pillprob: My Story

[pillprob]

Thank you Clearday and MammaP . Your thoughts help me. Thanks again

[pillprob]

I have started to become very terrified.

 

I have started to believe that because I am now on a small dose of Ativan (.75 a day divided into three doses) I will never experience any windows from the Paxil that I have been off of for over seven months until I am completely off of the Ativan.

 

I feel like all my effort and time of being off Paxil is being ruined and I am prolonging my suffering by being on the Ativan Please help.

[pillprob]

Doesn't the "real" healing occur only after a person is completely drug free and I am really just prolonging my healing?

[pillprob]

Just reread all your sincere, genuine posts, Clearday, fresh, MammaP,  Skyler, Petunia, etc

 

I thank you all so very much. This is so very difficult. I was once such a giver in my life and I feel now like I have become a big taker of everyone's time and energy. I want so bad to be like I once was. I am so sorry

[LoveandLight]

Pillprob

 

As clear day says you write very well.

 

I really relate to what you say. I have never managed very well with work due to anxiety, depression etc.

 

I left my last job in October due to w/d - a part-time cleaning job. I have only done p/time cleaning jobs for years due to difficulty in concentration and difficulty in dealing with the public. But I've hated the jobs..with fatigue it was very very difficult and I just resented and was very angry at the fact that I couldn't manage anything that I would like better. I used to do support work for adults with disabilities and I worked with the elderly. But I've totally lost my confidence in doing anything like this, for now.

 

Right now, on my better days, I don't know where to start. I still don't think I could go back to work just now as I'm totally floored on my really bad days.

 

Clear day is right. You sound like a good person. Really, I think this is the main thing that matters in life. We could be doing worse, much much worse. But we are not. We are just trying to survive something difficult.

 

I really get the lack of motivation. It's awful and makes me feel like a bad person too.

 

Things seem very tough for you right now. But we keep going to better days and better times.

 

Keep writing and talking here. I really relate to what you say.

 

Best wishes.

[Petunia]

Doesn't the "real" healing occur only after a person is completely drug free and I am really just prolonging my healing?

 

You are healing from paxil and stabilizing on Ativan. When you are stable enough, you will start tapering from Ativan and then you will be healing from that too. Please keep re-reading through your threads, it will help you to understand.

[Fresh]

This is a really tough time for you - anyone who's been through it understands that..

The fear is part of withdrawal thinking - every concern can become magnified and seem like giant problems.

Every decision is agonizing , and we constantly doubt ourselves.

 

This is probably a good time to focus on developing some coping strategies for taking control of your thoughts.

Look in the Symptoms and Self Care section for ideas ( I started coloring in mandalas online , and the concentration it involves

helps focus my thoughts).  

What things do you do now that help when you're extremely anxious?

[pillprob]

You are all so kind. I feel so awful. I am so sad and anxious. I wish I could offer you all something for all your efforts.

[LoveandLight]

Don't worry. You can help others when your better. Don't worry about that just now xxx

[clearday]

Don't worry about the Ativan. 

 

Years ago, I took Xanax daily during protracted Prozac WD. I recovered.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day, and your recovery will take time also. Recovery should be carried out in a simple, slow, stable fashion.

 

Your body will continue to adjust to life without Paxil with or without the Ativan.

 

When the time is right, you can do a slow taper off Ativan.

[pillprob]

Dear Clearday and LoveandLight. I dearly love you both and thank you for your kind words once again .

 

Both of you made me feel so not alone. You are few and far between in this mixed up world. I  am so glad, clearday that you mentioned the Ativan thing because this has been consuming my thoughts. Thanks.

[pillprob]

Here is something else that has been pure torture for me that I see might be a problem for some of you.

 

At about 3 months out, I developed the frequent urge to urinate. All tests were negative. Went as far as a CT scan of the abdomen/pelvis, which I was totally against. Nothing found.

 

I still went on an antibiotic because of an enlarged prostate diagnosis, regardless of the tests all being negative. At first, I tried to beat this infection with every natural alternative and nothing worked.

 

Then as a last resort I took the antibiotic and on the eighth day, it sent me into the beginning of several horrible panic/anxiety attacks. I stopped the antibiotic and continued with about 3 bulbs of garlic, twice a day.

 

This pretty much took it away for a while but now it seems to be coming back and is pretty bad some days. I sure hope this is another nasty part of withdrawal.

[Fresh]

I'm afraid it is pillprob , but as withdrawal symptoms go , frequent urination is a nuisance and nothing to be afraid of.

 

There's a thread in Symptoms and Self care called "Urination and Bladder Issues - Male and Female" that you should read.

I've had many periods over the years where my continuous need to pee very much influenced where I could go - there had to

be bathrooms nearby. I kept a record for 3 days about 8 months ago and went an average of 22 times every 24 hours.

Now that I'm stable and doing well , it's much less of a concern.

 

If you want to search for a particular term or symptom , try doing a search with this site name and the term in google , and you'll

get links to current threads.

 

Try not to be worried about peeing - you need to drink a lot of fluids  during withdrawal so don't skimp on the liquids.

[pillprob]

Thanks Fresh.

 

I drink close to a half gallon of water a day on the days that I get to the gym which is about 3 or 4 week but it still gets the best of me on some days.

 

I am really knowledgeable with natural remedies with about 36 years experience with holistic medicine and this symptom still kicks my butt. These pills are nothing short of evil.

 

I hope it clears up and it's not that I am afraid of it. To me it is very annoying and just adds to the torture of withdrawal and anxiety.

 

Also, I have already read the entire section you mentioned. Thank you.

[pillprob]

Ok so here I go again, as the OCD/anxiety is attacking me.

 

I think it was the last two days of attempting to go back on fish oil, as I feel it's very important for healing but it is messing with me. It's like I have a bit of clarity mixed with anxiety.

 

So I'm starting to obsess about this Ativan situation. I am writing this to clearday, petunia, mammaP, fresh, skyler, Loveandlight. 

 

Dear clearday....you mentioned that you took xanax to buffer your paxil taper and you recovered.

 

I do believe that but what I am concerned about is this. While I'm withdrawing from Paxil and getting close to eight months out, I will be continuing on my .75 dose of Ativan to"stabilize" and this will hopefully get me through the worst next couple of months of the horrific paxil withdrawal.

 

So let's just say that after three months of staying on .75 Ativan, I feel I could start to taper the ativan. What is this going to be like? Another long road of hell?

 

I still get this strong fearful feeling that all the time that I continue to take Ativan over the next two or three months, my GABA receptors, which from what I have learned is the primary part of the brain that is being modified by Ativan, is really not being given a rest as I continue to feed it with the Ativan.

 

I know what a few of you said about me continuing to heal from paxil while I take this "low" dose (is it really low? Is there a safe low dose for this garbage?) but as my anxiety takes hold, I am once again in fear because it just makes sense to me that my GABA is being poisoned instead of being able to benefit from "drug free" time.

 

I hope that no one will judge me for going to another site for increasing my knowledge about benzos because I did. What I gather is that allot of these people that have success and get to where they feel they are for the most part recovered, took place after they were completely off of the benzos for at least a year or longer in a lot of cases.

 

Just wondering if this is what I might be looking at for the future. I'm wondering if I will need to go through another, additional withdrawal from the ativan taper and am I really capable of ever beginning to experience any genuine windows while I am stuck on this benzo? Sorry for the OCD

[clearday]

It's not OCD, you're just trying to figure out what's best for your recovery, and you have legitimate questions.

 

You already said that when you reduced Ativan to every other day, you began getting Ativan withdrawal.

 

So in the future if you want to reduce Ativan WD symptoms, best to stabilize on Ativan and then do slow taper.

 

You ask if your eventual taper off Ativan will "be hell", you won't know until you begin the slow taper. 

 

I never had problems getting off small amounts of benzos, but that's just me. Listen to the benzo experts on this, then decide for yourself what you want to do.

[btdt]

To Petunia and Whoopie

 

I was on 60 mgs Paxil. I was also taking Ativan as needed and five or more years ago i was on Lithium off and on. I am not bipolar at all.

 

The last five years of my drug use was only Paxil and I withdrew over a two year period weighing out very small little chips with an 800 dollar pharmacy scale I bought for the accuracy and sensitivity for the tiny dose range.

 

The mistake i may have made was to speed up the taper on the last 10 mgs. and I should have slowed it down to several more weeks which I did not do and I kind of "jumped off" with some quick larger doses. At least I didn't CT like some of the people on here. Did they not survive? Please let me know. Thank you both.

I got to this post and wanted to say I did a ct and I did survive just so you know I was on Effexor last.... 

[btdt]

Ok I have read it all and would like to add one thing here that I think you may find helpful... deep relaxation  there has to be a thread on it and i will bet there are some good videos on Utube as there is where I watch them.  A lot of worrying goes on in wd that is the nature of the it... getting to a deep state of relaxation is what helped me calm the racing brain and I swear this is the state the body heals in... the more you do it the better it works. I set up times in the day and would listen to a relaxation video .. it use to be just ocean sounds but I change around now. 

I wish you peace

 

ps 

I read you had to take an antibiotic for a possible infection some antibiotics react on us when we are in wd so if it you have to take another please read about which ones are less likely to be a problem.  it is on her some place

[pillprob]

Thank you so much for your input btdt. I am definitely going on you tube and find an Ocean sound audio

[DLB]

Just my 2 cents, I have really only ever been on 10 mg. Paxil and did 1 month tapers of of it a few times with horrible results. I was actually off of this crap in 08 for six months and had the urination thing but was feeling great. Went to doctor and was gives Levaquin for a suspected prostate infection which after a week completely flipped me out with not a wink of sleep for a week and horrific anxiety. Went back to doc. And he said " you need to be on Paxil" , well the only other time I felt like that was when a antibiotic was given to me for an infection 5 years before and I asked what it was and he told me he gave me levaquin all those years ago, this is when I realized after NEVER having an emotional problem my 33 years prior , it was the antibiotics flipping me out. Now I was stuck on Paxil due to this floxing ( what it is called when poisoned by fluoroquinolone antibiotic ). Stay FAR away from antibiotics during this time. I believe amoxicillin is ok and some other older weaker ones like the one you get for Lyme disease. I experienced all you have on my rapid wean from 10 mg. and each time I did it I felt worse. Finally I took 15 months to wean off and found the last 2.85 mg was the worst and struggled through for 8 months with miniscule crumbs of Paxil and finished 6 weeks ago and am doing really well. That last little bit was real tough so what you are feeling is def due to that rapid taper off of a so called "untheraputic dose". I am only now starting to get my motivation back for the things I once enjoyed , but it is fleeting at times. Your lack of motivation for work is similar to mine for hobbies and other joys. Having 3 kids and a wife ,house , college and all the rest of things I was forced to work a very physically demanding job with mostly 2-4 hours of sleep. BUT, I believe this helps withdrawal ALOT as it keeps you busy and gets you out of the house which I have found is the best thing to do and believe me 85%of the time I could barely do it. So if your back is not too bad and you can actually work, I say jump in and keep busy even if part time at a Home Depot or something just to get you out and about. So many days I would stare out the window and watch everyone else outside and couldn't figure out why I wanted no part of it anymore and now weaning off and recovering I can see the drugs took it all away slowly over ten years. You will get it back but I believe the anhedonia is the most stubborn thing to leave (aside from insomnia). Hang in there and unless you are gonna die and they actually took a culture, DO NOT take powerful antibiotics now. Just my 2 cents.

[pillprob]

PLEASE, PLEASE help.

 

I am in a hopeless place again.

 

How can I ever begin to recover when I am living with and taking care of an irritable wife that has advanced Multiple Sclerosis, almost fully crippled and has no understanding of what protracted withdrawal is?

 

The few times that I feel a bit of relief, I am bombarded by a pessimistic woman who keeps me down in the dumps with her illness and attitude.

 

When we have a disagreement and it flares up a bit, I feel like my very sensitive nervous system takes a huge jolt that I am not able to recover from and it has a residual lasting effect that makes me feel like I had a large setback and I start to get very depressed and anxious.

 

Can anyone relate to this? Am I really having a real setback?

[Fresh]

It's not a permanent setback , it's part of what you have to deal with in your individual circumstance (which must not

be easy even when you are well).

People who live with partners or children all find they are triggered by things they used to handle better. You're right , 

withdrawal makes us very sensitive and each bump can feel like an assault.

I live on my own , and that had it's own problems , so I've come to believe there isn't an ideal situation to go through

this process - each has it's own challenges.

 

Are you able to engage any extra home services (shopping , cleaning , meal preparation) for the next few months?  This

would help take the pressure off and change the dynamic at home , to give you both a break.

[btdt]

DLB that was the same antibiotic I was put on after a car accident in 2012 things got a lot worse for me but it was hard to sort out what the cause was I am sure it did not help me much I went back and had it changed to a different drug after 2 or 3 days no more of that for me. Like I needed more crap some of these drugs need to go. 

[btdt]

PLEASE, PLEASE help.

 

I am in a hopeless place again.

 

How can I ever begin to recover when I am living with and taking care of an irritable wife that has advanced Multiple Sclerosis, almost fully crippled and has no understanding of what protracted withdrawal is?

 

The few times that I feel a bit of relief, I am bombarded by a pessimistic woman who keeps me down in the dumps with her illness and attitude.

 

When we have a disagreement and it flares up a bit, I feel like my very sensitive nervous system takes a huge jolt that I am not able to recover from and it has a residual lasting effect that makes me feel like I had a large setback and I start to get very depressed and anxious.

 

Can anyone relate to this? Am I really having a real setback?

I wondered this too as I had some mayor stuff go down the first year of wd big things.  I find it odd to think about hard to think about. When your up to it I think all of Fresh's ideas are right get as much help and free time as you can.  Ask family to come and visit so you can go out.  Is you wife able to stay on her own ever... I cared for my mother when she had cancer I am not sure if this is the same or not but that was the reason I was moved from amitriptyline for treating fibro to zoloft - the run your car into cement drug or that is what it was for me. I could not leave her alone in part because she did not want me to she was frightened and because I wanted to be with her.  Still I was not in wd and when I think how hard that would be I think take as many breaks as you can get to keep as stable as you can.  I don't know much about MS but I know it is progressive and a lot of your situation would depend on what stage she was in.  Since you say she does not understand wd it much be quite advance and she does not mean to set you off I know you know that ... so getting breaks is the best thing I can think of.  I had a couple of visits from other family who said just go and do something ... have a break. I went... and it made all the difference. 

We all have to make concessions for those we love and tho it feels like we are set back I doubt we are in a very big way still better to avoid it if you can.  Getting back to level asap is a good thing that is why we have a self care page things there help... lots of things help ocean cds heating pads quiet walks in the woods whatever soothes you. 

I wish you peace

[pillprob]

Thank you fresh and btdt. You're very kind

[pillprob]

I don't see how it is possible to continue and endure the level of anxiety I have. It feels like it will never end. Am I stabilizing on .75 ativan or is it just making things worse?

 

This is terrible. I'm starting to think my body is screaming for a high dose of ativan. Is this possible? Please help.

[dalsaan]

I don't see how it is possible to continue and endure the level of anxiety I have. It feels like it will never end. Am I stabilizing on .75 ativan or is it just making things worse?

 

This is terrible. I'm starting to think my body is screaming for a high dose of ativan. Is this possible? Please help.

 

Pillprob,  this will not be want you want to hear but its the best advice I can give you.   Invest as much time and energy as possible learning how to manage your thoughts.  Your thoughts feed your anxiety which feeds your thoughts which feeds your anxiety ....   Only you can disrupt this by practicing detachment.  Part of why you are having these kind of thoughts is because you are invested in the idea of a quick fix in the form of a pill.   That thinking is what got many of us in this situation.   Stop investing in this.  Put your thoughts back in their box.   Say to yourself over and over, just relax, its the withdrawal talking, its not real.   This will give you some hope of stabalising at which point you will experience a lessening of symptoms

[pillprob]

No dalsanan. You are very correct I needed to here this. It's just easier said than done. Thank you so much.

[Fresh]

Re  post 43 above:   what are some things you can do to prevent or manage intense anxiety?

[pillprob]

I am very confused. Besides the post acute withdrawal I am going through, I have other problems that were in my life before I started the medicine that I never really took care of.

 

I guess you could say that instead of dealing with them in a mature way, I pushed them away and chose to take pills. This I guess was the easy way out. Now I'm withdrawing and I feel like this "unfinished business" is feeding my depression and anxiety.

 

I'm trying to figure out if this is keeping me from recovering? I plan to deal with these issues and get them ironed out but do I need to start now in order to ever get relief or recovery?

 

It has become a regular daily thing for me to dwell on these things and then start to believe that the reason I am not feeling like I'm recovering is because I still have these issues on the back burner that I never fully dealt with. Is this the withdrawal talking?

 

Part of me says I need to deal with these things ASAP if I truly want to heal and part of me says I need to heal neurologically first so I am better equipped to deal with these things. This is truly driving me crazy.

 

You might ask, what are these issues you speak of? My answer is, things such as possibly some miscommunications with my family. Maybe there has been some loss of communication with my wife as the years went by while I was in a medicated fog and she became ill with her disease of Multiple Sclerosis.

 

There were many times when bad words or feelings were exchanged in the midst of both our illnesses.

 

I have not worked in twenty years so I have lost my sense of purpose and worth as a human being. I feel that these and other issues are feeding my illness and are getting in the way of my recovery.

 

At the same time I feel like I am too ill to tackle these issues. Is this the time for more psychotherapy, which I sure have had my fair share of. I feel stuck.

 

I want to try and relax and let my nervous system heal but there is a guilty voice in my mind telling me that I am being lazy and I should be making an effort to straighten these things out RIGHT NOW OR ASAP. Maybe these things are impeding my recovery.

 

As I sit here and type this, I am anxious and depressed and tears roll down my face. Is this withdrawal or is this unfinished business. Is this repressed emotions? Are these unexpressed emotions keeping me from healing?

 

Or maybe it's a combination of both. I would like to believe that it is withdrawal and leave it there for now but am I being truthful with myself? Any thoughts?

[dalsaan]

You have a dysregulated nervous system. In that context it's not possible to tell what is what. Your best option is to manage your thoughts a feelings so as to not add stress to your system. This relentless search for answers isn't helping. Often doing nothing is doing something from a healing perspective. You need to be as gentle as you can on yourself at this point , wait till your system stabilised and then listen to your body about next steps.

 

The intensity you are bringing to the question of what might be hindering your recovery is probably the biggest thing that's hindering your recovery. Learn to let go

 

D

[pillprob]

Thank you so much dalsaan. It's answers like these that keep me going.

[pillprob]

I am feeling very desperate and suicidal. I see there is hot lines but these people are probably going to tell me to get back on meds. I've been getting pressure by alot of people to get back on meds. I'm wondering if I should. I am feeling terrible. This withdrawal is horrible and I am suffering bad

[LoveandLight]

Could you reinstate a small dose..? .5mg or 1mg..

 

Sorry you feel like this..I'm right there with you!

[btdt]

I am feeling very desperate and suicidal. I see there is hot lines but these people are probably going to tell me to get back on meds. I've been getting pressure by alot of people to get back on meds. I'm wondering if I should. I am feeling terrible. This withdrawal is horrible and I am suffering bad

I have used hotlines many times when I was going on and off meds a lot I did not know there was such a thing as wd and the crap usually hit the fan so far away from getting off meds it never crossed my mind.  I don't know how it is these days but when I called I never talked about medication at all... I talked about me and what I was feeling ect... 

If you want to call call ... where I live it is all anonymous and they have helped me a lot in the past often I just needed to get thru a rough patch they were good for that piece of time. 

I wish you peace

[btdt]

At the end of the day your the only one who get to decide... but I am rooting for you peace