flyingfrome: in a complete withdrawal mess!

[flyingfrome]

Hi everyone, 

 

I'm hoping I can find some help here as I'm really struggling. I'll try to keep this as short as possible but it's a very long story!

 

I spent around 7 years on Citalopram for panic attacks but before I started it I was drinking about 4 cans a night as it was helping with anxiety. Stupid I know. I didn't really notice anything when I started Citalopram. I took it at night so I always had alcohol in my system. A few weeks later I started to notice that I felt very sleepy through the day but my anxiety was definitely down and I ended up going back to work. I was off work 3 years prior to this so it must have been working I'm sure. 

This carried on for the whole 7 years. I never went a night without alcohol but finally decided to stop. The first night I didn't drink, I took my Citalopram as normal and went to bed. A few hours later I woke up covered in sweat and shaking. I was dizzy and confused and felt horrible. I figured at the time that it was alcohol withdrawal but didn't know if that was a thing when only drinking a few cans a night. Anyway, my life has not got back to normal since. The next few weeks I was having terrible panic attacks at work but more strangely, I started to feel really agitated. If anyone was stood within a couple of meters of me I felt kind of afraid of them being so close to me and just wanted to be left alone. It was so weird. It was like my entire personality changed over night.

I also started to notice more physical symptoms. I was getting fatigued over doing the slightest thing and was just wanting to sleep all the time. My doctor put my dose up to 20mg without really any help. I started to feel that the alcohol was covering up the effects of the Citalopram all these years and that the drug was causing most of the issues. I ended up not going back to work as the anxiety was just too constant. The next 3 years I tried every single SSRI and had no luck. I felt pretty agitated on all of them and just didn't feel myself. It was like a different personality was in my body. I was moody constantly and just wanted to be left alone.

Things started to get out of hand in the last 12 months. I decided to come off the drugs to see if that helps and my doctor didn't tell me to taper. He said I'd be fine. I got the dreaded brain zaps for a few weeks but they went away and then I felt pretty good for a few weeks. 2 months of no Citalopram and all hell broke loose. I felt shocking and ended up back on the tablets with immediate relief. 

I decided to taper myself and did 3 months of 5mg and 3 months at 2.5mg but I started to feel depressed and had extreme fatigue. I had no energy at all and could barely get off the sofa. Once again I thought I would go back up in dose but this time the unthinkable happened. It didn't work! I would take a bit more Citalopram and feel okay for a few days but then I'd just go back to feeling like I'm in withdrawal. Actually it was worse. My entire body felt a weird burning sensation. I would toss and turn all night. My legs started twitching and my calves felt really tight. I was also weak and unsteady on my feet. I panicked and ended up trying Sertraline again, Lofepromine and Mirtazapin all in the space of 3 months. I ended up feeling incredibly dizzy and disorientated so the doctor said to stop.

 

That was 6 months ago. Again, after stopping I felt great for a few weeks but slowly but surely I've ended up in hell. My current symptoms are as follows:

 

-Tight skin around eyes/burning sensation

-Pins and needles under skin on face and legs

-Muscle spasms in legs/Jumpy 

-Shivering/hot and cold/Sweating randomly 

-Bowel noises and constant excessive wind

-Burning feeling in stomach 

-Legs like jelly/weak knees

-Horrible nightmares repeatedly through night 

-Constant Agitation

-Wake up feeling extremely Shaky 

-extreme fatigue/no energy at all

-Spells of random dry mouth

-Strange headache/pins and needles feeling

-Electric shock feeling in head/zap feeling

-Restlessness 

-Intense anxiety

-Severe depression

-Foggy brain

-Buzzing/ringing in ears

-Eyes sensitive to sunlight 

-Feeling drowsy/spaced out/derealization

 

My family and doctor don't believe me. They think it's all just anxiety and something the years of worrying have brought on but I just don't buy it at all. I tried a low dose of Sertraline recently, about 12mg, to see if it helped but I felt shocking. Do you guys think I should try a smaller dose? I feel at the end and out of options now. I really don't know what to do?

Thanks to anyone who had the patience to actually read all this mess! 

 

EDIT - Just wanted to add, I have a docs appointment in 3 weeks and he suggest trying an SNRI. I'm assuming that's a pretty bad idea at this point?

 

EDIT2 - Ooooo one more thing I was curious about. As the last 6 months have gone on without any meds, I feel like I have got steadily more and more worse. I've been reading about waves and windows and honestly don't feel like I've had that. It's more just every day seems a bit worse than the last day. I would have thought I'd have had some kind of let up in 6 months? That's making me wonder if the doctor and my family are right and this is actually a condition I have and not withdrawal? 

 

Edited July 15, 2022 by ChessieCat
Resized font

[SkyBlue]

On 7/15/2022 at 2:14 PM, flyingfrome said:

My family and doctor don't believe me. They think it's all just anxiety and something the years of worrying have brought on but I just don't buy it at all. I tried a low dose of Sertraline recently, about 12mg, to see if it helped but I felt shocking. Do you guys think I should try a smaller dose? I feel at the end and out of options now. I really don't know what to do?

 

Hello and welcome to SA.

 

It certainly sounds quite intense. And awful that the symptoms started after a few weeks; maybe you had a feeling like it would be fine; then slammed with quite horrible symptoms.

When did you try the 12 mg of sertraline? Did you stop after you felt shocking sensations?

How awful. 

It might be worthwhile to read the thread here on reinstatement. It's possible that 12mg, while small, was too much for your sensitized system.

 

Thanks for filling out the drug signature; that helps. 

 

We aim to support people coming off these drugs so we're not here to recommend new ssris/snris/etc. Doctors usually will try to throw more and more drugs at the withdrawal-suffering person.

 

Have you found anything helps your symptoms?

 

Other mods will probably weigh in on this topic, but I wanted to welcome you, and say that I'm glad you made it here. 

 

 

[flyingfrome]

10 hours ago, SkyBlue said:

 

Hello and welcome to SA.

 

It certainly sounds quite intense. And awful that the symptoms started after a few weeks; maybe you had a feeling like it would be fine; then slammed with quite horrible symptoms.

When did you try the 12 mg of sertraline? Did you stop after you felt shocking sensations?

How awful. 

It might be worthwhile to read the thread here on reinstatement. It's possible that 12mg, while small, was too much for your sensitized system.

 

Thanks for filling out the drug signature; that helps. 

 

We aim to support people coming off these drugs so we're not here to recommend new ssris/snris/etc. Doctors usually will try to throw more and more drugs at the withdrawal-suffering person.

 

Have you found anything helps your symptoms?

 

Other mods will probably weigh in on this topic, but I wanted to welcome you, and say that I'm glad you made it here. 

 

 

Hi SkyBlue and thanks for the welcome! I'm glad I found you guys too. I figured I was just losing my mind but I'm pretty certain I'm going through the same as everyone here even if my doctor tells me it's not possible. 

 

I stopped the 12mg of Sertraline after 5 days. That was about 2 weeks ago. It was getting worse and worse every day. Citalopram was the drug I was on the most so I'm considering trying a low dose of that. Maybe even just 1mg. The only problem is I felt the same the last time I took citalopram as I did with the low dose of Sertraline although I think the last time I tried cital it was 5mg. I guess I'm feeling so bad I want some relief but at the same time I definitely don't want to make things any worse. I'm not even sure things can get any worse! 

 

I haven't found anything to help with my symptoms unfortunately. I've ordered some omega 3 and magnesium so will give those a go cautiously. 

[flyingfrome]

Any advice would be much appreciated on this 

[Yoga599]

@flyingfrome checking in to see how your are doing! Much hugs and support.