Kristen: terrified of pristiqs withdrawal

[Kristenr]

Hi! I had a horrid withdrawal experience when I tapered off of cymbata last February. My pyschs instructions for tapering were over one or two weeks I believe. The month following was hands down the worst thing I have ever experienced. I had a migraine that never went away, brain zaps, out of body experience feeling, 24/7 nausea,.. I was just an absolute zombie. 
 

In October my doctor started me on pristiq. I did not do any research initially. When I did I realized that cymbalta and pristiq are in the same class of SNRI’s. And I read about people’s experiences withdrawing from pristiq and they sound exactly like my horrible experience with cymbalta. 
 

so I’m going to call my psych on Monday and discuss tapering off the pristiq.

 

I am on 100mg of pristiq. And I’ve only been on it for five months. 
 

praying for the best but I’m scared!!

[ChessieCat]

Hi Kristenr and welcome to SA,

 

I am sorry to read about the issues you have had getting of your drugs.  We here at SA certainly understand what you are going through because we have experienced same/similar things to you.  It's also very normal, after having had such a bad experience, to be frightened about what might happen when you try to get off your drug.  And it's great that you have found SA before you started trying to reduce Pristiq!!!

 

Firstly I will give you the good news.  It is possible to get off Pristiq .  I'm now down to 0.365mg after being on 100mg Pristiq.  After my initial experience of withdrawal symptoms when I tried to reduce from 100mg to 50mg and then finding SA, I've been successfully following SA's suggested withdrawal protocol and have only experienced minimal withdrawal symptoms during this time.

 

Unfortunately, the bad news is that it is going to take time to get off.  However it is better to think in terms of getting off with minimal discomfort than to try to get off too quickly.  We need to listen to our body/symptoms and taper according to those, and not stick to a calendar.  Even though you have only been on this drug for five months, it can take as little as 1 month for the brain to fully adapt to the drug.  And the effect can be cumulative, so the Cymbalta needs to be taken into account as well.  The reason that tapering (no more than 10% off current dose about every 4 weeks) is recommended is so that as we take a little bit of the drug away the brain adapts to not getting as much of the drug.  When we take the drug away too quickly the brain tries to make a lot of adaptations all at the one time.  When this happens we may experience withdrawal symptoms, which can be many and widely varied and of different intensity.

 

To give you an idea of how these drugs can affect us I will tell you what happened to me.

 

I had been taking citalopram and cold turkeyed it.  For a couple of months I felt really great and then was bedridden for 2.5 weeks with symptoms that seemed like the flu but I know it wasn't, I lost 8kgs because I couldn't eat.  It wasn't until I found SA that I realised that it was delayed withdrawal symptoms.  I was put on Pristiq.  The experience with that was different.

 

I was feeling awful on 100mg Pristiq (increased blood pressure, agitation/confusion, muscle cramps, sweating) and after researching I realised that I was experiencing mild serotonin toxicity (only one psychiatric drug).  In Australia Pristiq tablets are only available in 50mg and 100mg, no 25mg tablets.  So I went from 100mg to 50mg.  For 2 weeks I experienced extreme cog fog; I felt like my brain was full of mud and walking took my full concentration.  After 2 weeks I found that I could not type.  I've been a professional typist since my late teens (now 63) and I knew that something was really wrong.  Thankfully a few days before this happened I had found SA.  They had suggested that I increase my dose.  Understandably I didn't know whether I should do this so I did a lot of reading on the site.  By the time I couldn't type, thankfully I was starting to understand more about how the drugs work.  So I took extra Pristiq and was very surprised when about 4 hours (hours not days) later my brain fog was clearing and I was able to type again.  Because I had a benchmark I knew it was because of the drug.

 

I will give you some links to read.  Please check them out and ask any questions.

 

This is your own Introduction topic (each member has one) where you can ask questions about your own situation and journal your progress.  This way all of your history will be in one place.  Because part of SA's mission is to educate the medical profession, we appreciate it if members return and update their topic (both good and bad) on how things are going from time to time.  This doesn't just help provide case studies that can be used for research, but it is also helpful for members.

 

And please create your drug signature (and update it whenever you make a change) so that your drug history can be seen at a glance.  It appears below every post you make and is different from the information you provided when you joined SA.  Thank you.

 

Instructions:  Withdrawal History Signature

 

Anyway here are the links:

 

Before you begin tapering what you need to know

Why taper by 10% of my dosage?

Dr Joseph Glenmullen's WD Symptoms Checklist

(Links to month-at-a-time computer and printable forms here:  Dr Joseph Glenmullen's Withdrawal Symptoms)

 

Tips for tapering off desvenlafaxine (Pristiq)

(I've made a lot of posts in this topic about how I've been getting the dose I need.  The most recent post are my thoughts about what I could have done differently.)

 

how-psychiatric-drugs-remodel-your-brain

 

Non-drug techniques to cope with emotional symptoms

 

I also suggest that you listen to Altostrata's recent podcast: 

 

INTERVIEW with Altostrata, SA's founder

[ChessieCat]

You will see in Post #1 of the Tips for Tapering Pristiq topic that there is mention about changing to Effexor / venlafaxine.  If you think that you might like to do this, then I suggest that you do your research and ask about what form of the drug is available where you are.  Effexor brand is a capsule which contains a lot of tiny beads.  Some generic venlafaxine is mini disks in the capsules.  Some members can obtain liquid which needs to be dosed twice a day.

 

It is worth doing your research about this so that you know what your options are.

 

I suggest that you also check out (at the very least Post #1) of:

 

Tips for tapering off venlafaxine (Effexor)