on ADs.  Switching is even riskier for us, I believe.  After we reach tachyphylaxis, we are in withdrawal while still taking our prescribed dose.  The dose was raised, and WD felt no relief or we reached the maximum “safe” dose (safe according to the pharmaceutical company.) We no longer get the “benefit” of the drug, but we get all the negatives involved by having our sensitive systems irritated by the very drug on which we are dependent.  This is a very bad time to switch drugs.

 

Also, long term takers of ADs tend to have more problems with WD syndrome, too.   And yet, tapering from tachyphylaxis is necessary!  It is absolutely necessary.  We can’t just quit because our bodies are dependent, and we must very slowly take away the drug while allowing our brains to rebuild the system to function without the drug.  
 

Adding a switch or a failed switch upsets the Apple cart even more.  What one does not want is a failed switch that is difficult to fix because the second drug was taken for more than 4 weeks!  Dependency will have formed, most likely, on the second drug by that time.  Yet, a person may not know the switch has failed or at least increased the severity of WD syndrome until after many weeks.

 

5. After a failed switch.  After you have tried to switch and failed, be careful.  If you have been off the first drug for a few days or weeks, your body may be more sensitive to that drug, and you may need less.  Odd, but true.  This is one of the things I see so frequently on this board — someone tries to quit a drug, feels withdrawal and goes directly back to the previous dose.  Then, she feels worse than before reinstating the dose.  It’s awful, but it has to do with kindling and hyper-sensitivity caused by withdrawal syndrome.

 

Had I tapered directly from Celexa, I could have lived a very different past 10 years.  I’m hopeful that this post will help someone avoid my fate.

Rosetta

 

[Hanna72]

Dear @Rosetta

Thats a great post. 
I am sorry you had to endure all of this, it just shows how ignorant doctors are about these drugs. And have no clue how much suffering this can cause. 
As I myself have done the “switch “ bridge from one drug to another, I have not regretted it. The only thing I realise now is I actually didn’t need to go up as high as I did when I reinstated,  trials and errors I suppose.

Oh wow didn’t know that Paxil is banned in the UK, that says a lot doesn’t it!

 

Take care and thanks for sharing 💕

Edited August 5, 2021 by Hanna72

[Cheeky]

Rosetta that is very valuable and should be a topic on itself. Thankyou for sharing.

[brassmonkey]

@Rosetta-- that is an excellent post, thank you for writing it. 

 

Would you mind reposting it as a new topic in the Symptoms and Selfcare forum. Use a title like "My Experience Switching Antidepressants".

[Erell]

Very hard to read this in my situation, but I agree with every words you wrote.

 

I agree that it could be interesting to post it in a topic.

 

Take good care dear Rosetta ❤

[Greatful]

@Rosetta

Good information for us who are getting tired of feeling better and want a quick fix.

Look into your options and learn about the safest way to heal. 

 

  That explain what happened to me this last winter.   If my doctor knew what he was doing, I would have up dosed my Prozac instead of trying other meds.

It also is warning me to not even entertain the though of trying something now to help stabilize me.  I am stuck, can't go up on the Lex.  I had such a bad reaction starting it.  Fast taper to 5mg and holding.  My brain has gone through the meat grinder, I am scared of what would happen if I tried to add something to it.  Beside I would have d/c Lex go into w/d and do start up side effects, sounds like a nightmare.

 

Thank You

[Rosetta]

@brassmonkey Thank you.  I will when I can.  
 

Today is hard.  I had a bad morning.  I really wish I had never touched ADs or any other drug for that matter.  

[ScottishLass]

Sending kind thoughts to you Rosetta 🙏🏻💕🙏🏻

[Cheeky]

Thinking of you Rosetta, I know how hard this is and sending you a hug 🤗 

[brassmonkey]

It can be a really tough trip, especially when you get hit hard after a good spell. Your are doing so much better than you were a year ago. Good things are really happening.

[Rosetta]

Thank you @ScottishLass @brassmonkey @Cheeky
 

I woke up 4 hours ago at 12:15 with a cortisol spike, and I felt fearful and worried.  I couldn’t go back to sleep because of the adrenaline.
 

Now, I’m in a very deep depression.  

 

 

 

[Cheeky]

35 minutes ago, Rosetta said:

Thank you @ScottishLass @brassmonkey @Cheeky
 

I woke up 4 hours ago at 12:15 with a cortisol spike, and I felt fearful and worried.  I couldn’t go back to sleep because of the adrenaline.
 

Now, I’m in a very deep depression.  

 

 

 

Rosetta I really feel for you , I know how awful it feels and I know you always come out of it. I try to distract myself when feeling so bad and remember your getting closer to healing . I’m sending you a virtual hug 🫂 thinking of you .

[gentlehermione]

On 8/7/2021 at 10:36 PM, Rosetta said:

Today is hard.  I had a bad morning.  I really wish I had never touched ADs or any other drug for that matter.  

 

Hi Rosetta

You have my sympathy. I'm going through a rough patch too atm and really wouldn't have thought that at almost 45 months off my AD that it would still be this rough going 😳 Anyway, chin up, we've come this far so we can certainly make it to the finish line - which I hope is just around the corner 😉

[ScottishLass]

10 hours ago, Rosetta said:

Thank you @ScottishLass @brassmonkey @Cheeky
 

I woke up 4 hours ago at 12:15 with a cortisol spike, and I felt fearful and worried.  I couldn’t go back to sleep because of the adrenaline.
 

Now, I’m in a very deep depression.  

 

 

 

Hi @Rosetta

 I hope you are feeling better?  If anyone can do it......you can.  You’re a force.  So kind, intelligent, positive.  I know things can’t always be great and I wish no one was going through any of this. 😔.....but you will get there.  ****, if you can’t god help me. 🙄 

Sending good vibes and kind thoughts from a stormy Bonny 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 today. 

SL

 

[ShiningLight]

Rosetta, hang in there. Not to be glib, but don't forget, symptoms mean your brain is healing. It's just tackling the next hurdle. Too bad it doesn't ask first though. 😩

[Rosetta]

@Cheeky @gentlehermione @ScottishLass  @ShiningLight

Thanks.  It was short lived, but oh so deep.  At least I was able to cry.  That’s rare.  I fell asleep again and woke up feeling pretty neutral.  Sometimes anhedonia is a relief.  Ugh!  This is all so bizarre and exhausting!

[Cheeky]

Just now, Rosetta said:

@Cheeky @gentlehermione @ScottishLass  @ShiningLight

Thanks.  It was short lived, but oh so deep.  At least I was able to cry.  That’s rare.  I fell asleep again and woke up feeling pretty neutral.  Sometimes anhedonia is a relief.  Ugh!  This is all so bizarre and exhausting!

I’m so happy to hear that. These waves can really throw you into despair. You know what it is but when your in one you can’t think normally and it’s so distressing. You have always pulled through and all ways will . Your one tough lady xx

[Greatful]

@Rosetta  I am sorry you are going through rough time.  This wd is  can be so horrific and painful.  Your perseverance and will power is incredible and great inspiration. 🤗

You have done your time, your success story is right around the corner.

[Rosetta]

Thanks, @Greatful Today felt normal.  That was real from left field the other night, but I’ve had that happen before.  
 

I was in a wave for several days, and had a bad argument with my husband on Saturday, the 7th of August.  He said I had been angry for days.  I didn’t think that I felt overly angry, but it was a hard week for me, and Saturday was not a break day, but an additional day that my daughter needed to be somewhere on-time.  I was think about that argument on the 9th, and I just wished I were dead.  He gets very anxious when I’m in a wave, and it escalates my anxiety.  
 

Sometimes, I wish everyone around me would freeze in place when I have a wave.  I need everything to stop.  Instead, someone gave my 10 year old nail polish without my permission, and that created a chain reaction of misfortune.
 

I was in bad shape exactly a month ago Saturday, too.  I believe it could be a hormonal issue intersecting with WD.  My god, the darkness I felt the other night.  Just complete despair.  So familiar, but yet all encompassing.  I tried to stay in bed so that I would go back to sleep, but that was a mistake.  I spiraled.  
 

@Cheeky thank you.  Your support means a lot.  

 

[Cheeky]

Hi Rosetta,

just checking on you , hope your getting windows 🪟.

[ScottishLass]

@Rosetta I hope you are ok. Thinking of you.  

Thank you for all your kindness and support. X

SL