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Bluewisp: seeking truth to control my life again


Bluewisp

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Hi

 

I'm 37, I had anxiety disorders and depression all my life.

 

I was put on medication fast, probably way too fast. I've been convinced that my condition was needing them and I believed it was impossible to live normally without.

 

I'm hyper sensitive to medication so I was not able to bear most of antidepressants. Zoloft was the easiest, but has its list of horrible side effects too, mainly excessive and violent sweating for little moves like even grating cheese and accompanied with itching and unable to stand heat in general. Emotions are neutralized, as well as happiness and interests, mostly living like a vegetable.

 

With time my anxiety changed when I tried to stop zoloft, weird new manifestations appeared and I was told that's it's from me, not from medication. With time I suspected more and more zoloft to have caused new issues that I would never have before.

 

I'm doing a second "serious" withdrawal, I got 0mg from May 2018 and I've pretty crazy anxiety but not all the time, all the weird symptoms developed in time are back, and I can see that zoloft body changes are still not reverted back to my natural self because of restless leg syndrome that I only get during withdrawals and I have abnormal too sensitive feelings like crying very easily.

 

Since I left zoloft, I lost my overweight (220 pounds to 180 pounds and still dropping), I'm healthy aside those issues, I move freely and lightly, I got all my feelings back with new interests, like if I'm being reborn. I can't even seriously say if medication really helped me of all my life, maybe somehow, but I suspect more to have worsened everything by creating new issues that sleep until I try to stop zoloft.

 

Then it's the infinite loop: returning on it because of all the issues, taken by doctors for my natural self being sick. Then later I want to get rid of it again, and the thing restart. I had only panic attacks when I started antidepressants at 17 years old. I had nothing of all the stuff that was added with years. I also was not with hypersensitive feelings. I could probably have developed non-med ways to cope and I would never have anything worse.

 

Now added to panic attacks I had strong adrenaline looping rushes in bed, I got morning fears that don't seem associated to any precise thoughts, and instant panic with thoughts popping during the day that should not trigger anything.

 

I've been told that with that, an antidepressant alone would not work, that I need an antipsychotic too, and both. That's why I'm also on seroquel XR. I had to leave my job because it was already a very high stress life there and addition of everything was pure hell. I'm free of zoloft for 8 months, compared to 2 months the more I was able to endure and I was even not working at this time.

 

I know that almost all symptoms will disappear if I take it again, and all the side effects will also be back with it. It will falsely thought to heal me when most of what is happening is because of a long-term body changes that zoloft installed with time. This is what I think. It's like not being hypersensitive to feelings at all before to try any, take one, stop it and being hypersensitive and say "it's because you stopped it so take it back you need it". I think doctors are totally blind to this hypothesis despite the fact that they may really want to help. It can surely be hard to prove, especially if I cannot bear to live like this long enough to the point I restart taking the drug. But some proof is there. Restless leg syndrome is only when I tapered zoloft, all the times I tried it was there and only at this time. If it still happens randomly after 8 months, it proves that my body is still affected by zoloft in a way or another.

 

I'm 37 and I want to take control of my life fully, and living disabled for the time it needs may be my only chance to get this freedom, but I just don't know the truth myself. Maybe it will take a year for symptoms to disappear, maybe more, maybe never, maybe I've been broken and there is nothing to do but take meds all my life, which will give a horrible life on another level. I'm here to discover what others experienced, find similarities, some truth and at least if I must go through this hell, I will have some hope and real examples that waiting a certain time could free me too, forever of antidepressants.

 

I don't seek someone deciding for me, I seek real people experience to see the real whole picture and decide myself.

 

Edited by ChessieCat
added paragraphs for easier reading

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • ChessieCat changed the title to Bluewisp: seeking truth to control my life again
  • Moderator Emeritus

Dear Bluewisp,
 

Welcome to SA, and thanks for telling your story and listing your medication history.  

The symptoms you've described (adrenaline surges in bed, morning anxiety, restless legs, etc.) are all very common during withdrawal (WD).  They feel horrific to endure, but people do heal from them.  There is no crystal ball that tells us how long healing will take, though.  For some people, WD lasts months years; for other people, WD lasts only days or weeks.  We have people on SA at all stages of recovery, and we have success stories on here of people who have completely recovered.  

Psych med WD is unique because it's not a straight path.  There can be two steps forward, then one step, but the overall journey does move forward.  We refer to this zig-zag path of healing as "windows and waves."  A window is when we can tell we've made healing progress, and a wave is a temporary setback.

You mentioned that you weren't helped in finding non-medication techniques to help your panic attacks.  The good news is that there are non-drug techniques for that, and also non-drug techniques to help cope with WD.  You sound very aware of what your panic was like before meds and of complications that meds may have added.  That's a good level of self-awareness.

You also said you know that all symptoms will disappear if you go back on Zoloft.  Please be advised that is not necessarily the case.  Reinstating a drug after you've been off of it for as long as eight months does not always go smoothly and can make things worse.  When people reinstate (go back to) a medication, we do not advise they go back to their full dose.  We advise they go back to a teeny-tiny dose, and there can actually be more risk with reinstatement the longer you've been off.  Zoloft reinstatement is not a guaranteed smooth path, so if you decide to do it, keep it small.

Below, I'm going to list some links for you to read different sections of this website that relate to your story:

About the Windows and Waves pattern of healing:
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/82-the-windows-and-waves-pattern-of-stabilization/

About reinstatement:
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/7562-about-reinstating-and-stabilizing-to-reduce-withdrawal-symptoms/

About hypersensitive emotions caused by meds and WD:
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/14397-neuro-emotions/

About non-drug techniques for coping in WD:
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/1112-non-drug-techniques-to-cope-with-emotional-symptoms/

Okay, I've saved the BEST link for last.  These are the SUCCESS STORIES of people who have healed from psych medication withdrawal.  I recommend printing your favorite success stories and underlining the most hopeful parts:
https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forum/28-success-stories-recovery-from-withdrawal/

Please take as much time as you need to read this info; ask questions about it if you need.  Feel free to talk to others here on SA and to visit their threads.  Hopefully, this will be a helpful place of support and will supply you with info to make the independent decision you seek!

 

Edited by WiggleIt

*I'm not a doctor and don't give medical advice, just personal experience
**Off all meds since Nov. 2014. Mentally & emotionally recovered; physically not
-Dual cold turkeys off TCA & Ativan in Oct 2014. Prescribed from 2011-2014

-All meds were Rxed off-label for an autoimmune illness.  It was a MISDIAGNOSIS, but I did not find out until AFTER meds caused damage.  All med tapers/cold turkeys directed by doctors 

-Nortriptyline May 2012 - Dec 2013. Cold turkey off nortrip & cold switched to desipramine

-Desipramine Jan 2014 - Oct. 29, 2014 (rapid taper/cold turkey)

-Lorazepam 1 mg per night during 2011
-Lorazepam 1 mg per month in 2012 (or less)

-Lorazepam on & off, Dec 2013 through Aug 2014. Didn't exceed 3x a week

-Lorazepam again in Oct. 2014 to help get off of desipramine. Last dose lzpam was 1 mg, Nov. 2, 2014. Immediate paradoxical reactions to benzos after stopping TCAs 

-First muscle/dystonia side effects started on nortriptyline, but docs too stupid to figure it out. On desipramine, muscle tremors & rigidity worsened

-Two weeks after I got off all meds, I developed full-blown TD.  Tardive dystonia, dyskinesia, myoclonic jerks ALL over body, ribcage wiggles, facial tics, twitching tongue & fingers, tremors/twitches of arms, legs, cognitive impairment, throat muscles semi-paralyzed & unable to swallow solid food, brain zaps, ears ring, dizzy, everything looks too far away, insomnia, numbness & electric shocks everywhere when I try to fall asleep, jerk awake from sleep with big, gasping breaths, wake with terrors & tremors, severely depressed.  NO HISTORY OF DEPRESSION, EVER. Meds CREATED it.

-Month 7: hair falling out; no vision improvement; still tardive dystonia; facial & tongue tics returned
-Month 8: back to acute, incl. Grand Mal seizure-like episodes. New mental torment, PGAD, worse insomnia
-Month 9: tardive dystonia worse, dyskinesia returned. Unable to breathe well due to dystonia in stomach, chest, throat
-Month 13: Back to acute, brain zaps back, developed eczema & stomach problems. Left leg no longer works right due to dystonia, meaning both legs now damaged
-7 years off: Huge improvements, incl. improved dystonia

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thank you WiggleIt.

 

With this detox, I had to quit my job because the mix of detox and heavy stress at job was unbearable, but now or later it's the same, this detox has to be done. I just don't understand why psychiatrists don't see the detox a real thing, and just say that an antidepressant is over after its half-life, that there cannot be any symptoms left. And of course for them, the only logic conclusion to have symptoms is your natural being back, relapsing. So they put you back on the antidepressant and it has no end, every other tentative is not seen as detox but a relapse. I needed a lot of time to get there, to think that the detox is real, and I'm still not sure at 100% today but there is evidence. But it looks like what psychiatrists learned at university and in their daily experience is not enough to bring the truth, and people living a detox are the best to watch and see this running, but psychiatrists don't care about that and see what they want to see. Also, this would be a pain for companies making the meds. And I'm sure that psychiatrists mean no harm, they are just limited, when they should be the pro of the topic. This is pushing me to heal myself, taking control of everything, because no one see a detox and no one will help.

 

Because of this, I'm considered to be relapsing and not in detox. I don't want to get back on zoloft (in short, doing it is to take 30 pounds, sweating like a pig, having tics, unable to stand heat and itching), so I'm "not cooperating" to the "only way" to get better. Being with no job, I could live with government's help for being ill, but this has to be approved by the psychiatrist, which will not cooperate himself because I refuse to take back zoloft. This is forcing me to live on the money I got for now. I helped people on anxietyzone before it has been shutdown, for years, and got helped too, I've seen a lot and this mixed to my own life experience, I'm almost sure (but not at 100%) that antidepressants bring problems at long term, and that the detox is real. For example, I started to have neck tics the 10e year taking zoloft, I had to crack my neck a lot of times in a day, like feeling that I must do it and this was giving me pain. I took zoloft for 10 years straight, and also before, and never had this tic. Also got one for face. Once I stopped zoloft, the neck tic disappeared entirely in a few days. It's clearly a long term new issue for me, so I can imagine the complexity of mess that antidepressants can do in the brain for anxiety and depression. Anxiety symptoms are tricky to say if it's not the detox or yourself, but some symptoms are not anxiety related and this is an evidence for me: restless leg syndrome is clearly from zoloft, it starts at every withdrawal attempt, and the easy and heavy sweating and heat issues were also clearly from zoloft, which took 5 or 6 months to diminish enough to feel free from it. Restless legs syndrome is still happening randomly. Zoloft half life is 26 hours. This is completely impossible that those 2 symptoms are still there after 6 months if the detox phenomena is not real. Psychiatrists can't even explain it. They end thinking you was like that before, which is ridiculous. On anxiety side, I also believe that antidepressants developed other issues. Here is my major anxiety phenomena list before and after zoloft:

 

Before:

 

- panic attacks, started zoloft after from 1999. Only panic attacks and general anxiety (worrying for a lot of things), I had nothing else at this time.

 

After zoloft (2008) after I start the withdrawal:

 

- Occasionally, adrenaline surges in bed, looping until I sleep, feeling it in the chest and having no control at all. Adrenaline, because it's the same effect for being chased by a bear or be surprised. Except that it restarts every minute.

 

- Morning fear, fear of getting out of the bed, to start the day. Just fear with no precise ideas. And only in morning.

 

- Overstimulation randomly in the day, like being on 12 coffees or plugged to a 5000 volts battery, feeling like if senses are saturated of information and it's hard to focus on something, to concentrate.

 

- Panicking over ideas that should not trigger anything, thinking I'm going crazy and feeding the initial panic. Can start in half a second. Those are different from panic attacks because they are caused by thinking of something that "I cannot accept", like if my mind becomes stuck on something. This one is hard to describe. However they can probably be controlled like standard panic attacks, since it's still a panic.

 

Those 4 types of "attacks" are new from the first withdrawal in 2008 and it took me years to be able to list them, to differentiate and describe them. They were not there before. Also, I was not very sensitive to emotions and I am right now, so for me they are all proof that the detox is real and in action. Like I said, at this point, it sounds like if I don't take control of what must be done myself, I could end taking antidepressants the rest of my life, maybe creating future new issues, and for sure staying far from a potential new love relation since the side effects are making me repulsive, and adding the possible health issues with overweight. Since I don't know how long it will take, I will probably be out of money before it happens. So I guess I will have to find work later while still being sick because of detox, and have a hard time to keep this hypothetical work.

 

Do we have at least a time range, roughly, how long a detox like that can take? For someone taking an antidepressant for at least 10 years? Ah and thanks for the links, I find this help well organized and giving important knowledge.

 

Edited by ChessieCat
added sapcing

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus

Hi again Bluewisp,

Believe me, I understand your frustration about the medical community not knowing or not understanding that withdrawal (WD) is real!  But there actually has been more attention to this topic in recent years.  It's still not a lot, but it's better than it used to be.  There have been a few medical articles published saying that WD is serious, so we are slowly getting recognized in the medical community.  We all wish the acknowledgement would happen faster, but I'm happy that there is some medical acceptance, even if it's slow.

This recent medical article was published after two British researchers realized that WD can be severe and long-lasting.  It's been published to a medical database that is well-known and credible, so it's a hopeful sign that some of the medical community is expanding its knowledge:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30292574 

I'm so sorry to read about your tics!  The meds triggered horrible tics all over my face and body.  I'm so happy to say that ALL of my facial tics are recovered, and my body is SERIOUSLY improved!  I feel like I have a full, happy life again.  It's a different life than I used to have, but I'm happy.  The morning fears are now all gone, too.  I suffered intensely from morning fear, but it's totally recovered now.

You mentioned having anxiety before, but now your anxiety feels worse.  So many people here have had their original anxiety exaggerated by meds and WD, but they have recovered nonetheless.  Predicting how long it will take to recover is a different story, though; nobody can predict that.  Just because someone has been on meds a long time doesn't mean they'll take a long time to recover.  Also, just because someone was on meds a short time doesn't mean their recovery will be short.  Take things one day at a time.  What can you do today to make it a good day?  I'll be honest that I spent a lot of time in recovery just laying down and watching TV.  But you know what?  It's what my body needed and it helped.  TV distracted me from the sensitive emotions, and it worked.

You mentioned being stressed about work and money.  What kinds of friends and family support do you have around you?    
 
 

*I'm not a doctor and don't give medical advice, just personal experience
**Off all meds since Nov. 2014. Mentally & emotionally recovered; physically not
-Dual cold turkeys off TCA & Ativan in Oct 2014. Prescribed from 2011-2014

-All meds were Rxed off-label for an autoimmune illness.  It was a MISDIAGNOSIS, but I did not find out until AFTER meds caused damage.  All med tapers/cold turkeys directed by doctors 

-Nortriptyline May 2012 - Dec 2013. Cold turkey off nortrip & cold switched to desipramine

-Desipramine Jan 2014 - Oct. 29, 2014 (rapid taper/cold turkey)

-Lorazepam 1 mg per night during 2011
-Lorazepam 1 mg per month in 2012 (or less)

-Lorazepam on & off, Dec 2013 through Aug 2014. Didn't exceed 3x a week

-Lorazepam again in Oct. 2014 to help get off of desipramine. Last dose lzpam was 1 mg, Nov. 2, 2014. Immediate paradoxical reactions to benzos after stopping TCAs 

-First muscle/dystonia side effects started on nortriptyline, but docs too stupid to figure it out. On desipramine, muscle tremors & rigidity worsened

-Two weeks after I got off all meds, I developed full-blown TD.  Tardive dystonia, dyskinesia, myoclonic jerks ALL over body, ribcage wiggles, facial tics, twitching tongue & fingers, tremors/twitches of arms, legs, cognitive impairment, throat muscles semi-paralyzed & unable to swallow solid food, brain zaps, ears ring, dizzy, everything looks too far away, insomnia, numbness & electric shocks everywhere when I try to fall asleep, jerk awake from sleep with big, gasping breaths, wake with terrors & tremors, severely depressed.  NO HISTORY OF DEPRESSION, EVER. Meds CREATED it.

-Month 7: hair falling out; no vision improvement; still tardive dystonia; facial & tongue tics returned
-Month 8: back to acute, incl. Grand Mal seizure-like episodes. New mental torment, PGAD, worse insomnia
-Month 9: tardive dystonia worse, dyskinesia returned. Unable to breathe well due to dystonia in stomach, chest, throat
-Month 13: Back to acute, brain zaps back, developed eczema & stomach problems. Left leg no longer works right due to dystonia, meaning both legs now damaged
-7 years off: Huge improvements, incl. improved dystonia

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  • Administrator

Welcome, Bluewisp.

 

Very few doctors anywhere in the world are informed about tapering psychiatric drugs and withdrawal syndrome.

 

Your psychiatrist is unable to recognize even your adverse reaction to Zoloft:

On 2/17/2019 at 10:28 AM, Bluewisp said:

I had only panic attacks when I started antidepressants at 17 years old

 

On 3/1/2019 at 1:42 PM, Bluewisp said:

I don't want to get back on zoloft (in short, doing it is to take 30 pounds, sweating like a pig, having tics, unable to stand heat and itching),

 

Are you compelled to see this doctor? If I were you, I'd find another one, you have grounds for formal complaint.

 

Any doctor can prescribe psychiatric drugs, but I don't know what the rules for your health system are.

 

These are withdrawal symptoms from Zoloft:

On 2/17/2019 at 10:28 AM, Bluewisp said:

Now added to panic attacks I had strong adrenaline looping rushes in bed, I got morning fears that don't seem associated to any precise thoughts, and instant panic with thoughts popping during the day that should not trigger anything.

 

What times of day are you taking Seroquel? What is its effect on you? How's your sleep?

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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  • Moderator Emeritus

Hi Bluewisp, 

 

I wanted to welcome you to SA as well. I’m also tapering off Seroquel, but I’ve never used the extended release one. I’ve managed to get myself down from 300mg to 7.5mg. It’s taken a really long time though, and I’ve got many years still to go as I can only taper by a small percentage.

 

It’s terrible how doctors give medications out like lollies. All they know is what they’ve been taught in medical school, and unfortunately they aren’t taught about how to get off these meds and the withdrawals they cause. Pharmaceutical companies are also big money making businesses and they give the doctors incentives to prescribe certain drugs. They even use Seroquel on people with insomnia. The irony about that is,  even if it works, the rebound insomnia one gets once off it is much worse. I forgot to take my medication one night and I didn’t sleep whatsoever.

 

We will eventually recover though, it requires a really slow and steady taper of no more than 10% a month. I’m doing much less than that myself. Each day is a day closer to recovery. 

 

Wishing you all the best in your healing journey 💚

Been on APs, benzos, ADs and opiates, for chronic pain. Had Akathisia in the past that made me suicidal. Still on Seroquel. 2019:➡️ March10=7.25mg ✔️ April17=7.0✔️ June5=6.75✔️ July14=6.50✔️ Aug28=6.25✔️ Oct10=6.20  ✔️ Oct21=6.0✔️ Dec16=5.80 ✔️ 2020➡️ Jan 21=5.60 ✔️ April2=5.40 ✔️ May29=5.20 ✔️ Aug14= 5.0 ✔️Sep29=4.80✔️2021➡️ Jan31=4.60 mg✔️ April24=4.40mg✔️Jul17=4.30mg ✔️ Aug 28=4.20 ✔️ Oct 11=4.15✔️Nov1=4.10 ✔️ Nov21= 4.05✔️ Dec13= 4mg ✔️2022 ➡️ Jan8=3.95✔️ Jan31=3.90✔️ March2=3.85 ✔️ April4=3.80 ✔️ June16=3.75✔️ July26=3.70✔️ Sep2=3.65✔️ Oct21=3.60 ✔️ Dec8=3.55✔️2023➡️ Jan 26=3.50✔️ March 17=3.45✔️ June12=3.40✔️ July30=3.35✔️ Sep14=3.30✔️ Oct31=3.25✔️This is NOT medical advice.Consult your doctor.

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WiggleIt: I only have a few friends, I'm an intovert and with all those problems I never had a lot of friends. And most are living far away. I have a new recent one living in the same city, but I try to avoid going too far in explaining my life, and using words like "psychiatrist" and "antipsychotic medication", which would probably make her to run away. So answering "how are you" is tricky. My family never understood anything of all that except my brother, which is probably the closer person to me on this planet. We write to each other all the time. The short story is, panic attacks and heavy bullying got me out of high school in 1999, I completed it later in 2007. I studied in computer sciences in 2008-2009, when I started to withdraw zoloft, it was too fast (I'm very sensitive to meds, and even -25 per 2 weeks is not easy, and it was -50) and they put me on celexa at the same time and got so sick that I was unable to go outside at some point, threatening my health because of the need to go outside for food. So I dropped my entire life and shamefully came back to live with my parents. I finally moved again one year after, and started to study again in 2014. I finally got my diploma in 2017 and I was classified as "unable to work" so I got money from the government. Once I started to work, the first real work of my life, this help stopped. My status is still valid, but I have too much money for them (still have to be announced). I worked almost 2 years, so we can say I had non-stop living in the real world for 5 years in a row, it was the first time for so long. Because of money I got those 2 years, they will surely refuse any help. I'm still filling forms, just in case. I also asked for psychological help, we have this free in Canada but we must wait a few weeks on a waiting list. I worked my anxiety all my life, but now I would like to get help for everything else: that my life has no sense, no goal, and my illness got me free out of work almost all my life so I've a really hard time to lose it, I feel that I'm wasting my time at work and I feel the better of my life is behind, I see nothing for me in the future. For me, asking for this help is mandatory. I would like to add, antidepressants do really something. They neutralized me, my feelings, my interests, so the pain to live is also neutralized. Now that I'm zoloft free, I got all this back, and I think feeling the good again worth the bad. But it has also unblocked in my mind an old love relation, the only significant one in my life and that changed it forever in so much good. It came back, like if on zoloft I had never lived the break entirely, and that I need to live it now. Can antidepressants be powerful enough to disallow a fully proper mourning and push it back to later? I don't know but it looks like this. This added to my hyper sensitive feelings caused by the withdrawal, it's really hard to live with. So I have reasons to cry, those anxiety issues are a mountain, I lost the biggest and richest love of my life, my life means nothing, I've never accomplished anything, I'm like a ghost seeing people to change, get old, and I feel like I'm always out of all this, like if my place is nowhere. But hope is not in neutralizing myself, and zoloft making me repulsive will also cut any chances to not be alone forever. I face my life with mind free, a healthy and attractive body (now that I lost almost all the weight), and I see it as the base of any hopes, even tiny. I cannot go back.

 

Altostrata: changing doctor is doable, but changing of psychiatrist is not that easy. I like to use the image of the old society, when priests were the ultimate authority. Psychiatrists are like gods, doctors are not considered qualified and don't dare contradict them (this is what my doctor has done). And nobody will do if doctors don't do it. So they control your life in a way, which can be scary for someone with anxiety. Also, a lot of patients, at my opinion, may hate their meds and their psychiatrist, but they are not all thinking clear, just thinking of psychotic people. Already there, their will is questionable. So asking to change must happen often. Whatever it's anxiety or depression, all that is classified as psychiatry, as once you are a patient, you are on the "crazy" side, and I think we are seen as not good enough to decide by ourselves, not knowledgeable, stupid stuff like that. This is how I feel it. Of course I'm not psychotic, I've anxiety and depression, but this is how I feel to be seen except by my old psychiatrist. Mine is young and arrogant, listening to the parts he wants. He is more interested by the illnesses than the patients. For administrative technical issues, he never got my full case and decided to start from scratch himself. At 17 I got a good one, but we are assigned depending on the city we live in. By good i mean, working with me as a team, understanding me, caring, never forcing me, never arrogant, serious and dedicated, even accepting to go my way even if he thinks it will not work, but still explaining to me why. Honest and trustable. But it was long ago. The new I have since 4 years, the last time I've seen him, I explained how healthy I got like never, but that anxiety is bad, and I avoided to say that I cry often, I tempered the bad news. Because he would have said I must get back on zoloft, as the only possible explanation and aside giving meds, he does nothing. I would have refused, and I was not feeling to start arguing to someone that pretend to know everything and take always me from higher. I'm not interested in fighting, and having our relation to deteriorate will make things even more difficult. However, if I'm not seen as sick enough, I can't get this help from the government. So that' where I am right now. In his logic, he cannot let me go away without meds if I'm not able to work, and cannot support me without meds too. Not mentionning also that psychiatrists here work at the same place, and any request for change will make them talk together, so the decision will not be objective and I may get the exact same result with another, taking the advice of the first one. WiggleIt's article is so far the only real proof that I could bring, and instead of considering it, my psychiatrist will be irritated, like if I try to win, it's his way to react, like if it's about some sport. You may say, try anyway, say everything and see how it goes. The worst possible is that he wants me back on zoloft and will not sign anything to help for money until I accept. Maybe I should do it, but it's just an experience that I hate very much. It's humiliating and gives only frustration. For now, he thinks the issue was my job, and just said "find another one". Insurance refused to pay because of this. So this is the kind of control he has, I feel I have no powers and I'm stuck. I cannot be seen seriously as explaining that zoloft harms more than any good it does, this can only be seen as "not cooperative, reluctant, confronting". I cannot say "sign this to help me and let me go my way". Maybe I should have said everything to him, but it would not be so complicated and having me to behave like this if he was not who he is. I never omited information, it was the first time. I was afraid he thinks maybe that my life is in danger and force me to do something, med related. My anxiety is bad enough, I feel to have saved me additional pressure. When I wanted to withdraw zoloft, he refused to give me a job break, saying I was sabotaging my health willingly and that he will not help for that. My boss was even accepting, I was just needing the paper. It was extremely frustrating. Anyway I had the withdrawal pill cuts, the plan, but not the job break. I missed days, and my boss understood. Only this psychiatrist was not on my side. I have no reason to think that he would help this time, seeing it again like if I willingly harm myself by not returning back on zoloft.

 

For seroquel, the story is that my psychiatrist at this time (the good old one), thought that at this level of anxiety, any antidepressant alone will not work, nor the antipsychotic alone. I never took those, and I refused. But being in so much pain and not seeing an exit, I accepted 3 weeks later. It was zyprexa, and it never done anything good in almost one year, then he convinced me to get hospitalized. There, he changed zyprexa to seroquel XR with the equivalent dose, and in 48h I started to have windows of peace. This was not killing perpetual heavy anxiety, but allowing it to not stay forever, to stop growing during the day, separating episodes instead of of a big one during all the day. This was sudden, so I have all reasons to think that it has done something good. I take it since this time.

 

I've always taken meds at 9:30pm. My anxiety lately (several months) was crazy from 9pm, I don't see it as a coincidence, but I cannot explain it. Often I could have a not bad day, until 9pm. And it was like that in 2008 before I touch to any antipsychotic. So I think it's zoloft, again. It takes a long time for me to sleep, and at 11:30pm I often get the restless leg syndrome to start, not allowing me to have peace until 1pm, sometimes farther. But since I don't work, I can sleep in the morning to have the hours I need.

 

Carmie: yes, I experienced skipping seroquel accidentaly, I was not able to sleep for 2 days. I know it's sometimes just given to sleep. Meds should be the last solution after all failed. And those drug types more than anything else. They are seen as innocent as ibuprofen.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • 3 months later...

I'm now one year antidepressant free. It looks like being on it made me insensitive to how my life is a waste, first, and how I just put the biggest love of my life aside like having just incomplete heartbreak, second. This was long time ago, and it seems that I live the loss right now, since months, like if removing zoloft unblocked my feelings and my memory, and that I restart life right where I stopped it with this drug. I also feel the emptiness of my life, and the nonsense of it. It's not the withdrawal, things are really like that. I've plenty of reasons to cry. I was just not facing anything, blind under this drug. I don't know how I will be happy again but now that I can feel all this, I can at least really understand where I am in this life, how it will never change by itself alone, and to think of ways to live and not just survive. I would had probably stayed insensitive to anything forever under zoloft, and lost much more years. So whatever may happen, this was absolutely necessary to stop taking this thing to open my eyes and think clearly. It looks like I can manage anxiety by myself, I was just not having enough confidence to do it before. I was trusting the meds, and they added me 80% of all my anxiety issues, new issues, I'm more convinced of this than never before. They occasionally get back but it seems to mostly stay away, like if time was pushing them more and more in the void. I can't blame someone, doctors think they do the right thing. They are wrong. Psychiatry can do nothing good to me, so I'm focusing on my own ways, plus psychology as I think that it can manage what I have, if the other withdrawal induced issues disappear. I have no other choice, meds just cut the pain wire (and happiness wire too) and while you don't technically suffer, your life is going away, you don't see anything, you don't feel anything. So I'm starting the second year, it's much farther than my old tries.

 

I'm seen weird to live a heartbreak that was so many years ago, but this was the biggest love of my life, and I got nothing since, and it has not ended like I wanted. So weird or not it's happening. The lock on my feelings is gone and I will not let another drug steal them again. This was the best thing that I've done for myself.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • 1 year later...

2 years zoloft free.

 

You know what? The restless leg syndrome it has given to me started to finally disappear only in January, almost two years after the last dose. It tooks so long that I thought it would never disappear. It fires back sometimes very lightly and very rarely.

 

I started to remove seroquel as well since May and got it to 0 2 weeks ago. Aside light nausea, I got pleasurable side effects, and each time I downed it, I felt more and more connected to life.

 

It was like this too when I stopped zoloft, but now it's even more clean, the fog has gone, all my feelings are restored, I feel like if my 5 senses are completely full and healthy, I feel the same that when I was 17 before I start all this drug hell. i.e.: I feel connected to the present, to life, to my old natural self. I feel things deeply, all is clear and wonderful.

 

However going from 50 to 0 for seroquel put me in hell: total insomnia (not even one minute of sleep for 3 nights), in fact the unability to feel tired too, huge nausea and unbearable hunger, even with the stomach totally full I was feeling my guts squeezed like if I was starving, but so much that it was hurting and I had to find a solution fast. My doctor is not there until 31, the nurse was not understanding at all this alien hunger, nor the pharmacist, and no one had any solution.

 

Then my body started to itch like crazy, I had to scratch until I was red everywhere. My body even clean was secreting so much sebum in the bed that I was feeling dirty after 2-3h like after a long day. It was not sweat. Then I searched online since health care is like even not understanding what is happening, and they are totally useless. I've read online that this insomnia could go for a week, or more, and it was only the fourth day... I started to get minutes of sleep on day 3, then a hour on day 4. The hunger pain was on day 3 and more bearable on day 4. Those things were encouraging, however this insomnia was too much to handle and my hell was feeling like if I was in it since a month. The lack of sleep got me in a weird reality as my body was collapsing.

 

I decided to go back to 50mg to not destroy my summer. Hours after I swallowed it, the itching totally disappeared brutally and I slept very easily like if nothing never happened. I plan to try the non-XR version at 25mg, but the last time I tried 25mg I was on the floor after 30min too drowsy to do anything so that's why I tried to stay on XR and go to 0. I think the insomnia and other stuff will not be there if I keep taking some seroquel since it happened only at 0mg and never before of any of the taperings, and I'll probably do very small cuts and smaller if needed to avoid at least insomnia. I can't just live if I can't sleep at all.

 

Stopping zoloft was the best thing I decided of my life, and I'm at two fingers to be completely freed of all those hellish drugs forever. If I could prove how it has stolen my life, I would be millionaire. It created new issues, worsened the ones I had, made me think I was broken and unable to be normal, and most of all, allowed me to not care about the urge to live by making me to not care about anything and I'm certain it would have continued forever. Now I'm taking my life back.

 

Edited by ChessieCat
added paragraphs

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus

Wow!!!  What great news.  Thank you for coming back to let us know how you are doing.

 

You might want to consider tapering using the Brass Monkey Slide.  It might be a better way for you to reduce your drug.  You can choose to reduce by less than 10%.

 

35 minutes ago, Bluewisp said:

I decided to go back to 50mg to not destroy my summer. Hours after I swallowed it, the itching totally disappeared brutally and I slept very easily like if nothing never happened. I plan to try the non-XR version at 25mg, but the last time I tried 25mg I was on the floor after 30min too drowsy to do anything so that's why I tried to stay on XR and go to 0.

 

From the Tips for tapering seroquel topic:

 

On 9/28/2012 at 11:19 AM, Altostrata said:

 

The immediate-release form is often taken twice a day.

 

 

I'm not familiar with seroquel.  You mighte be able to cut the 50mg in half so that you could take 1/2 XR and 1/2 immediate release?  

 

If not, you might find it better to split your immediate release dose up and take it in two or three doses with an hour in between leading up to bedtime.  You would have to make sure that you didn't fall asleep before you took all doses.  You might then be able to gradually join up into one dose time.

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the advice ChessieCat. In fact I've being told that XR version cannot be cut. And XR is not available under 50mg so I got the original 25mg and cut with it. It was almost one month ago. I cut to 12.5 yesterday. From 25mg I got terrible pain like if everything in the body that was not perfect caused by a bad ergonomy or bad habits, started to appear like if I suddenly got 20-30 years in the future. Of course there were bad habits but they never caused such a crazy problem. Plus, I got an abnormal anxiety and mixed together I really panicked for almost 2 weeks. Until I think a lot and start to think that it could be the withdrawal. I was forced to change my habits, and after 2 weeks the pain diminished, and I was more and more convinced that it was the withdrawal. A doctor has given to me Elavil for the pain but fortunately I check what things are before to swallow them blindly and a new antidepressant is the last thing I need in this withdrawal. Oh my god, another hell was about to start! I avoided it gladly. Anyway the pain is not much anymore to need any pills. But last night it was strong during the night, for the first time in 3 weeks. And it was also before the next step, -12.5mg...So it seems to prove that it's linked to the withdrawal. I got the rest of the bad stuff that come with it, infinite hunger that is painful, nausea, disgusted by food, very intense depressive spells that last for a day (I was one week free of them so I decided to go to the next step), anxiety, rage/anger spells that are very not like me, but no insomnia for now which was total and impossible to live with. I think it's soon coming to an end... I'll wait a bit and cut to 6. After that it will be so small that I don't know if I'll be able to cut it more. The original version is soft and doesn't cut well. The XR version is solid as a rock, it's too bad I can't use it. I've read there people getting out of this madness and having a story similar to mine and I can't believe I've lost so much of my life and that it's common for a lot of people. I wonder how many people are trapped in this infinite loop of meds that make everything worse. I think this forum save lives, and give life. When looking back, I realize all what that got me into this hell and see it more clearer than ever and I have no doubt that stopping those things was the best thing I've done for the life that remain in front of me. This forum is extremely important and is a real lighthouse for those who are lost in a perpetual dark sea of nightmares. I'm looking forward the day to say there that it's totally over. I stopped zoloft in 2018 and my life flourished like never in 20 years in those last 2 years. Not being numb emotionally pushed me to change my life and find goals. Before, I was not caring much. With time on those things I even forgot who I was before and the life that was inside of me, and my skills. Everything is popping back, and I've never felt so connected to life. It's like being used to see the world blurry and one day putting lenses. If I end this fight, I will be freed after 20 years. It will be an epic story to tell to others and to be proud of... Even if some people could not understand on first sight.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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It's the second time in 2 weeks that I violently have to break at a traffic light. Like if I get conscious of that it's red or orange a bit too late. It never happened in my life before despite all the crazy anxiety I faced. So I can only link it to seroquel withdrawal. Can someone tell me if it's possible? It's not sedation. I feel very busy in my thoughts before it happens, like if I'm not totally in the physical world but it's not unusual for me to do this and drive anyway. It's starting to scare me. Winter is coming and once it will be slippy, it may be tragic if it continues to happen. I'm at 12.5, I was going slow because of a total insomnia from 50 to 0 but I think I'll have to try 12.5 to 0 not later than this week because I have to solve this before the snow appears. It would at least be reassuring to know that it's possible to happen. That said, nothing would surprise me anymore with those drugs.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus
20 minutes ago, Bluewisp said:

t I think I'll have to try 12.5 to 0 not later than this week

I don't know if I'm understanding you correctly, but reducing to zero from 12.5mg amounts to a cold turkey. 

 

It's possible that what happens to you in driving is a form of depersonalization/derealzation.  It sounds very dangerous.  You might consider an alternate mode of transportation.

Derealization or Depersonalization (DR and DP) - Symptoms ...

You're tapering much faster than we recommend.  We recommend tapering 10% every four weeks.  Your taper from September to October was 50%.

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

Tips for tapering off quetiapine (Seroquel)

 

 

Edited by Gridley

Gridley Introduction

 

Lexapro 20 mg since 2004.  Begin Brassmonkey Slide Taper Jan. 2017.   

End 2017 year 1 of taper at 9.25mg 

End 2018 year 2 of taper at 4.1mg

End 2019 year 3 of taper at 1.0mg  

Oct. 30, 2020  Jump to zero from 0.025mg.  Current dose: 0.000mg

3 year, 10 month taper is 100% complete.

 

Ativan 1 mg to 1.875mg 1986-2020, two CT's and reinstatements

Nov. 2020, 7-week Ativan-Valium crossover to 18.75mg Valium

Feb. 2021, begin 10%/4 week taper of 18.75mg Valium 

End 2021  year 1 of Valium taper at 6mg

End 2022 year 2 of Valium taper at 2.75mg 

End 2023 year 3 of Valium taper at 1mg

Jan. 24, 2024: Hold at 1mg and shift to Imipramine taper.

Taper is 95% complete.

 

Imipramine 75 mg daily since 1986.  Jan.-Sept. 2016 tapered to 14.4mg  

March 22, 2022: Begin 10%/4 week taper

Aug. 5, 2022: hold at 9.5mg and shift to Valium taper

Jan. 24, 2024: Resume Imipramine taper.  Current dose as of Feb. 22: 7.6mg

Taper is 90% complete.  

  

Supplements: multiple, quercetin, omega-3, vitamins C, E and D3, magnesium glycinate, probiotics, zinc, melatonin .3mg, anti-candida, iron, serrapeptase, nattokinase


I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice but simply information based on my own experience, as well as other members who have survived these drugs.

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I'm tapering from 25 to 12.5. I got on 25 on Sept 21. I'm on 12.5 since a week. I'm asking myself if the withdrawal can cause it, and second, if it's the case, maybe I should go to 0 as soon as possible because this very long tapering may give more time for an incident to happen. Another possiblity is the mix of very high anxiety with the withdrawal. Actually the withdrawal put me in an abnormal anxiety state, that can maybe cause this thing to happen since anxiety can be linked to depersonalization/derealization. However I had anxiety all my life and never experienced this on the road. But, I've never too known this kind of high anxiety weird state naturally all by myself. So I would say that it's linked to the withdrawal in a way or another... Of course going from 12.5 to 0 could put it worse a bit, but I think I will prolong the nightmare a lot if I divide the pill again and again for weeks.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus
14 minutes ago, Bluewisp said:

Of course going from 12.5 to 0 could put it worse a bit, but I think I will prolong the nightmare a lot if I divide the pill again and again for weeks.

It's your decision, of course.  Generally, the lower 10mg of these psychiatric drugs are the most powerful, and we advise going more slowly the lower you go in dose.  I understand what you mean about prolonging the nightmare, but my concern is that by tapering so fast and cold-turkeying you're just going to shift the nightmare to a post-drug phase and also run the risk of a longer and more intense withdrawal.  

 

 

Gridley Introduction

 

Lexapro 20 mg since 2004.  Begin Brassmonkey Slide Taper Jan. 2017.   

End 2017 year 1 of taper at 9.25mg 

End 2018 year 2 of taper at 4.1mg

End 2019 year 3 of taper at 1.0mg  

Oct. 30, 2020  Jump to zero from 0.025mg.  Current dose: 0.000mg

3 year, 10 month taper is 100% complete.

 

Ativan 1 mg to 1.875mg 1986-2020, two CT's and reinstatements

Nov. 2020, 7-week Ativan-Valium crossover to 18.75mg Valium

Feb. 2021, begin 10%/4 week taper of 18.75mg Valium 

End 2021  year 1 of Valium taper at 6mg

End 2022 year 2 of Valium taper at 2.75mg 

End 2023 year 3 of Valium taper at 1mg

Jan. 24, 2024: Hold at 1mg and shift to Imipramine taper.

Taper is 95% complete.

 

Imipramine 75 mg daily since 1986.  Jan.-Sept. 2016 tapered to 14.4mg  

March 22, 2022: Begin 10%/4 week taper

Aug. 5, 2022: hold at 9.5mg and shift to Valium taper

Jan. 24, 2024: Resume Imipramine taper.  Current dose as of Feb. 22: 7.6mg

Taper is 90% complete.  

  

Supplements: multiple, quercetin, omega-3, vitamins C, E and D3, magnesium glycinate, probiotics, zinc, melatonin .3mg, anti-candida, iron, serrapeptase, nattokinase


I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice but simply information based on my own experience, as well as other members who have survived these drugs.

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Thinking more about it... The withdrawal already saturate my concentration. At the job, I can barely focus on anything  because my anxiety is often crazy, I'm obsessed with thoughts of events to come and decisions to make and this simple principle of few concentration available may be the same for any task that needs a lot of focus, including driving. It happens and stay a while at each step of the withdrawal. Each time that I remove a part of the pill. It takes 3-4 days and my anxiety become suddently unbearable on day 3 or 4, and concentration is null like if all my mental energy is derivated. Maybe it's simple as that... Also, the two times it happened, it was on a less familiar road. I'll stick to usual roads from now on, to reduce the danger, and make conscious efforts to not think to something else but driving. I agree with you on the part that going to 0 may be worse, then puting me in a more dangerous position, and also maybe that working would become impossible... It would be of course a pure hell. This idea will make me avoid taking a decision for now but I'm more on your side from now on. Thank you.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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I had extreme cog fog in 2015 when I reduced my Pristiq from 100mg to 50mg.  Even walking took my full concentration.  I don't think I was driving very often at the time (possibly half hour drive each way to work 4 times in those 2 weeks with a few short trips).  A couple of years later I realised that I had been very fortunate not to have had an accident whilst driving.

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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  • Moderator Emeritus

I've moved you post to this topic:

 

tips-for-tapering-off-seroquel-quetiapine

 

There are other members tapering Seroquel.  I suggest you do a search to see how they are managing to do it. 

 

I suggest that you also read through the Tips for Tapering Seroquel to see what other members have posted there.

 

It seems that some members crush and weigh their dose.  Many members use the Gemini 20 scale.  There is a lot of information in this topic:

 

using-a-digital-scale-to-measure-doses

 

 

Edited by ChessieCat

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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Thank you ChessieCat. I read the threads. Unfortunately I've found no indication concering the insomnia trap, if there is a dosage that insomnia becomes lighter. I feel like if I will need seroquel forever if I can't sleep without it and it's not reassuring. I managed to crush 6mg and I will try to take a tiny bit and experiment the insomnia level with it. I would like to avoid buying a balance for this, but I keep it in mind if what I try give no positive results. It is clear that there is no way to keep a precise dosage with no balance at this point. The problem is that I can't live with the symptoms, but they were fading with time usually, with a stable dosage. But since it cannot be stable anymore because it's impossible to measure it without a balance, I tried cold turkey, which disable my sleep completely. Even if it's from only 6mg to 0. I could really do it otherwise, I could live a last round of hell with stuff fading progressively. But last time I got 3 nights in a row with not a minute of sleep. This effect cannot be dealt with, I cannot simply just hang on for this like I can do for other effects.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus
13 minutes ago, Bluewisp said:

I tried cold turkey, which disable my sleep completely.

 

That was August?  You are quite possibly still being affected by this, AND the subsequent 50% reductions.

 

You're brain like consistency and stopping and starting and reducing probably is not helping.

 

As I said other members are managing to taper Seroquel.  Look into how they are managing to do it. 

 

Unfortunately there are some drugs that are difficult to get your doses.  I've been paying out of pocket to get mine compounded.  My compounder only charges a small amount thankfully but being on a pension it's still cost me a lot of money.  If I didn't have a cheap compounder I would have had to cut and/or crush and weigh my doses.

 

Did you read the link I gave you?  Also check out the rest of the topic where members are discussing their issues:

 

tips-for-tapering-off-seroquel-quetiapine

 

 

  

 

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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I'm following the thread for tapering seroquel. Thanks ChessieCat. Like I said on the other thread, I'm trying the liquid taper with distilled water and suspension of the med, with the video I followed. I just watched the interview with Altostratat, by coincidence, and I realize that I never thought of myself as a psychiatric patient either, and that I've also started the meds for a similar reason, anxiety, a much smaller issue than the new I got after with the meds. However I was having no confidence in myself, I was not trusting my own feelings, I was considering myself like nothing and that everyone had a better idea of what is good or not, doctors especially. Yes, almost 20 years lost of tons of issues like heavy sweating, disconnecting from my old self, from feelings, from my humanity. But people always told me I was weird so I put all of the weirdness on my own account, while in fact I'm simply an original introvert with nothing more spectacular than the millions of introverts around. I took everything on my account. Meds made me caring much less for others than before and made me think that I was not needing them. Now that I'm freed of zoloft and almost of seroquel, I feel that I want to be with others. It's not a coincidence. I feel my old self. And the disturbing mental phenomenons during withdrawals were took by me for natural mental damage, or an unknown illness that developped, I took all the illusions for granted that everything was from me. All those years, this suffering while at the start it was only a panic disorder issue with social phobia that I could have learned to live with, with proper help (everything but drugs). I started to read the book "Your Drug May Be Your Problem" as advised on the forum, and a lot of this was what I discovered by myself slowly with years. Reading this was like a shock. All I had to do is to trust myself that I was right, but I was not able to do it. I could have saved a big part of those years knowing this forum. I was a veteran on anxietyzone website that is now defunct, and all this time I fought 20% of my real anxiety and 80% of the rest caused by the meds. As Altostratat said in her interview, the anguish was WAY too weird too be natural, happening around the take of seroquel late in evening. Like a non stop surge of adrenaline, no precise thoughts linked to it, and trust me I had panic attacks and worries all my life and I know the difference between them, and this anguish happening only late and mostly in the bed, was really not natural. I also have social phobia so I have a bit of paruresis. But guess what? Seroquel caused an urinary retention, achieving to make me unable to pee a lot of times. Professionnals thought it was only me of course, and I believed them. How paruresis can worsen? I had a little but not so much. Until one day I cannot even at home... I got a catheter to solve the emergency and felt it like a burning poker inside of me, the pain was unbearable. I got MONTHS of trauma because of this, fearing not be able to pee again at home and to have to live this nightmare at hospital again... Then an urologist told me it was surely seroquel and upon this, I got very angry and started the project to stop taking seroquel that was already in my head for several months. Angry because this is just one example of many things in which meds complicated in my life, in absurd and horrible ways. Guess what happened when I tapered it? I started to pee so easily everywhere, as when I was doing it naturally before 2011, before seroquel. It was gradual at first, then suddently violently easy. My psychiatrist denied it to be linked, and even describe the present total insomnia as "psychological dependance to sleepy pills". I never had trouble to sleep of my life and never took pills for this. The sleep disabling is easy to feel, it's like a stimulant, and actually even during the day after 2 nights missed, you cannot feel mentally sleepy. Only the body have the weight from it. You are literally no sleepy at all. Like if the natural function doesn't exist anymore. You know why I got in the fabulous world of antipsychotics? Because I ended zoloft extremely fast in 2009, my doctor was knowing nothing about withdrawals and me either, then they started to give me celexa above all this, and I entered in a very heavy anxiety state like never in my life. Months later, my psychiatrist said that an antidepressant would not be enough to get me out of this, so i accepted. All was needed in reality, was to put me back on zoloft and do a proper tapering. Instead, what was happening was thought to be from me alone and I got 9 years of a new nightmare with seroquel. I wanted a break from the job in 2018 to end zoloft properly, it was too intense, but my psychiatrist took my decision of withdrawing like self sabotage of my health, so he denied to sign a paper. I took a break by myself, and insurance refused to pay, not recognizing my state like bad enough to not be able to work. Seriously? It was debilitating anxiety, like on 30 coffees, I was even not able to think! I was looking around almost like if the universe was about to collapse in any minute, like if I had intraveinous coffee all day... But no one is in our body so they can imagine what they want. It's like if the entire world denies the evidence happening in our body, that this thing is real and not natural. I got out of zoloft with a great success and I was really proud. The withdrawal was a nightmare but a calculated nightmare. I'm still damaged from it, at least for the restless leg syndrome that comes and go even after 2 years, but the nightmare above this is over. I proved that I don't need zoloft to live, but I know it since a long time. Now it's seroquel's turn. However this sleep disabling was not planned... Otherwise, I would be seroquel free since August. Psychiatry destroyed my already low self-esteem and confidence, made me trust false things about me, and I can't even be angry at them because they think they do what is the best... Still, I hope I will get rid of every pill in my apartment once for all and never wear this psychiatry label again. Whatever the meds do some good, they are not ready, they are not efficient and too random. I hope they have not damaged me with permanent changes.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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I hit the magic number. I tried 6.25mg liquid, then 5,4,3... no insomnia. But then 2, and I slept from 2:30am to 8:15am which I consider it to be partial insomnia. So it appears for me that the magic number is 2, and I hope to get used to it for insomnia to completely disappear at 2mg (ml), then do 1 and soon end this nightmare once for all. I can't believe that I must live with those things and be threatened by a total insomnia for something so tiny between 0 and 2mg. It's so long and harm life so much... At least with the liquid I can hope to stabilize insomnia at 2mg before to go down further. Without liquid, I would have no hope at all. The first normal night I will have at 0, it will be one of the best days of my life. I guess there is no permanent sleep disabling there? The body will get used to it? Sometimes I felt trapped forever, like if sleep will never be possible again without this nightmarish powder.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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@Bluewisp

 

Please post updates in your Introduction topic, not in the Tips for tapering off Seroquel (quetiapine) topic.  Thank you.

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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  • Administrator

Hello, Bluewisp. Yes, if you're getting some sleep at 2mg, sleep is likely to get better if you patiently stay at 2mg for a month or more. You may have hit your tolerance for tapering. If I were you, I would not be aggressive from this point, let your nervous system accommodate to the drug changes. It may take 6 months for you to go down to zero.

This is not medical advice. Discuss any decisions about your medical care with a knowledgeable medical practitioner.

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -- Albert Einstein

All postings © copyrighted.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

I value and respect your recommendation Altostrata, but actually I'm in kind of a complicated situation. Let me explain. For years, I was not working or I was going to school. I was rarely sleeping before 12:30-1am. Seroquel was giving me a constant need to pee every 30min from 11pm to midnight, and sometimes the restless leg syndrome was hiting right after (a gift from zoloft that I do not take anymore since 2 years), and I had to do exercises to kill it, but it was taking often 30min or more. Now it's lighter, so it takes 15-30min. The 2 things combined, harmed the hour when I was able to start sleeping. Still, I think I've never slept easily before 1:00am but it has never been a problem because I was able to sleep until 9am. Because I was not working or because my courses were starting at 10am during 3 years most of the time. So I was managing to live with a big problem without really realizing it. Until I start to work and must wake up at 7 or even 8 for now, leaving me with not enough sleep that cumulated for 2 years. So now, my health is getting really damaged and I must stop seroquel as fast as possible to get sleep back, and more than even before starting the withdrawal. On the other side, stoping cause a total insomnia. So this is the trap I'm inside. I can't live with a withdrawal for months, I really fear for my health. Of course, the covid allow me to work from home and give me more time to sleep, and also allow me to work even if physically destroyed, nobody see me, nobody can guess how my life is ruined actually and the "sleep disabling" also disable the mecanism of being tired, so I don't feel it in my head, only in my body that can't repair itself and function properly. I'm studying my own case and try things. For example, my only ground for action was to move the hour I take seroquel, to at least move the non-stop peeing process early, to impair sleep less. I moved it from 10pm to 8pm. It disappeared for a few days and started again at 11pm, not so strong though. I think it's positive. I got to 1mg on Dec 4 and 0.5mg on Dec 5, the goal was to go down as much as possible if I can have at least 5-6h of sleep.

But something very weird happened this week. I often get 4-5h of sleep maximum since the last dose change. But I got an almost full night of insomnia, sleep started at 6am and ended at 8:30am. More than this, I got to pee all night. I was horrified, it was not logic at all. It was like if I've missed the dose. I've never seen this of all the withdrawal process. The night right after, I got almost 8h of sleep, non stop and of good quality. So it was even more weird. I think it never happened for years to have almost 8h...Even not after when I got 3 nights of total insomnia in August. Now the night after (last night), I got sleep from 1:30 to 5:30... 4h. How can it be so chaotic? I tried melatonin last night too (3mg), it has not done much. It was the first time I was trying. I'm suspicious for the liquid. Even if I follow the 25mg/25ml rule, the 4h to let the med going in water, the max 4 days in fridge, the shaking before to take a dose, it seems that some parameters are messing with the dose, or, it's simply the chaos from the last dose change. I know that people succeeded doing it, so I still have hope. But it's a crisis, I've never been in such a mess of my life. I know, I may have to prolong this for a long time as you suggest but I want it to be the last of the solutions. Melatonin was a desperate try to help. Now I'll try sleep eze but my opinion is that seroquel is disabling a "switch" that override any natural thing that would lead to sleep, like drowsiness pills, so I don't expect much. I also think about taking a bit of clonazepam, but I would like to avoid any psych drug. Still, clonazepam is almost the only med that not harmed me and allowed me to stop it without any trouble. I will have to fight for my case next tuesday, as my psychiatrist think that my insomnia is psychological and not chemical. His last recommendation was to take seroquel one day and skip the other, possibly based on his theory. This would put me in much more sleep deprivation, since I will get 4-5h per 2 days instead of 8-10h. Every time I missed a dose, it was a full night of insomnia. He cannot admit that this med can harm, as most of psychiatrists do. Always trying to put the fault on something else, like on me or a health issue. I've no disease, in fact I've no alergy, intolerances, I'm even looking younger for my age. Aside heavy anxiety and social phobia, I've a really good biology. I've of course no history of insomnia, except with seroquel and melatonin was my first try of a sleeping pill of all my life. Every medical test taken to explain side effects years before, proved a perfect healthy body. ER doctors suspected seroquel, neurologist too, and a urologist too... As they suspected zoloft long time ago. But only the psychiatrist denies any harming effects. I had to convince him that I was not needing it instead of arguments for horrible effects and a life of nightmare, because it's true anyway that I never needed it, and that it was the only ground to make him follow me. My job will probably change in February or March, I will also have to find another apartment, those will be hard times and I need to get rid of this pill before it happens. So for now, I'll stay at 0.5mg for a while since 4h of sleep is really not enough. But what happened days before cannot be explained and I fear that it may happen again. You see, if the liquid solution cannot garantee a stable dose, I would maybe live like this for a long time, waiting for a dose to be stable that will never be, because of variables that we cannot control, like water damaging the product, time, or imperfect measure with the serynge even if I do all I can to be precise. So options for now are sleeping pills, and maybe changing the hour. Or maybe asking for a real liquid solution if it exists, just in case the water suspension does not the job right.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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Okay so sleep eze apparently diminish the level of seroquel and boost the effects of both pills... (drug interaction checker). Not very tempting knowing that a decrase of dose can do more harm right now. Melatonin was ok but has not done much, plus the feeling was not very good. I would need a sleeping pill (light and soft) that cannot interact with seroquel except for drowsiness which is obviously ok. I'll have to check interactions for each product that I can find.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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The weird chaos of this week would be explained by the tiny dose that I take (0.5mg) that would be more sensitive to the product degradation in water with time. This is a theory. This would be giving a false 0.5mg or a malfunctionning 0.5mg. A pharmacist confirmed that it's probably the case. So I make a new solution everyday now. At least the potential stay the same, and the key is the stability and not the efficiency. My psychiatrist is still thinking that it's still probably psychological (for the insomnia) and repeated the song of sleep hygiene that I know already since a long time. In fact, I even walked hours in the snow this week-end and it has not changed anything to the situation. I sleep 4-5h per night. So he said, "there is nothing to do except continuing". I knew that already... He said that adding a pill would move the problem on another pill. Following the psychological theory of course... But it's still true that I don't want to risk any other psych pill to break something else in my body and I'm so close to a total natural life that taking a new med would be the last thing I would do. Melatonin does nothing. My plan is to try to stop again completely during Christmas. If I still get 4-5h per night, it will do it. If it fails, I will add a tiny bit of clonazepam, as he accepted to give me some. I doubt it will work, but it's a B plan. I don't ignore the 10% recommendation, I'm just suffering too much to extend this hell for months, if the escape route is possible. I know that I should go slower. But the exit is maybe just there. If everything fails, I will keep it to 0.5 for a while, I will see if I will get more hours with time. Pharmacists and doctors can't do anything, as they said themselves. Like if they never see this, and I know that I'm not alone, but worldwide, which doesn't apply here locally. PLus, I think the issues are badly vulgarized from the patients to the doctors, for example "being hungry" is not the same as "I crave for fat and sugar even if I'm full", and not the same as "sasiety is impossible even after eating a large meal". So their conclusion is "people are hungry". Plus the fact that withdrawals are taken for relapses, plus the initial condition like anxiety that is thought as the culprit for every issue, plus that as labeled as the patient, we don't have enough intelligence to think by ourselves, or have all the potential illnesses just waiting to be discovered that can kill our credibility. For example, "all could be anxiety" or "I may imagine things" because a portion of people actually do it, so for them, every patient can do it. Only at the last resort, they will consider the drugs to be harmful, and even then, they will search hard for finding another explanation. So the way it works, even if a lot of people would report issues, they are renamed or interpretated to something else, disallowing any research on the topic as it's not taken seriously. I could be really that patient that think doctors are evil and that I'm controled and be paranoid. But I'm not. I've panic disorder and social phobia, that's it. So I think doctors are like everyone, sometimes they are stupid, sometimes brillant, they think they help, they want to help, they think they know what they do, but the conclusion is that they do harm without knowing it. I think they are simply human and think to be doing the right things. But if they would swallow those things for a bit, probably that a lot of them would be really afflicted to start understanding the truth behind the drugs, and even quit the profession. Still, I'm pissed off to be talked to like if I'm IQ diminished or potentially not able to think clearly. But it's the way psychiatry works. Credibility is very hard to get, because you are the patient. You don't have the diploma and you are there for invisible things that imply psychic disorders that themselves can destroy credibility pretty fast. They see you a few minutes per appointment in a heavy search for issues at every of your answers, when long term friends that know you a lot have the real portrait of who you are and your issues. But it seems it can't work in another way. I know that I'm dreaming but sleeping normally would be the best Christmas gift I got ever, not mentionning getting to my true self again. I've not felt the "good shape" morning when you sleep enough since 20 years, because even before this seroquel hell, the always latent sedation from zoloft always forbidden me to feel to be in shape in the morning even after a lot of sleep. If I can stop seroquel, I will feel all this again. Nothing of my natural issues would ever be so nightmarish and complex. I'm so close to end all this joke, I'm excited about it.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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Another night with 45min of sleep, and peeing non stop every 30min... I'm really mad and despite the fact that I want to end this fast, it cannot continue like this. I've read something on the web, a woman describing precisely the feeling of the disabling of sleep while she was stopping for being on 1500mg for at least 10 years. She says it took one year, with nights of 3h rarely more, and sometimes nothing at all. But she finally got 6-7h at the end so even if her case is probably extreme, it seems it can end... I got clonazepam but I don't want to risk to take it. Going back to 1mg is probably safer I guess... It's really depressing, living on this is so hard but not sleeping is much worse... My god it will be so long... Right now my body is reacting almost like if it was cold turkey. 0.5 got very weird nights, even one with 7 hours of good sleep, a thing that never happened since a long time, but followed by nights of 2h30min, 5h, and now 45min! I also feel a "window" in the day where the disabling of sleep is felt reversed. One time in the morning, and in the evening. So I think I will try to sleep after work, and in evening, because anyway with the huge lack of sleep, I don't think it will be harmful. So I guess it's going back to 1mg tonight then.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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The woman I told about, I've just seen right now that you have replied with her, Altostratat. You write that some vitamins can worsen insomnia during seroquel withdrawal. And that we never really know for each person. The only thing that changed those days to explain the chaos of my nights are the vitamins. I use Centrum, but I skipped some days last week, and I wonder if it would explain why I got at least 5h of sleep those days, but I don't remember which days. I'm stopping to use them right away to test this night. I guess there are some in food but less concentrated. I'll try this one more night before to up to 1mg. If I can manage to have 5-6h of sleep per night, I could stay a while at 0.5mg. I've read more about you and this woman and it's really good to see that the revolt in your hearts is the same as mine. I feel extremely alone and isolated in this. I'm turning 39, I lost my 20 last years to the psych circus, lost my identity, creativity, motivation, all stuff that it's returning back to me in force. But this time is lost forever. I'll not be young again and not be able to have a second chance to live through 17 to 38 with my full self and no hell impairments attached. Without the internet to reach all of you, it would have been totally on me. I've no money, I'm alone, and I'm trying to change those 2 things but I must first exit this psych hell for good. I know that there are lawsuits against meds, but I would have no money for this and no proofs I guess. The claimed money could at least give me a chance to have a life, and would be totally deserved. But I don't expect this kind of justice. I'm sorry if I seemed to ignore the recommendations. I was not. It's just that after 20 years and the recent true self coming back, I live again and I want to stop this life wasting hemorrhage as fast as possible before I get not much remaining of life to live. Those 20 years disconnected me of everything and I'm not in phase with anyone of my age, like if a part of me stayed back when I started the meds. I also say it simply: it's murdering of lives, it's inhuman, disgusting and the most outrageous deception of all the story of medicine. It was my life! We only have one! And I'm angry against myself because I knew it since a long time, I felt it that my body was not made for this, but I was afraid to be wrong, I was trusting doctors blindly, "in case they could be right", not trusting myself. One day I stood and decided to take my life in my own hands, that's why I'm there today. People can't seem to believe us. We look like conspirators, or anti medicine. So I can hardly share it. I'll look more into supplements that help and doesn't. This forum is like a lighthouse on a dark sea with no end.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus

Hi Bluewisp,

 

When posting, please add spacing to your text.  Many members, including the moderators, have difficulty reading large blocks of text.  It can be very overwhelming and causes stress/anxiety.

 

And if there is a question that you are asking and it is somewhere in the text then it might not be seen.

 

For me personally, when I see a large block of text I immediately start to feel anxious and I do not read the post.

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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Well sorry about that ChessieCat. I'll try to use spacing from now on. I tried melatonin 6mg 2 nights ago and got ~7h of sleep. I woke up soaked of sweat this said. Yesterday I had to pee each 30min until 2:30am then I found some sleep until ~7am. It's -18.4F outside and my fridge doesn't care about temperature because it's old and work with probably some sort of timer. So it's much colder in winter in the fridge, and I noticed that the seroquel powder doesn't spread but get into a pile and some is like stuck at the bottom. I must lose some there and it lessen the concentration in the liquid. The cold also create micro bubbles a lot, compared to weeks before. I can't put them outside the syringe. Keeping a stable dose is difficult. Since I make a new solution everyday, I'll stop using the fridge. I take this 4h after the preparation anyway and I'm sure an ambiant temperature will fix the two issues.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • Moderator Emeritus

6mg is a fairly high dose of melatonin.  Please be careful because it could turn paradoxical and have the opposite effect.  It is better to take the lowest effective dose.

 

Melatonin

 

If you are making your dose on a daily basis then it does not need to be refrigerated.  And if you can store it in a cool area then you could probably make it every second day.  I have found it better to mix my liquid with a mini 5" metal whisk rather than shaking the container.

 

Tips for tapering off quetiapine (Seroquel)

 

 

* NO LONGER ACTIVE on SA *

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:  (6 year taper)      0mg Pristiq  on 13th November 2021

ADs since ~1992:  25+ years - 1 unknown, Prozac (muscle weakness), Zoloft; citalopram (pooped out) CTed (very sick for 2.5 wks a few months after); Pristiq:  50mg 2012, 100mg beg 2013 (Serotonin Toxicity)  Tapering from Oct 2015 - 13 Nov 2021   LAST DOSE 0.0025mg

Post 0 updates start here    My tapering program     My Intro (goes to tapering graph)

 VIDEO:   Antidepressant Withdrawal Syndrome and its Management

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It was just not possible to live like this anymore, while the sleep is disabled, so I returned to 2mg on Dec 19. With the help of my brother, I set up a strict protocol to make the liquid suspension, got a scale, and I repeat the same things hoping for the dose to stabilize. Being a PhD in bio chemistry, his help is not insignificant. He explained to me that it's really hard to be stable on a so tiny dose with the same liquid quantity, so it has to be in more water. For example, hiting 0.5mg was almost impossible with 0.5ml without some tiny errors of manipulation that were probably changing the final dose every day. Now I use 100ml of water, a pill of 25mg, with an extract of 8ml, so 2*100/25=2 (mg). I use water let at ambiant temperature for minimum of 3h, 6pm: measure 100ml, put the pill in (I don't cut it since powder can stay on the blade and the tool), let dissolve until 8pm, shake for 15sec with a spoon that I don't remove to avoid losing powder on it, let 10sec to the biggest particles to fall, insert the tube with the syringe at the same height against the glass wall (I use a fixed tape), take 8ml and put it directly in my mouth. I wash the glass, the syringe, the tube, and restart the same thing a day after.

 

The current points:

- I don't know if it can even be stable even with this strict method.

- Peeing all night seems to coincide with the heaviest insomnia even if it doesn't directly cause it (peeing stopped at 5am but still not able to sleep above 8:30am while I only started to sleep at 4:30am)

- I tried to change the hour to take it (8pm instead of 10pm), it seems my best control on at least the pee thing, it was better for some days, then it restarted

- The return to 2mg was better for sleep for a few days, but now it's seems bad again

- The last 2 points make me think that whatever I change the hour or up the dose, the negative effects seems to diminish temporary

- In the years, I got massive unnatural anxiety 1h after the take, not all the time but often, and it started to vanish completely when I varied the hour each day (9pm, 10pm, 11pm, 9pm, etc). I discovered this before the withdrawal. Maybe it could work also for other symptoms right now...

- The pee thing is mostly in the night, but I noticed it in the afternoon sometimes. Being dehydrated or not, doesn't change anything to it. Plus, it was there before the withdrawal but it's worsened by it.

- Melatonin doesn't work: even on 6mg, I slept 4h. I almost never reach 6h, it's more 4 to 5h.

- At 0.5 I got weird times of 6 and 7h of sleep but it was rare.

- I'm keeping a notes of peeing hours to try to understand how it works, and the evolution. I'll do the same with the sleep. Otherwise I may never see any difference with time.

 

I seriously need help with people that have succeeded through the insomnia nightmare being hyper sensitive to seroquel or anything else that has the same result by trying to stop a drug. I need to study how they got out of it. I've no choice to stick with 2mg for now but I would need some hope to know if I'll ever get anymore than 4-5h of sleep per night or some stabilization ever because I doubt about any stability with a suspension in liquid. I think about the solid form with a milligram scales but it's expensive and it will surely not be easy to measure. I would like to get away with it with the liquid solution if it can really work. I know it worked for some people, but I wonder if it will for me. I already read the entire thread on the tips for tapering seroquel. Thanks.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm still at 2mg. Sleep is easier with less interruptions, and with the holidays I was able to sleep passed 8am, to 9 or 10am, which was impossible under 2mg. Not knowing if it was the upping to 2mg that was causing this, I continued and I plan to continue for a while because I try to get sleep now that I can. However, my bladder continue to get full every 30min from 11pm to 12:30-1:30am. It was like that before the withdrawal too, not each day but almost, and I was taking the drug at 10pm. This is really bad because even with less insomnia, even if I go to bed early, this thing will keep me awake until 1:30am, and I must wake up at 7:45. So I will never get a 7h of sleep or more. And actually since sleeping is better, I also feel the drowsiness and extreme fatigue of weeks of deprivation (I was not feeling it before). So I would really need a 7h of sleep or more, and I don't know how to remove this peeing issue. I could change the hour of taking the drug, but I don't know at which hour it could work since 8:30pm seems not better than 10pm. This is not a drinking issue. Whatever I drink or not drink, it's still happen, I end just more or less dehydrated from it. So this is another problem that prolong the sleep deprivation. Is there any way to at least move the peeing session elsewhere in the day? I don't know why moving from 10pm to 8:30pm have changed nothing. Maybe it was not a drastic change enough?

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • 2 weeks later...

One month passed at 2mg. Despite some chaos, with time, there was no sleep interruption for the time of the sleep. I was rarely able to sleep before 1:30, and often not able after 6-7am, but I think it was already the case while on seroquel so I don't consider it as insomnia. Being able to sleep without interruption from 1:30 to 6:30 and with a good sleep was my main criteria to identify insomnia. What seroquel was doing and still do, is an obstacle that will stay until my blood is clean. The actual quality of sleep later on 2mg was more close to normal than ever, and I can do things that were impossible before: yawning, feeling somnolence, and dreaming (this one was the most surprising). I decided to try 1.5mg. Surprisingly, sleep is still good for the 2 nights I've done. Maybe one month at 2mg made my brain to get used to tiny doses. I'll try 1mg saturday if everything is good this week. Some crazy effects that take weeks to go or that never go if the dose is unstable, are now gone, proving to me that the liquid solution and protocol seems to work. 2mg was used with an extract of 8ml from 100ml, and now I'm using 6ml, so with the 25mg pill the calculation gives 1.5mg. According to my tests, it seems really important to use a lot of water (100ml) to minimize the margin of error of human actions when the dose is so small. Under 1.5mg, I plan to use more water to never have an extract under 6ml of water.

1999-2003: not really remember. Tried Wellbutrin for a week, being mostly on Paxil

2004-2009: zoloft 200mg

2009-2010: zoloft fast withdrawal (-25mg per week), added celexa a few months, minimum dose)

2010: zoloft 200mg + zyprexa

2011: zoloft 200mg + seroquel XR 400mg, zyprexa removed

2014 (April): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2014 (July): restarted zoloft 25mg for unbearable symptoms. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2018 (May): zoloft 0mg tapered -25mg per 2 weeks. Still having seroquel XR 400mg

2020 (May to August): seroquel XR -100, -100, -50, -50, -50 = 0mg on August 4th, reinstated to 50mg XR after 4 days

2020 Sept 21: seroquel 25mg

2020 Oct 12: seroquel 12.5mg

2020 Nov 2: seroquel 6.25mg, 21: seroquel 5mg, 22: seroquel 4mg, 24: seroquel 3mg, 28: seroquel 2mg. Dec 4 : 1mg, 5: 0.5mg, Dec 19: 2mg, 2021 Jan 16: 1.5mg, Jan 22: 1mg, Jan 23: 0.5mg, Jan 29: 0.25mg, Feb 06: 0.125mg, Feb 07: 0.06mg, Fev 11: 0.125mg, Fev 18: 0.1875mg, Mar 13: 0.09mg + clonazepam 0.25, Mar 19: seroquel 0, 2022 Apr 23: clona 0.5, Oct 21: clona 0.75, Aug 16: clona 0.5, Nov 2023: clona 0.437 lemborexant 5 2024 Feb: lembo 10 Mar: clona 0

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would wait a little longer before jumping to 1mg. At least 2 weeks, the withdrawal can be quite delayed.

 

As you can see from my sig iv recently just jumped to 0.5mg. The first week or so I experience no noticeable effect still sleeping 7 hours+, but the past 4 days my total sleep time has been reduced to only around 6 hours. 

6.01.20 - 6.02.20: Seroquel/Quetiapine 25mg

7.02.20 - 13.02.20: Attempted CT ran into extreme rebound insomnia

13.02.20 - 04.07.20Reinstated and holding Seroquel/Quetiapine 13.5mg, 1mg Circadin 

Began Tapering of Seroquel

04.07.20 - Quetiapine 13mg 12.07.20 - Quetiapine 12.5mg 20.07.20 - Quetiapine 12mg 28.07.20 - Quetiapine 11.5mg

02.08.20 - Quetiapine 11.mg 06.08.20 - Quetiapine 10.5mg 10.08.20 - Quetiapine 10mg 15.08.20 Quetiapine 9.5mg

18.08.20 Quetiapine 9mg 23.08.20 Quetiapine 8.5 27.08.20 Quetiapine 8mg 31.08.20 Quetiapine 7.75mg 02.09.20 Quetiapine 7.5mg 06.09.20 Quetiapine 7.25mg 08.09.20 Quetiapine 7mg 12.09.20 Quetiapine 6.75mg 14.09.20 Quetiapine 6.5mg 19.09.20 Quetiapine 6.25mg 21.09.20 Quetiapine 6mg 24.09.20 Quetiapine 5.75mg 01.10.20 Quetiapine 5.5mg 03.10.20 Quetiapine 5.25mg 05.10.2020 Quetiapine 5mg 09.10.2020 Quetiapine 4.75mg 12.10.2020 Quetiapine 4.5mg 14.10.2020 Quetiapine 4.25mg 17.10.2020 Quetiapine 4mg 21.10.2020 Quetiapine 3.75mg 24.10.2020 Quetiapine 3.5mg 1.11.2020 Quetiapine 3 mg 7.11.2020 Quetiapine 2.5 mgs 13.11.2020 Quetiapine 2 mg 16.11.2020 Quetiapine 1.5 mg 20.11.2020 Quetiapine 1.25mg 23.11.2020 Quetiapine 1mg 26.12.2020 Quetiapine 0.75mg 16.01.2020 Quetiapine 0.5mg 17.02.2020 Quetiapine 0.25mg 17.03.2021 Quetiapine 0.125mg 9.04.2021 Quetiapine 0!!!

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