meagain: back again

[meagain]

Hello everyone,

 

I am back again (form Paxil Progress.org) trying to hopefully attempt another ween off my Paxil. I have been on Paxil for 20 years, and have tried many attempts bot Dr's methods and 1 Paxil Progress org method. The last attempt was 8 years ago slowly weaning with liquid Paxil for up to 6 months, i remember many on that site letting me know that it was to quick and they were right i guess, because 3 weeks later i was back on the side effects were to difficult. 

 

So here i am again contemplating another journey, hello everyone, and i'm glad i found you guys again, but also sorry to see PP.org vanish. Does anyone know what actually cuaesd them to just shut down?

 

MeAgain

[manymoretodays]

Hi meagain and welcome,

I'm not familiar with Paxil Progress, other than that, we had quite a few arrive from there......a few years back.

 

We need you to create a signature for us:  Please put your withdrawal history in your signature.

Take a look at this link ^ to familiarize yourself with what we like to see in the signature, and then go to Accounts Settings and create one.

This is the portion that you will see below others posts, unless viewing from a phone device.  However you can still create a signature from a phone device.

 

Please let us know if you are on any other medications/drugs now or supplements.

 

Here at Surviving Antidepressants, it is recommended that a person taper by no more than 10% of their current dose with at least a four week hold in-between decreases.  The 10% taper recommendation is a harm reduction approach to going off psychiatric drugs.

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

Tips for tapering off Paxil

 

General Information about W/D(withdrawal)

Brain Remodelling

What is withdrawal syndrome.

 

Dr.Glenmullen’s withdrawal symptom list.

 

The Windows and Waves Pattern of Stabilization

 

When we take medications, the CNS (central nervous system) responds by making changes over the months and years we take the drug(s). When the medication is discontinued, the CNS has to undo all the changes it made.  The CNS likes stability. Rebuilding the neurotransmitter production and reactivating the receptor and transporter cells takes time -- during that rebuilding process symptoms occur.

 

We don't recommend a lot of supplements on SA, as many members report being sensitive to them due to our over-reactive nervous systems, but two supplements that we do recommend are magnesium and omega 3 (fish oil). Many people find these to be calming to the nervous system.  

 

Magnesium, nature's calcium channel blocker 

Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) 

 

This is your introduction/journal page now,  where you have now introduced yourself to the community.  You can ask questions here regarding your tapering, give updates, and  keep a record of your journey.  Ask any questions here as well, regarding your own situation.  And feel free to communicate with the other members or moderators here as well.

 

Love, peace, healing, and growth,

manymoretodays(mmt)

 

[brassmonkey]

Hi Meagain-- Welcome to SA.  There are a lot of us old PPers here, so you'll probably run into some old friends pretty soon.  No one really knows what really happened, there's an old thread about it around here somewhere, but it's just a lot of venting and speculation.  SA is a wonderful place with a huge amount of information and a totally different structure from Prior Place.  MMT has already given you a number of links to help get the process started.  Getting off of paxil after using it for 20 years will be a long slow process, but it can be done and can be relatively painless if done right.  Case in point, myself, I was on for a total of about 24 years, but today I'm drug free and loving life.  There are a number of other members here that are long time paxil users that are having very successful tapers. 

 

It would be best to read through the links and look around the forum before starting a taper.  That way you can get familiar with the site and our ideas on how tapers work and we can set up a good schedule for you that will lead to a successful withdrawal.  There's a lot of information to go through and it can get overloading and confusing so ask a lot of questions.  The best place to ask is right here in your introduction thread, that way you'll have all the information in one place for easy reference.

 

I'm glad you found us.

 

Brassmonkey

[elbee]

Welcome to the community Meagain  

 

It's great you are here to get information and resources as you contemplate tapering. Many who find this website are often already in the throws of some type of withdrawal. MMT provided some great links, and Brassmonkey shared some of his wisdom through his own Paxil WD experience. I too encourage you to explore this site to find the resource you need, and of course, to ask question and share your experiences here on your own thread.

 

Best wishes!

 

Elbee

 

 

[Carmie]

Hi Meagain, 

 

Welcome to SA. Could you please put in your signature of the drugs you’re taking n your withdrawal history. Manymoretodays gave you a link. 

 

Thank you💚

 

 

[meagain]

Hello everyone.

 

I updated my sig

 

Started to taper today at 10% per month, starting with 18mg. In the past when I was on Paxil Progress I tried a 4-month taper, most if not everyone warned me it was to fast I didn't listen, 4 days after the 4 months when I stopped, the withdrawals started to kick in. I knew these withdrawal symptoms very well as I had experienced them before many times, typically when all the Dr's I went had me try and stop in 2 weeks using there Prozac and other weening process's.

Here are my symptoms that usually start 4 days after stopping after the taper.

    a. Equilibrium is totally off
    b. can break out in severe hives (never ever had hives in my entire life before, definitely because of the Paxil affecting my nervous system).
    c. VERY irritable to point I close my self off form everyone to not impact there lives with my side effects.
    d. My whole self just seems off (best way I can explain it, that gut feeling you get when something is off or not right when a lot of your senses are alerted to that gut feeling, that feeling. in my case, all my internal senses seem to be off again hard to explain as though a war is going on within your senses.
    e. Break out with lip cold sores which I would never get

So those are the most significant withdrawals I get, not sure which of the remedies I've read here work best to counter these,

[meagain]

On 11/26/2018 at 4:07 PM, elbee said:

Welcome to the community Meagain  

 

It's great you are here to get information and resources as you contemplate tapering. Many who find this website are often already in the throws of some type of withdrawal. MMT provided some great links, and Brassmonkey shared some of his wisdom through his own Paxil WD experience. I too encourage you to explore this site to find the resource you need, and of course, to ask question and share your experiences here on your own thread.

 

Best wishes!

 

Elbee

 

 

Thankyou Elbee

[meagain]

On 11/26/2018 at 11:41 PM, Carmie said:

Hi Meagain, 

 

Welcome to SA. Could you please put in your signature of the drugs you’re taking n your withdrawal history. Manymoretodays gave you a link. 

 

Thank you💚

 

 

Thanks for the heads up just did it.

[meagain]

On 11/26/2018 at 1:02 PM, brassmonkey said:

Hi Meagain-- Welcome to SA.  There are a lot of us old PPers here, so you'll probably run into some old friends pretty soon.  No one really knows what really happened, there's an old thread about it around here somewhere, but it's just a lot of venting and speculation.  SA is a wonderful place with a huge amount of information and a totally different structure from Prior Place.  MMT has already given you a number of links to help get the process started.  Getting off of paxil after using it for 20 years will be a long slow process, but it can be done and can be relatively painless if done right.  Case in point, myself, I was on for a total of about 24 years, but today I'm drug free and loving life.  There are a number of other members here that are long time paxil users that are having very successful tapers. 

 

It would be best to read through the links and look around the forum before starting a taper.  That way you can get familiar with the site and our ideas on how tapers work and we can set up a good schedule for you that will lead to a successful withdrawal.  There's a lot of information to go through and it can get overloading and confusing so ask a lot of questions.  The best place to ask is right here in your introduction thread, that way you'll have all the information in one place for easy reference.

 

I'm glad you found us.

 

Brassmonkey

Hi Brassmonkey,

I started a taper again last week, 10% drop each month. When I was on Paxil Progress everyone warned that my 4month taper was too quick, at the time I figured if all the Doctors over the past 15 years have tried weaning me off in 2 weeks with their methods 4 months would be enough, boy was I wrong. I now know that because of the 20 years of taking this horrible drug I MUST go SLOW.

 

What I really need is, help when the withdrawal side effects start to kick in, ie. anger (which I never had before this drug), equilibrium, anxiety (all emotions and symptoms I have NEVER had before this horrific drug).

[ChessieCat]

Hi meagain and welcome from me too,

I can understand your concern about getting withdrawal symptoms.  Having experienced them once it makes us very worried that we will get them again.  The trouble is we can add fear to the equation, and then we have difficulty working out if it is a genuine withdrawal symptom or our fear/anxiety because we are worrying. It is important to try and stay as calm and stress free as possible.

 

What you need to understand is that SA's recommended taper protocol of no more than 10% of current dose followed by a hold of about four weeks allows the brain to adapt to not getting as much of the drug.  So it adapts as you go.  That doesn't mean that we won't experience withdrawal symptoms, but generally they are only mild.  When we rip the drug away too quickly the brain tries to make a lot of changes in one go, which is why we can get bad withdrawal symptoms.  There will most likely be times of discomfort during a taper, however we need to learn to sit with the discomfort.  Some members panic as soon as they feel discomfort and increase their dose, sometimes by too much, which can make things worse.  If you start experiencing withdrawal symptoms which are worse then mild, it is a sign that you are tapering too quickly and you need to slow down by holding for longer and/or reducing by less.  I've been tapering off 100mg Pristiq for the last 3 years and I am now down to 5.5mg.  I've only experienced mild withdrawal symptoms.  Before that I had tried to reduce from 100mg to 50mg and suffered extreme cog fog for 3 weeks before I found SA.

 

To help get through the times of discomfort SA strongly encourages members to learn and use non drug coping techniques.  Different things can be better to use at different times so try them out and find out what works for you.  Non-drug techniques to cope

 

It can also be helpful to keep a daily symptom diary so you can be objective about your symptoms.  There are some printable and computer ones here where you can also rate your symptoms:  Dr Joseph Glenmullen's Withdrawal Symptoms

 

From how-psychiatric-drugs-remodel-your-brain:

 

"When we stop taking the drug, we have a brain that has designed itself so that it works in the presence of the drug; now it can't work properly without the drug because it's designed itself so that the drug is part of its chemistry and structure. It's like a plant that has grown on a trellis; you can't just yank out the trellis and expect the plant to be okay. When the drug is removed, the remodeling process has to take place in reverse. SO--it's not a matter of just getting the drug out of your system and moving on. If it were that simple, none of us would be here. It's a matter of, as I describe it, having to grow a new brain. I believe this growing-a-new-brain happens throughout the taper process if the taper is slow enough. (If it's too fast, then there's not a lot of time for actually rebalancing things, and basically the brain is just pedaling fast trying to keep us alive.) It also continues to happen, probably for longer than the symptoms actually last, throughout the time of recovery after we are completely off the drug, which is why recovery takes so long."

[Songbird]

Hi meagain - I'm also a former PP-er.  The tapering protocol here is essentially the same - drops of no more than 10% then holding at least 4 weeks until stabilised.  We also have other taper methods including microtapering and the Brassmonkey Slide.

 

Please can you add specific dates and doses to your signature (e.g. 28 Nov 2018 Paxil 18mg) and keep this updated as you taper.

 

If you taper slowly enough, withdrawal symptoms should be relatively mild, but please check out the topic on non-drug techniques Chessiecat posted above, there's heaps of great info in there.

 

 

[meagain]

18 hours ago, Songbird said:

Hi Songbird,

 

Yes, I started my taper 10% lowering each month, Nov. 27th started with 18mg. I don't think my signature will allow that many characters, seems like its a new change. I currently am taking flax oil 1TLBSP each night.

 

18 hours ago, Songbird said:

 

 

[ChessieCat]

52 minutes ago, meagain said:

seems like its a new change

 

Have you joined as a member previously under a different member name?

[meagain]

23 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

 

Have you joined as a member previously under a different member name?

No my only time joining.