Ozstralian: Tony Soprano took Prozac so I did too

[Ozstralian]

Hello fellow psych-meds peeps.

 

I needed a break from SSRI's and told my doc I want to withdraw this summer. I am fed up with the side effects and want to feel the blood coursing through my veins again. I am a realist and have reassured my psychiatrist that I frame it to myself as a 'break' and there's a very good chance that I will have periods in my life when I will need SRRI's again. No rigid rules, I'm not beating myself up that if I need them again I have failed, after 12 years of non stop therapy my self deprecating inner childs voice bores me to death and on a good day does't have much hold over me anymore. 

 

I have just completed tapering off Fluoxetine and now being at zero mg feel like the two hemispheres of my brain are being broken open with a crowbar. I feel very dizzy and nauseous, and the chemical rage is unreal. For public safety I have locked myself in my apartment. I kid you not, I could smash up the kitchen right now,  the synthetic anger has me levitating off the floor, and I feel like calling every a-hole that has ever done me the slightest of harm and giving them a piece of my mind......I came off Zoloft about 6 years ago and that was one of the hardest things I have ever done.....is this going to be easier.....or at least shorter......is it.....sigh. 

Edited January 9, 2021 by manymoretodays
name to title

[Altostrata]

Welcome, @Ozstralian

 

You have withdrawal syndrome. What was your taper schedule? When did you last take any fluoxetine? If I were you, I'd immediately reinstate 1mg. Fluoxetine may be available in prescription liquid so you can measure very small doses. If it is not, you can make your own liquid, instructions here Tips for tapering off fluoxetine (Prozac)

 

To help us out, follow these instructions Please put your drug and withdrawal history in your signature You may need to use a computer to do this.

 

Did you by any chance mention to your psychiatrist that you'd had antidepressant withdrawal syndrome before and you have it again now?

 

 

[Ozstralian]

Hello Altostrata, I am still figuring out this website and how to directly reply etc so I may be a little clumsy and do it all wrong ........thank you for taking the time to reply.

 

I suppose when I think  about it I have kind of been tapering as soon as I went on Fluoxetine. I was in crisis at the time and was an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital and maybe my doc went a little too high a little too quickly. I suppose docs just follow the clinical guidelines but we are all individuals in the end, and apparently when some SRRI's were going through the approval process with big Pharma they decided to not bother testing it on women or female rats or whatever ..... in the end I ended up stabilising on a paediatric dose. My sibs joke that the nurses took it in turns to also burp me a few times a day on the ward.....but anyways......I think I have been at zero milligrams since just before Christmas. The lowest I went was either 5 or 2.5mg, my memory is terrible at the moment cos I have had lots of stress on......

 

I would be more comfortable and willing to accept such yuck side effects if the medication was successfully targeting my primary diagnosis, but Major Depression isn't my primary diagnosis, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is. I'm up the top end of severity of the physiological symptoms of PTSD which SSRI's can't target. In terms of my irritation tonight I would have put it at a 7/10, but in the space of half an hour I have read a science doc on blood clots in severe PTSD in women which I had a couple of years back, followed by some drivel and attention seeking rubbish how someone has PTSD after they came home from work and found their partner in bed with a man, but how Oh So High functioning they were. You don't have PTSD if you are high functioning, that is an oxymoron, spoken by a moron. PTSD is a physical disabling medical condition. Sorry to off load but it really really irritates me when people make light of it, to stroke their ego's so they can look down on others that aren't doing as well as them.

 

I see my doctor every week and I will report back all my crazy head stuff. I went for a long walk today and didn't have much dizziness which was great. 

 

Oz

[Altostrata]

What do you mean by a pediatric dose? What month and year did you start? Have you been taking this dose consistently every day?