Eskimoknow: Cold Turkey

[Eskimoknow]

Hello.

While I was doing some research on my meds, I found this site.

I quit all of my meds and cigarettes cold turkey 5 days ago.

I was taking 40mg of Prozac, 200mg of Lamotrigine, 20mg Lexipro, 150mg of Trazodone as needed and I just started taking 1mg of Risperidone twice daily. I started taking the Risperidone about 15 days before I stopped it with the rest of my meds. I've been taking the other meds in different forms and milligrams for years now.

I've been seeing therapists since I turned 12.

I got on my first prescription when I was about 14 or 15.

After taking all of these meds for all of these years and not feeling any different I figure, what's the point? I'm on the verge of being homeless and can't afford my meds anyway.

I was just wondering how quitting everything cold turkey has worked out for anyone else.

I have been monitoring my moods and documenting my thoughts.

[Jemima]

Eskimoknow,

 

I moved your topic here to the Intro forum because it's about you and your experiences with psychiatric drugs.

 

First of all, in my opinion, you're asking for prolonged sickness and pain by going cold turkey off all of those drugs at once.  For maximum comfort, only one should be tapered at a time, and by 10% or less in one month to six week periods.  Please read this:

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/1024-why-taper-by-10-of-my-dosage/

 

It would very likely be a good idea to go back on all of your medications immediately and taper off of them sanely, one by one.  There are ways of getting assistance paying for prescriptions and your doctor or someone on his staff should be able to help you with that.

 

To answer your question, I've never known anyone going cold turkey off so many drugs at once.  Never.

 

When you have a chance, please add your drug history to the signature area of your profile.  Directions:

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/893-please-put-your-withdrawal-history-in-your-signature/

 

Welcome to the forum.  Please look over the 'Introductions and updates' discussion area and see how others have fared going cold turkey off of only one drug.

 

 

[Baxter]

Welcome. It might be a good idea to read some of the info about tapering that you can on this site, Eskimo. Lots of people have been in positions similar to tithe spot you're in. All the drugs you have been taking cause different "discontinuation syndrome" symptoms. Cold turkey has caused more problems than it has solved

 

I agree with Jemima that you would be wise to reinstate your mess at the prescribed doses, learn about WD and then start tapering the drugs one at a time.

[Rhiannon]

I'm "thirding" Jemima.  

 

Even cold turkeying just one medication--for someone who has only ever taken one medication, plus started only once their brain was fully developed (after about age 24 or 25)--can be iffy.

 

For someone who's been on multiple medications and started in early teens while their brain was still maturing, getting off psych meds seems to be particularly tricky.  Even getting off just one at a time needs to be done carefully with a cautious taper.

 

To CT multiple medications at once, that's a recipe for certain disaster, in my experience.  I would predict that you will end up back on them, maybe on more or different ones, after much indescribable suffering and possibly a stay in the hospital.

 

Sorry if that sounds cruel; if you knew what I know (and what most of us here have found out) you would realize that I am being exactly the opposite of cruel in saying this.  

 

You are asking how quitting all meds CT has worked out for other people. I can tell you, after many years working with people trying to get off psych meds, it works out very, very badly.

 

Please, please reinstate your medications before you find out exactly what I'm talking about.  You can then taper off safely.

[Eskimoknow]

Yeah...thanks for y'all's advice so far, but other than getting some rare random black outs, a huge migraine, random sleep, and times when it feels like I can feel every blood vessel in my body, I'm toughing through this just fine. I'm on a few other pills too, but they are as needed and I hardly take them anyway. I'm on day 6 now. My thoughts have actually been more clear. It's weird. I can tell when I'm about to have a random mood swing therefor I am learning more and more how to control myself every day. I am mentally stronger than any drug put into my system. I just got on here trying to meet other people who are just CT a bunch of meds too so I can compare how well I'm dealing with myself compared to them. That sounds like a d*ck move, but it's true.

[Brandy]

 I have been monitoring my moods and documenting my thoughts.

 

 

  I am mentally stronger than any drug put into my system.

 

I'm going to be blunt. You either don't know how these meds work, or you are a thrill-seeker in over your head.

 

I'll go on the assumption that you don't know how these meds work.  I certainly didn't when I went off and for a couple of weeks felt better than I had since I was a kid. Then I woke up in a hell there are no words to describe. And a lengthy and harrowing recovery that affected every aspect of my life.

 

These meds make changes in the nervous system at the cellular level. Those changes can heal, but you have to support that healing by treating your nervous system right by dropping in small amounts at a rate that allows the body to return to normal. Mine is not an isolated case. I'm now a veteran of many years on withdrawal boards, and I'm afraid I've seen many people, strong people like you and me, who had no idea that being strong and stoic is not the issue. These meds are not like street drugs where withdrawal is hellish but over within days generally. Very different things. Hard to imagine, but it's true.

 

Even though someone is physically very fit and healthy, that won't help them if they crash a speeding car into a cement wall at 100 mph. That's basically what you're trying to do.

 

I don't like seeing people get hurt, especially needlessly. Please learn from what we've been through. Your blacking out is your body trying to warn you it's in danger. Your blood vessels are trying to warn you.

 

Too-fast withdrawal can cause one to feel extraordinarily well and even almost euphoric initially. This is deceptive when one has been taking meds affecting the brain and nervous system on a regular basis for years, as you have. You can't just yank the ground floor out from a building without doing it slowly and carefully, making sure the building has the proper support at every stage.  Doesn't matter how solid and sturdy the building had been. You still have to do it smart and do it right, or it will crash.

 

There's usually a limited window of time in which a person can go back on these meds. (Another thing I'd had no idea about. I waited much too long and my body wouldn't tolerate anything anymore.) There's no way to predict how long that window is for any given person, so please reinstate your meds now. There are inexpensive sources of generic drugs and other programs to subsidize the costs of meds. Let us know if you need more information about that.

[Altostrata]

Welcome, Eskimoknow.

 

I hope everything works out for you in the course of cold turkey you've chosen. On this site, we urge people not to cold turkey even one medication. It's a high-risk strategy, and if you develop withdrawal syndrome, it can make you very ill for a very long time.

 

It's unlikely you'll find people here to discuss the advantages of cold turkey. We usually urge immediate reinstatement of the drugs and subsequent slow taper.

 

Please look at the Symptoms and Self-care forum for suggestions about coping with symptoms.

[tezza]

I'd never advise a CT. Why are you about to be homeless and not be able to pay for your meds?

 

Why did you begin taking Risperidone? That's a powerful med!

[Eskimoknow]

Thanks Brandy, but I'm still just going to go through the hell that the withdrawals bring me when they do. I've put myself through and know I can handle a lot of physical pain. Now I want to go through mental hell. It's day 6 and I'm still waiting on everything to go horrible. My favorite sensation use to be pain, but as of recently it's fear. I love the feeling of being scared. The government shouldn't be allowed to let people make such drugs that do the types of things to us that prescription drugs do.

[Eskimoknow]

I went into a mental health institution recently. My friends and I did a bunch of DXM and LSD for two days strait. On the third day I was joking with them and I thought they were messing with me too, cause we messed with each other and played along with each others trips. Well, turns out they were serious and I was taken out of my apartment into a mental health institution for a few days. Now, this is the same place that I've gone for about 5 years now every month to see my psychiatrist. I told them I was board and just messing around, but they didn't believe me. So I just started messing a around with what I wrote on the papers to make me laugh. The staff knew I wasn't as crazy as I made myself look on the papers. I take that place as a joke. My psychiatrist decided to prescribe me Klonopin and Risporal. My Klonopin was stolen from me by some people I was letting stay at my apartment, so I never got to really start taking that. I kept forgetting to take the 2nd Risporal everyday, so when I CT I just didn't and don't care about it. I think I black out because I'm aneroxic. That was my second time in that same hospital. I tried to admit myself a third time when I decided to go off of my pills but they wouldn't accept me because I wasn't suicidal. I haven't been suicidal in over two years.

[Brandy]

Eskimo, you may have been correct in the literal sense when you told the hosiptal you don't feel suicidal.

But what you're doing is self-harm that could be fatal, or more likely, put you permanently into a semi-vegetative state. That is not a desirable sensation. I've seen it. Please believe me.

(Quick note to others reading here: People in psych drug withdrawal frequently fear brain damage. I am not talking about the w/d from psych drugs that we normally discuss here, severe as that can be. That DOES NOT cause the risks I'm concerned about in this thread. My replies in this thread, like virtually all my posts, are individualized for a particular individual's circumstances. And in this case concerns a very unusual and extreme combination of drugs that not only are being taken at what are collectively toxic doses, but which have interactions with each other that are not those of the kind of psych med w/d we normally deal with here.)

Eskimo, the human brain is complex and many people do find some degree of risk and fear enjoyable. That is why roller coasters and horror movies are perennial recreational favorites of many people even though many other games and movie genres come and go.

What you are doing is different. It's so important that you realize this and take back your life.

People who love risk normally do so taking precautions against permanent harm, or knowing others (roller coaster operators, for example) have done so to ensure their safety.

That is not the case with you. I don't know if you have a masochistic streak that preceded any drug use, but I want to toss out the possibility that the very large amount and type of meds you're on has numbed your emotions so much that your brain craves feeling, but is so numbed it's not facing the possibility (okay, likelihood) that the way you're trying to regain feelings would soon lead actually to more numbness and despair.

Everyone who tapers slowly and carefully off psych meds has feelings return - often more strongly than they want. But feeling returns - safely, where they can be enjoyed as one heals from the meds.

Please tell the hospital (or another one, if necessary) that although you don't feel suicidal, you are unable to resist deliberate self-harm by cold-turkeying all these meds. Don't let them put you on any new drugs. When they do that, they're trying to offset what the meds you've been taking are doing. The only way to get back to feeling again is to taper safely (not the way doctors know to do) off the meds you've been on and not add more mind-numbing meds to the problem.

I know it's hard to think clearly when you're very drugged and also when you're in even the early stages of w/d. But I'm hoping some of what I've written will strike a chord in you, if I'm on the right track, and that you'll get help and get back on the same meds. If you want our help, we can help you get off them and regain your ability to feel again.

[Skyler]

Eskimoknow.. you may not mind pain as Brandy eloquently notes, you may even be into pain.  The problem is withdrawal pain goes on and on and on, for years given your type of drug history. When you decide you have had enough pain and want it to stop, it will not.  Maybe not ever, and it will exhaust you, taking way more than you ever thought of giving.

 

Eskimo... please value yourself, don't do this.

[Eskimoknow]

I am ready to face that horror.

[areyouthere]

Well well well.........   enjoy my tax dollar as I support you and your selfish wishes on your idiotic journey.....   And... GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!!!!!

[Brandy]

I am ready to face that horror.

 

That is your right, of course. But may I ask why? (I'd sincerely find it interesting to know.)

[Eskimoknow]

Because I know that I am mentally stronger than any medication anyone could put me on. I would rather be able to feel sadness and happiness randomly instead of being turned into some non emotional robot from all of the drugs I'm put on. I go into my doctor, I'm happy, that means I'm to happy. I have to watch out because I'm about to either do something stupid or go on a down, so I get my dosages changed to where I'm less happy. I go into my doctor the next month and he can't understand why I'm depressed, so he tweaks my meds again to make me happy, but not to happy...you see where I'm going with this. It's been like this for about 5 years for me and I'm tired of it. If I'm happy let me be happy. Don't tell me that I'm to happy and start trying to make me a little more depressed. I'm not some science experiment. I am the way I am because that's how God made me. I've come to embrace and welcome the idea of being homeless. It will give me a good spiritual journey. I already live life with no material possessions other than a few pair of cloths and this iPod. I can fit my whole life on my back. The only thing holding me down is a charge I have to go to court over on the 14th because I was growing some marijuana plants in my apartment over a year ago in a state where it is illegal to do so. If I can get off of this I plan on going to a state where I can grow and spending a lot of time in the woods becoming more one with nature and exploring myself spiritually. Our mind is a very powerful tool. That's why I really don't like the idea of something (prescription meds) coming in and taking control over that. The only thing I want controlling me I'd myself. If I have to go through hell for a while because I CT my prescription meds, then so be it. If that's the path that life is setting down in front of me then I am going to take it and explore it on every level.

[Eskimoknow]

Areyouthere? How am I wasting your tax dollars at all? I am wasting no money except what little I have saved up . Money is the root of all evil. Who controls money? The government. Therefor money and the government are both evil and not to be trusted. If I am wasting anything of anyone's than I am truly sorry.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

The only thing I can do is wish you good luck on your journey. As you can see there are maybe none here who can support you in your decision and think what you are doing is very unwise. If you return again and again in the grip of mental anguish, our answers will be the same: taper slowly and avoid the hell because it is unnecessary suffering the way you plan to go about it (freeing yourself from psychoactive drugs). I shudder at the image of being alone in the woods in the grip of neuro-emotions.

 

By the way, it is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil. Most people don't get that (or remember the quote right).

[mammaP]

I can relate to what you are saying, every visit you are too happy or too sad and end up being like a robot.

Going through the motions and all you want is to be left alone to be YOU. You CAN get your life back and be in control,

you can be free of all the drugs that have been put into you and finally find yourself and be who you are. 

You are stronger than any drugs that have been put into you, well you are probably right there, but once your brain, the 

grey matter that makes it up, starts to react to being without the poison it's been used to, you will need more than the strength

of mind you have. . The life you crave and are looking forward to sounds great and would appeal to me too, it is achievable 

and you can do it but not this way. You tried to put yourself back into hospital but were turned away. The way you are going you

will have no choice, you will be taken there against your will once the withdrawal kicks in. Then it will all start again. 

Or maybe that is what you are hoping for? Whatever it is you are hoping to get from this, I wish you well and hope that one day

you can find and be yourself, and most of all be happy. 

[Jemima]

I am ready to face that horror.

 

I doubt you have any idea of what you're facing.  If anyone had described to me the hell that getting off Lexapro too fast would be, I would have had trouble believing them.  (But I would have listened and taken it much more slowly.)

 

What concerns me even more than the misery you're inviting is what will likely happen to you: more hospitalizations and stronger drugs that will leave you crippled and with an even longer road back to recovery, if you can ever think clearly enough again to want to recover. I think the staff at the mental hospital didn't so much think that you're not as crazy as you acted, but that they've given up on getting through to you. I'm getting exasperated just reading your posts.

 

Whether you like it or not, your life is still under the control of psychiatric drugs and will be for some time. That's because these drugs change the physical structure of the central nervous system and it takes a very long time for the CNS to normalize after the drugs are abruptly removed from one's system.  This is why tapering off one drug at a time, very slowly, makes the process much less painful.

[Eskimoknow]

I'm still ready to face this head on. I don't believe it is the love for money, to me it's just money in general. All of my life I've been putting myself through as much hell as I can tolerate. If this is going to be as hardcore as everyone makes it out to be then I'm ready. I use to be heavily addicted to Oxycodone, easily doing over 15 mg a day. Then I went without it and realized that I was highly addicted to it, so I just completely CT them.

That was about 4 years ago. Tge only drug that's been hard for me to stop with the worst withdrawals are cigarettes. I've experimented with pretty much every drug except payote. I guess y'all just don't have the mental strength I have to get through the CT. Everyone is different. I have a very VERY high tolerance for everything. I can handle anything. That's why I'm ready for the worst. I want it to come on. I want my body to be stuck half way on a giant rusted nail while being stabbed by fire pokers and continuously having lye poured all over my body along with water. I want to suffer more than that. I want my body to go through the true mental test. I know I can handle myself. I'm sorry y'all can't handle your emotions.

[tezza]

Believe it the way you wish, the quote comes from KJV Bible " the love of money is the root of all evil".

 

I'm very sorry for you. Cigarettes have been the hardest thing for me to quit, too, until WD from Risperdal hit. I've started and stopped a lot of things, too. No one could have put into words the HELL I've been through.

 

At age 20, I drove myself to the hospital (prolly 30 miles) to have my first child. I was dilated 5cm, 10cm is fully dilated. I've been through a LOT, too. Call me weak if you wish but I reinstated and have been tapering off several meds for over two years. I will continue to taper at whatever rate I can be most comfy. I know I'm tough and I don't need to prove it to myself or anyone else.

 

I wish you the best! Sending you a big hug because I'm sad for you.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Just curious to know why you are here then?

[tezza]

(Sorry for the hijack)

 

CW5600, he is here to compare how well he is handling this in comparison. I hope he continues to handle it with ease. He was honest about why he is here in an above post. ( I do admire honesty, thank you for that. ) I do sincerely hope for the best for you, Eskimoknow.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

Tezza,

 

(apologies to Eskimoknow)

 

I missed this:

 

 

I was just wondering how quitting everything cold turkey has worked out for anyone else.

 

Eskimoknow: Not working too well for me.

[Eleriangirl]

I was only Cold Turkey on one med AND I was bridged with Prozac and it still hit me a week or so later.  Had withdrawal and side effects of Prozac all at once. I had a few days of bliss thinking it was going to be smooth sailing, and then it hit me like a freight train.  I do hope that your experience is a good one. Maybe you are one of those people who can just stop taking them and be fine. I would suggest being at least somewhat willing to reinstate if things get too rough (although I don't know much about this as I could not reinstate) and then taking a slower taper route.

 

I can't imagine discontinuing more than one drug - I feel like crap from just discontinuing the one!

[Eskimoknow]

Today would be day 12 and I'm still doing good. I haven't felt like going and taking any of my meds. I don't even notice it if I still am or ever was withdrawing. I have had a few cigarettes to smoke. They are the only thing I can really tell I'm withdrawing from.

[cymbaltawithdrawal5600]

I am glad to hear you are doing well!