Stall: greetings

[Stall]

Update: Had a really bad case of anxiety/panic which lasted for quite some time and culminated in a BHU self admission on June 6th this year. I was under a lot of stress and anxiety and I just kinda broke. I am guessing because I cant say for sure but I think the dosages of the meds I was on just werent doing what they had once done for me. I am not saying I was anxiety free but for the most part my anxiety and life were managable. It seems like suddenly that just changed. celexa 3.2 mg buspar 40 mg wellbutrin SR 100 mg IR 50 mg. Any way in the BHU the doctor suggested prozac to replace the celexa and I hesitantly agreed. I cut all the way to 3.2 after many years but never had the courage to cut that last bit. The doc suggested the prozac "would cover the same receptors" that the celexa worked on. I was skeptical but felt I did not have any choice since it wasnt doing anything for me anymore. I had massive anxiety, my BP was ridiculously high and I admitted myself in the hospital. I couple of days after the prozac was introduced I asked the doc about the wellbutrin. I think it was aggravating the anxiety I have and I know it can raise BP. He said we could stop and suggested there was no need to taper. So I went along with that too.

 

Its been around 17 days since all that happened and I checked my self out of the hospital around a week ago. It feels like the prozac is "covering the receptors" that celexa was working on and I dont have any tell tale signs of withdrawal from the celexa same goes with the wellbutrin.

 

I am actually happy about the change I know prozac has a really long half life and if I want to titrate off of it it will most likely be easier to quit than celexa was. The doc increased my buspar dosage by 5 mg which I thought odd. Since I am not really sure buspar does anything for the anxiety I have. Also, I am glad to be rid of the wellbutrin. I never really wanted to be on it as my therapist and former psychiatrist talked me into taking it to counter the side effects of celexa, which it did not. Also I was prescribed seroquel 25mg as a prn which Ive used probably around 6 to 7 times. I even cut it in half 12.5 mg because it is so sedating. I am aware that taking that drug can cause weight gain and probably dependence if I take it too often so I am leery of it. Hopefully I wont have to depend on it too much for sleep.

[Ariel]

Hi @Stall

It's really good to hear from you! Thanks for coming back to post an update. 

I'm sorry you were feeling so distressed that you had to check yourself in to hospital. 

I wish you the best of luck on your healing journey,

A.

[Stall]

Hi, update to the update. Im in bit of a quandary here, as the signature says I am currently on 10 mg prozac, 45 mg buspar, and take seroquel 25 mg as need for anxiety/sleep. First for the last week or longer Ive only used seroquel once and that was a half dose. My issue now are my the side effects I am experiencing. I started prozac and serqoquel on June 6 (at the same time ceasing celexa 3.2mg and wellbutrin 150 mg) of this year so its been roughly a month. Briefly, I had been experiencing really bad bursts of anxiety and insomnia for a few weeks on the former medications, which I had been on for years. I ended up in the BHU where they changed my medications.

 

During the first three weeks of prozac, buspar, seroquel experience. I still had quite a bit of anxiety but it was manageable, at around week three I started to get a bit nauseous coupled with fatigue. The nausea has largely subsided but the fatigue turned into exhaustion and the need to sleep constantly. Of course being so sedated the anxiety is largely gone. My energy is so low I cant help but seeing this as a dysfunctional state. I talked to my doctor about lowering the prozac dose and he is resistant to that. He is believes my desire to lower the dose is a function of "your OCD" and says something about therapeutic doses and below 10 mg prozac will be useless or so the "studies and statistics" have concluded this. His conclusion is to jump ship and change to another ssri that doesnt cause the same side effects I have now.

 

I am in a unique situation. I am happy the aforementioned anxiety is gone. I am not happy with the side effects. There bearable but are causing me dysfunction. The way I see it I have to options that are on the same road, 1. slowly titrate down till I hit a sweet spot where the drug is keeping the anxiety at by but the side effects are muted or 2. just slowly titrate of of prozac altogether and go from there.

 

The crux is I don't want to go back to where I was in early June, terrified with burst of anxiety to send me running to the ER.

 

So I am asking for either some validation for the frustrating task of dealing with a pig headed psychiatrist or some advice about the direction I should go concerning the ssri. As of now I am most likely going to drop the psychiatrist, he is too hard to work with and get my GP to prescribe my psychiatric medication for me including liquid prozac so I can titrate down on it since he would not sign off on it. The thing that sucks is its so hard to find a psychiatrist to work with who does not try to invalidate my choices and opinions by labeling them as part of my psychiatric diagnoses.

 

 

[Stall]

I am kinda worried about my situation. I suppose I worry a lot its habit. I pretty much CTd wellbutrin 150 a day a month ago and celexa 3.2 mg (celexa replaced by prozac 10 mg.) Which leads me to wonder if its a contributor to my current symptoms, fatigue and sleepiness. I suppose it is not that bad considering the withdrawal effects Ive suffered in the past brain zaps irritability etc. I suppose I am doing OK but I know I could have gone slower. Hopefully it wont bite me in the end.

[Stall]

The inability to edit my post is frustrating, but I had this thought too, since Ive been on prozac for a month only is it necessary do the slow roll 10% reduction?

[ChessieCat]

Q:  Is your goal to get off ALL psychiatric drugs completely?

[Ariel]

@Stall

33 minutes ago, Stall said:

The inability to edit my post is frustrating, but I had this thought too, since Ive been on prozac for a month only is it necessary do the slow roll 10% reduction?

 

You've got about an hour to edit your comments after posting.

 

Look for the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the text window. If you click on them within an hour of publishing your post, you'll get a drop-down menu listing "report", "share", and "edit". After an hour the "edit" option disappears.

 

Hope that helps!

[ChessieCat]

1 hour ago, Stall said:

The inability to edit my post is frustrating,

 

29 minutes ago, Ariel said:

You've got about an hour to edit your comments after posting.

 

It is not a good idea to edit a post past a few minutes.  The reason is that your post might get seen and read but not responded to immediately.  The person may then go back and respond to the unedited version of the post because they might not see the edit.

 

It is better to make another post and state that the new post is correcting something from the other post (quote the thing that is being corrected is helpful).

 

@Ariel FYI

[Ariel]

1 hour ago, ChessieCat said:

It is not a good idea to edit a post past a few minutes.  The reason is that your post might get seen and read but not responded to immediately.  The person may then go back and respond to the unedited version of the post because they might not see the edit.

 

It is better to make another post and state that the new post is correcting something from the other post (quote the thing that is being corrected is helpful).

 

Makes sense, ChessieCat, thanks for pointing this out. 

[Shep]

On 6/23/2022 at 10:48 PM, Stall said:

Any way in the BHU the doctor suggested prozac to replace the celexa and I hesitantly agreed.

 

On 6/23/2022 at 10:48 PM, Stall said:

I couple of days after the prozac was introduced I asked the doc about the wellbutrin. I think it was aggravating the anxiety I have and I know it can raise BP. He said we could stop and suggested there was no need to taper. So I went along with that too.

 

On 6/23/2022 at 10:48 PM, Stall said:

The doc increased my buspar dosage by 5 mg which I thought odd.

 

14 hours ago, Stall said:

So I am asking for either some validation for the frustrating task of dealing with a pig headed psychiatrist or some advice about the direction I should go concerning the ssri.

 

@Stall You really need to work with your doctor, not an online forum. You've been a member for 8 years and have made numerous drug changes and are still seeking out doctors to change your drugs and then coming here for us to fix the problems your doctor is causing. 

 

5 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

Q:  Is your goal to get off ALL psychiatric drugs completely?

 

Please spend some time with this question, Stall. 

 

If you wish to get off these drugs once and for all, then it's vital you learn non-drug coping skills to help with your anxiety and stress. All you need from your doctor is to continue to prescribe the same drugs as you slowly taper off them, all the while bringing in non-drug coping skills and healthy distractions to get you through the waves. 

[JanCarol]

Stall, when I read that it took almost exactly 3 weeks for your med change to kick in, it hit home.

 

3 weeks is the adjustment to neurotransmitter time.  The perfect time for abrupt changes to knock you down.  This is why we go for slow, stable, smooth, simple.  

Since you were on psych drugs before, and since you are on them now - slow taper is the best way out.  You may want to increase a bit and hold.  Until you are stable.  

This is the hard part (see my sig).  Holding is hard work.  You want to DO SOMETHING - but the things you need to do have little to do with what drugs & supplements you take, but more about - how can I shape my brain, & emotional body to survive this?

Just some late night thoughts.

 

I hope you see the sun today.

[Onmyway]

Hi @Stall, 

the reason why your drugs are not helping you is because antidepressants don't work better than placebo on average. This has been well known in psychiatry for many years now. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/

 

The chemical imbalance theory is a myth that was perpetrated by psychiatry. Here it is denied by the former head of the APA

https://return.life/2022/03/17/the-myth-of-the-chemical-imbalance/

 

Drugs rely on the chemical imbalance theory. You can allow your doctor to play Russian roulette with your brain and suffer as you have for a while now hoping for a mafic bullet and in the meantime harming your system with multiple withdrawals. However, we can't help you with the consequences (even if we wanted to). If you want to share your psychiatric travails with other patients who will continue trying various cocktails you can try patientslikeme.com or other Facebook groups. 

 

Hope this works out for you. 

You are welcome back to SA when you decide to come off of your drugs and not just try to find the perfect drug cocktail. That is what we do here - provide advice on how to come off of your drugs safely and with the least possible amount of turmoil.  

 

OMW

Edited July 6, 2022 by Onmyway

[Stall]

9 hours ago, Shep said:

 

 

 

 

@Stall You really need to work with your doctor, not an online forum. You've been a member for 8 years and have made numerous drug changes and are still seeking out doctors to change your drugs and then coming here for us to fix the problems your doctor is causing. 

 

Working with a Dr. is supremely difficult since its hard to find one, psychiatrist at least who is open to titrating off ssri's. My  insurance is extremely limited to the only solution I have found is to have a GP prescribe for me but they are not experts in psychiatry.

 

Your claim that I have made numerous changes is untrue and seeking out Dr.s to change my change drugs is marginally true two prescribing docs in 8 years. From 2014 to now Ive had my GP prescribe for me and the changes I made from the base dose (3.2 celexa, 200 mg Wellbutrin, 40 mg Buspar) are decrease wellbutrin by 50 mg. That is a total of one change for around 8 years until the recent change to prozac. So no you are incorrect when you say I have made numerous changes. I did quit taking benadryl for sleep and tried ativan but I dont really count those as psychiatric drugs and I haven't used either for sleep in quite a while. So basically there has been one major change in 8 years and that was in a Behavioral health settings with a psychiatrist while I was having intrusive thoughts about suicide and homicide and by the way I had made no changes to aggravate that episode it just happened. I think your mistaking me for someone else.

 

I understand that you try to help a lot of people and it can be frustrating but please don't take your frustration out on me. I am just trying to get some help. Oh and by the way it only took you 30 some years to figure it out so take that into consideration too.

 

Yes the goal has been to get off completely I got stuck on 3.2 mg of celexa and was too afraid to make any changes after that. The only reason I went on prozac is I was in crisis and well the docs aren't really open to titrating in a bhu. Its a hard space to navigate I did my best and don't feel bad about where I am one iota. And I think the warning is errant please reconsider.

[Stall]

14 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

Q:  Is your goal to get off ALL psychiatric drugs completely?

I got on Paxil quite some time ago, decades? After around I year I tried to get off with horrible titrating advice and Dr.s who knew nothing about withdrawal syndrome, had brain zaps the whole 9. Found Paxil Progress titrated to zero on paxil and failed, probably went to fast ended up in a BHU 2008 with worse symptoms than  I had for taking Paxil. But yes the goal back then was to get off of psychiatric med and it still is. I dont mind being on prozac for now because I was so unstable. Not really sure how to navigate prozac since I think its savign me from the withdrawal effects of celexa but I am not sure on how long to stay on it or how to go about getting off of it aside from the 10 percent taper method. Its been exactly a month since Ive been on it. Also finding a doc to give me advice on tapering is like finding a needle... you get the idea. Hence I post here.

 

Short answer yes. How long that takes is another thing.

[Stall]

First, Id like to lay out some ground work moving forward. No one is obligated to reply to this thread. What I am looking for is a coalition of the willing. If you some how think I am abusing the forums then not replying to my updates is a viable alternative. I am not looking for anyone to "fix" my situation, I am looking for advice, compassion and feedback from people who have been there. I am well aware no one is qualified to be a Dr. here. If anything its good just to put my experience out there. You never know who will identify with it and may help.

 

Also, if you need clarity on my situation please ask. I wont mind explaining. I realize a forum has its limits for real time communication. The less assumptions the better. I mean its hard to explain in great detail the events of the past month let alone justify my motives and history without writing a short book. So here is a short history of the last month and leading up to that:

 

2014 - 2022 I ve been on the same dosage of psychiatric medications celexa, buspar, buproprion (see sig) other than going from 200 mg of buproprion to 150 no significant changes have been made till June 6th of this year. Ive seen a total of 3 Drs in that span, my GP, the BHU doc for a week this month and a Psychiatrist this month who I was assigned to in the intensive outpatient program I am enrolled in.

 

I am really not sure what went wrong, but for a good 8 years I have been reasonably stable on the aforementioned dosage. In the years between I would make small attempts at reducing either the buproprion or the celexa, but the withdrawal was to difficult and I would just go back to the reg. dose. Just take a gander at the signatures of the countless people who post here (i.e. people stuck on unusual doses of psych meds) and I think I am in good company. So it was stuck in no mans land, being stuck titrating and unable to complete the process. In the interim I may have had a crisis or two, who doesn't? So fast forward to 2022, pressure from dealing with the pandemic, being isolated because of the pandemic, horrible sleep pattern like that of a vampire poor eating regimen and I think you have the recipe for a mental health relapse. I mean who did not have difficulties during the last few years. Have you tried to get a therapist lately, there a rare breed nowadays. Anyway, I may be wrong but my inclinations is that the celexa, buproprion combo pooped out. It just stopped offering me whatever it was offering me and anxiety, ocd like symptoms, panic descended. I ended up in the ER with super high blood pressure results and intrusive thoughts about suicide or hurting someone. Please look up intrusive thoughts/OCD. So the ER doc referred me to a BHU where with a BP of 170/110 I made the decision to listen to their psychiatrist to replace celexa with prosac and subsequently remove the buproprion. I trusted him and with my limited knowledge of ssris i realized that since celexa was such a bear to get off maybe I might have a better chance of getting off prozac since it has a long half life and presumably less of a chance of withdrawal syndrome. Fast forward to this week where I meet with my assigned Psychiatrist, prescribing Dr. number three in the last 8 years, from the outpatient program for the first time. I tell him my symptoms, fatigue, nausea lack of energy and he intermediately wants to change medications and says there is no need to titrate off prozac since it has such a long half l life and I fired him. I mean I don't want to try another med I just want to titrate off of the current ssri. No need to complicate matters and well the rest of the story you guys know.

[Stall]

23 hours ago, Ariel said:

@Stall

 

You've got about an hour to edit your comments after posting.

 

Look for the three dots in the upper right-hand corner of the text window. If you click on them within an hour of publishing your post, you'll get a drop-down menu listing "report", "share", and "edit". After an hour the "edit" option disappears.

 

Hope that helps!

Ya thanks! that helps, normally your able to edit anytime in a forum, but ya now I see how it works

[Ariel]

@Stall

 

In regards to editing posts, ChessieCat makes an important point: 

 

23 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

It is not a good idea to edit a post past a few minutes.  The reason is that your post might get seen and read but not responded to immediately.  The person may then go back and respond to the unedited version of the post because they might not see the edit.

 

It is better to make another post and state that the new post is correcting something from the other post (quote the thing that is being corrected is helpful).

 

FYI

[Onmyway]

5 hours ago, Stall said:

First, Id like to lay out some ground work moving forward. No one is obligated to reply to this thread. What I am looking for is a coalition of the willing. If you some how think I am abusing the forums then not replying to my updates is a viable alternative. I am not looking for anyone to "fix" my situation, I am looking for advice, compassion and feedback from people who have been there. I am well aware no one is qualified to be a Dr. here. If anything its good just to put my experience out there. You never know who will identify with it and may help.

 

Also, if you need clarity on my situation please ask. I wont mind explaining. I realize a forum has its limits for real time communication. The less assumptions the better. I mean its hard to explain in great detail the events of the past month let alone justify my motives and history without writing a short book. So here is a short history of the last month and leading up to that:

 

2014 - 2022 I ve been on the same dosage of psychiatric medications celexa, buspar, buproprion (see sig) other than going from 200 mg of buproprion to 150 no significant changes have been made till June 6th of this year. Ive seen a total of 3 Drs in that span, my GP, the BHU doc for a week this month and a Psychiatrist this month who I was assigned to in the intensive outpatient program I am enrolled in.

 

I am really not sure what went wrong, but for a good 8 years I have been reasonably stable on the aforementioned dosage. In the years between I would make small attempts at reducing either the buproprion or the celexa, but the withdrawal was to difficult and I would just go back to the reg. dose. Just take a gander at the signatures of the countless people who post here (i.e. people stuck on unusual doses of psych meds) and I think I am in good company. So it was stuck in no mans land, being stuck titrating and unable to complete the process. In the interim I may have had a crisis or two, who doesn't? So fast forward to 2022, pressure from dealing with the pandemic, being isolated because of the pandemic, horrible sleep pattern like that of a vampire poor eating regimen and I think you have the recipe for a mental health relapse. I mean who did not have difficulties during the last few years. Have you tried to get a therapist lately, there a rare breed nowadays. Anyway, I may be wrong but my inclinations is that the celexa, buproprion combo pooped out. It just stopped offering me whatever it was offering me and anxiety, ocd like symptoms, panic descended. I ended up in the ER with super high blood pressure results and intrusive thoughts about suicide or hurting someone. Please look up intrusive thoughts/OCD. So the ER doc referred me to a BHU where with a BP of 170/110 I made the decision to listen to their psychiatrist to replace celexa with prosac and subsequently remove the buproprion. I trusted him and with my limited knowledge of ssris i realized that since celexa was such a bear to get off maybe I might have a better chance of getting off prozac since it has a long half life and presumably less of a chance of withdrawal syndrome. Fast forward to this week where I meet with my assigned Psychiatrist, prescribing Dr. number three in the last 8 years, from the outpatient program for the first time. I tell him my symptoms, fatigue, nausea lack of energy and he intermediately wants to change medications and says there is no need to titrate off prozac since it has such a long half l life and I fired him. I mean I don't want to try another med I just want to titrate off of the current ssri. No need to complicate matters and well the rest of the story you guys know.

Hi @Stall

the ground rules for this forum have been set. Please read them carefully. https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/54-about-survivingantidepressantsorg/

 

"SurvivingAntidepressants.org provides volunteer peer support for psychiatric drug withdrawal, while tapering and after you've quit.

 

We do not offer general mental health support. If you are in crisis, please seek face-to-face help immediately."

 

We strongly encourage you to look for general psychiatric support or advice on medications and psychiatric care on a different forum. Our mission is very clear: We offer support to help minimize withdrawal symptoms in people who have decided to come off of their drugs. We do not offer support for general psychiatric or mental health care no matter how much we may sympathize with you. 

 

[Shep]

13 hours ago, Stall said:

Your claim that I have made numerous changes is untrue and seeking out Dr.s to change my change drugs is marginally true two prescribing docs in 8 years. From 2014 to now Ive had my GP prescribe for me and the changes I made from the base dose (3.2 celexa, 200 mg Wellbutrin, 40 mg Buspar) are decrease wellbutrin by 50 mg. That is a total of one change for around 8 years until the recent change to prozac. So no you are incorrect when you say I have made numerous changes. I did quit taking benadryl for sleep and tried ativan but I dont really count those as psychiatric drugs and I haven't used either for sleep in quite a while. So basically there has been one major change in 8 years and that was in a Behavioral health settings with a psychiatrist while I was having intrusive thoughts about suicide and homicide and by the way I had made no changes to aggravate that episode it just happened. I think your mistaking me for someone else.

 

No, I'm not mistaking you for someone else. I've responded a number of times to your posts when you were adding in Benadryl and Ativan. You would also periodically post about doctors wanting you to take drugs like seroquel, which to your credit, you didn't take - until now.  Also, please note that Ativan is very much a psychiatric drug. Even when not taken long enough to develop a dependency, periodic off-and-on use can ramp up symptoms and temporarily derail a taper through paradoxical and rebound symptoms. It's not a benign substance. 

 

We also tried to get you not take Wellbutrin at night (it causes stimulation) and to separate drugs due to a possible drug interaction, but our advice was ignored. It would have helped if you stayed on the forum long enough to work through some of these issues, but you tend to post to get information, take long breaks, and only come back when something goes wrong after making a change that we had nothing to do with. The best way to use this forum is to get information before you make changes instead of afterwards.  I agree that taking a benzo in a crisis state is better than acting on dangerous intrusive thoughts, but your need to go to the ER and to in-patient and out-patient behavioral health facilities several times since you've been on SA leads me to think you are better off working with a doctor than an online forum. Even though your posts are very restrained - which is unusual since many people who need repeated ER / hospital visits tend to have much more frenetic posting styles - these repeated emergency room / psychiatric hospital visits are still concerning, especially with all of the information you have on these drugs. This need to find "the right" psychiatrist / doctor is also concerning after 8 years on this site. By now, you should be a guru with non-drug coping strategies and only need a doctor to prescribe the drugs (those kinds of doctors aren't hard to find). 

 

 

13 hours ago, Stall said:

I understand that you try to help a lot of people and it can be frustrating but please don't take your frustration out on me. I am just trying to get some help. Oh and by the way it only took you 30 some years to figure it out so take that into consideration too.

 

I'm not taking my frustrations out on you. The warning was for "working against yourself" by going on a new drug cocktail after spending years rarely taking our advice. I think we've been more than judicious in how we've handled your posts. 

 

Even if you what you're saying is true, that you've been on the same cocktail of drugs with nearly the same doses from 2014 - 2022, you're asking a lot of a tapering support forum to continue to support you while you're not making an effort to get off these drugs. You've posted over 70 times during this timeframe.  I hope you can see why we're confused why you're here and what you expect from us. 

 

I suggest you not take passive aggressive digs at the staff if you want help from this forum (we work as a team). Have you even bothered to read my success story? I explain how it came to be that it took me 30 years as you say, "to figure it out." The reason I've stayed on as a volunteer here is because I know how difficult it is for people to make that "your drug is your problem" connection and then be able to safely come off these drugs or, as in my case, recover from a cold-turkey, rapid taper off of range of psych drugs because I didn't have the information to properly taper off. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Stall said:

Have you tried to get a therapist lately, there a rare breed nowadays.

 

If you haven't already, you may want to seek out a therapist from the Mad in America site where they are vetted and know about withdrawal: 

 

Mad in America - Service Directory

 

Scroll down and you'll see a number of therapists in your state. You need to learn how to handle these crisis states and float-and-breathe your way through intense feelings. Otherwise, you'll be on the drug merry-go-round forever. 

 

You may want to read through other members' Introduction threads and offer encouragement and support. You haven't done that in the 8 years you've been here. The offering of encouragement and support leads to making friends with members on the forum and eventually, to conversations in the PM system. Many of us end up exchanging email addresses in our PMs after we get to know each other and form informal peer support groups away from the forum and the hierarchy of having to deal with moderators. That's why many of us don't need to seek out therapists - helping other people is a great way of empowering ourselves and warding off learned helplessness.  A lot of suicide and anxious thoughts come from feeling helpless and alone. Just a thought. 

 

[JanCarol]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:59 AM, Stall said:

Not really sure how to navigate prozac since I think its savign me from the withdrawal effects of celexa but I am not sure on how long to stay on it or how to go about getting off of it aside from the 10 percent taper method. Its been exactly a month since Ive been on it.

 

Yep.  10%.  Like a broken record.  10%.  10%.  10% (or less) per month. 

Because the Prozac is a bridge from other antidepressants, this is the clearest way off of it.  Even though you've only been on it a short time - you got put on it in crisis, likely enhanced by withdrawal from previous antidepressants.

 

It's been over 3 weeks, and that's the key piece.  After 3 weeks, your neurotransmitters have adjusted, and that means slow, safe tapering. 

I also suggest a long hold.  To stabilise from your recent crisis.  Which means that one month of Prozac might look more like 6-12 months.  When you are stable, then you can taper.

I hope you see the sun today,

JC