Lzieb's son: Withdrawing my 11 year old son from fluoxetine

[Lzieb]

After everything that happened to me, and reading your site, I am starting to withdraw my son from fluxotine. He is only 11 and on for a year. The doctor said I can just have him stop taking it. That worked in the past and he recovered fine (he was on it last year for a few months). Now that I know better, I want to know if there's a better way for me to go about it with him

 

He was on 30mg and I decreased it to 20mg. Where should I go from there? The smallest doseage I have is 10mg. Does he definitely need to be withdrawn slowly or because it's fluxotine, he can just stop? Definitely would love help

 

Thanks

[Gridley]

@Lzieb

 

Sorry about the delayed response to your post.  It is better to do all your posts in your main Introduction where they'll get more attention.  If you are working with a specific moderator and want to make sure they see your post, enter, for example, @Gridley.  You'll see a rectangle pop up with @Gridley.  Click on this and the moderator will be notified.

 

When did you decrease to 20mg?  How is your son doing?  Is he experiencing withdrawal symptoms?

 

What is withdrawal syndrome.

 

Glenmullen’s withdrawal symptom list.

 

Prozac, because of its long half life, has the reputation among doctors of being self-tapering.  That is not the case.  Like other psychiatric drugs, it should be tapered by no more than 10% of current dose every four weeks.

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

The following link is specifically about tapering Prozac, including how to get the nonstandard doses you'll need for a 10% taper, including weighing doses using an AWS Gemini 20 scale, available on Amazon, or using liquid Prozac.

 

Tips for tapering off Prozac (fluoxetine)

 

Using a digital scale to measure doses

 

How to make a liquid from tablets or capsules

 

 

[Lzieb]

@Gridley, thank you for this. I am still unsure where I should post stuff. My son is fine right now. We went from 30 to 20 and this is his second week on it. He has had no reaction so far. I will start tapering slowly from here. Thanks 

[Gridley]

7 minutes ago, Lzieb said:

. I will start tapering slowly from here.

I'm glad your son is doing well.  If you have any questions about your son's taper, please be sure to ask.  I'm going to ask the other moderators about where you should post about your son.

[Gridley]

2 hours ago, Lzieb said:

I am still unsure where I should post stuff.

Right here is where you should post about your son's taper.  Your posts and my response have been moved from the Tapering topic here to the Introductions topic.  If you have trouble finding one, type "Lzieb" in the white "search" area in the upper right corner at the top of this page and you'll be brought to both topics.

 

You should post about your own situation with Zoloft in your other Introduction topic, which is at this link:. 

Lzieb : Zoloft 25mg 6 days

[Lzieb]

@Gridley, I am starting to do research to begin my sons taper in the next two weeks. I want to make sure I am ready. I saw (below) this on a post from @Altostrata about tapering and wanted your thoughts since he is on fluoxetine already. I also dont completely understand what they mean about reducing every other day? could you explain that to me.

 

4. Prozac is a special case because of its long half-life. I generally will drop of one day at a time when reducing dose, e.g. decrease to 6/7 days a week for 6- 8 weeks then decrease to 5/7 days a week. Prozac is also a good candidate for every other day decreases, e.g. from a dose of 40mg a day go to 20 alternating with 40 mgs a day [to make a 30 mg-equivalent dose].

 

I also saw that some doctors promote a faster taper meaning they don't wait 4 weeks in between, instead if their system can manage it, they go down to 3 weeks. I was wondering your thoughts. thanks 

 

also is there a supplement support list I should start him on? 

 

 

 

[Gridley]

3 hours ago, Lzieb said:

 

4. Prozac is a special case because of its long half-life. I generally will drop of one day at a time when reducing dose, e.g. decrease to 6/7 days a week for 6- 8 weeks then decrease to 5/7 days a week. Prozac is also a good candidate for every other day decreases, e.g. from a dose of 40mg a day go to 20 alternating with 40 mgs a day [to make a 30 mg-equivalent dose].

 

I also saw that some doctors promote a faster taper meaning they don't wait 4 weeks in between, instead if their system can manage it, they go down to 3 weeks. I was wondering your thoughts. thanks 

 

I'm not sure where you got this quote, but reducing every other day and alternating doses are terrible ideas.  Doing this causes the amount of medication in your bloodstream to go up and down, battering the nervous systems and making withdrawal worse.  

 

The brain likes stability, to be treated gently.  It is ideal if you can accommodate it to lower and lower doses, moving it slowly down a ramp by gradually decreasing by an amount it may hardly notice.  SA recommends tapering by 10% of your son's current dose with with a hold of at least 4 weeks before the next decrease.  This is explained in the following link:

 

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

 

Regardless of its long half-life, Prozac is not an exception to this rule.  The following link is specifically about tapering Prozac.

 

Tips for tapering off Prozac (fluoxetine)

 

Regarding holding for 3 weeks instead of 4, some people can tolerate this and some cannot.  Do you really want to take a chance?  If you son tries it and it doesn't work, he will be destabilized and it can take a long time to recover from this destabilization.

 

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

 

Magnesium, nature's calcium channel blocker 

 

Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) 

 

Add in one at a time and at a low dose in case you do experience problems.

 

[Lzieb]

@Gridley. I got the quote from something one of the moderators posted. ok thank you, no i dodnt want to take the chance.

[Lzieb]

@Gridley, @altostratta, @Altostrata, I think my son is showing minor symptoms of the change in his dose. I changed it before I knew that it would be too much. I went from 30 to 20. He is on his 10th day now. Yesterday he had a funny tightness in his throat, sleep disturbance and pain in his eyes. I would like instructions on what to do from here before his system is too messed up. Thanks.

 

Sorry @altostratta, I didn't mean to include you and wasn't able to remove you once I did. 

[Lzieb]

I did not realize at the point about the 10% taper. I would like to help him before his system goes haywire like mine. Please help me. thanks. Here are some of his symptoms although sporadic  - funny tightness in his throat (went away),  minor sleep disturbance (the night before last) and pain in his right eye (1 hour). Could I be jumping the gun here? This is his 10th day. He slept fine last night. Just don't want anything bad to happen. 

[Gridley]

7 hours ago, Lzieb said:

went from 30 to 20.

I would hold at 20 and make no further changes for at least a month.  Let us know how he's doing at that point and we will go from there.

[Lzieb]

@Gridley. Ok thanks 

[Altostrata]

12 hours ago, Lzieb said:

@Gridley, @altostratta, @Altostrata, I think my son is showing minor symptoms of the change in his dose. I changed it before I knew that it would be too much. I went from 30 to 20. He is on his 10th day now. Yesterday he had a funny tightness in his throat, sleep disturbance and pain in his eyes. I would like instructions on what to do from here before his system is too messed up. Thanks.

 

Please let us know if these symptoms do not go away or get worse in a few days.