Do withdrawal symptoms always show up right away? Delayed onset

[Mikey1975]

Why i know mine is WD is because i have totally different symptoms to what i was put on the tabs for

[RockSie]

Me too. There is nothing similar to my underlying disease, notwithstanding i have doubts on wd, because wd starts soooooooooo late after taking the last pill.That destrois me so much.

How are u doing at the moment??

[Mikey1975]

Very up and down , i beleive itis WD mine didnt start really until the best part of a year after but my symptoms are exactly like everyone says on her

[RockSie]

Sorry I dont understand "mine didnt start really until the best part of a year". It would be great if u explain it for me.

[Mikey1975]

What i mean is apart from a bad memory and weight loss my symtoms didnt start until about a year after i stopped

[RockSie]

Okay, now i understand. Thank u. Do you have any help or support? How do u handle the symptoms?

[Mikey1975]

Hi mate i know its hard to accept esp when the onset was a while after but im sure yours is WD just like mine , what are your symptoms , its hard because in the uk the doctors wont admit to WD and just say its your ilness coming back , try to accept it is WD and try not to get stressed and get some magnesium citrate it helps

[RockSie]

hey buddy, deep inside me i know its wd. during such a big wave like at this moment, my toughts and emotion become insane. here in germany its the same with the doctors. wd dont exist and you'll get more and more diagnoses and prescriptions. so u have to go through it by yourself. i heard a lot about magnesium, but im so petrified that this stuff will make it get worse. i will try fishoil.

my major symptoms are horrible emotions and thoughts, restlessness, neusea, i can't eat, a really bad feeling in my stomach, tinnitus, anxiously, scared of everything, desperate....

and yours?

[Mikey1975]

Hello again pal it sounds exactly the same in Germany that it is here , beleive me magnesium is good ask anyone on here , do you get the one sided headaches and eye and ear pressure aswell and internal tremors and vibrations

[Mikey1975]

My emotions change all the time and nervousness for no reason at all

[RockSie]

Hi Mikey, i know the pressure and headaches. Its awful. The changing of emotions every minute is horrible too. do you still working? do your wd come in waves and windows? and if it comes in waves and windows, how long it takes?

[Mikey1975]

Yes mate i work i find it helps me take my mind of things as with the waves and windows my mood can change by the hour sometimes i can have worse days than others at the moment i dont get many better days togeather

[a99]

when I was tapering the symptoms would appear a moth or two after the cut but with my last cold turkey the new set of symptoms didn't really start until about 8 months afterwards .

[Mikey1975]

Hello again mate if you dont mind me asking what were you on ?

[Petunia]

When I stopped taking Lexapro after a too fast taper, I initially had body pain and flu like symptoms for a couple of weeks. Then I started to feel better. For the next 2 - 3 months I was feeling quite well and was sure I was over the worst of any withdrawal and had basically recovered from 13 years of AD use. But then new symptoms started to occur and because I had been well for a while, I didn't connect it with my previous Lexapro use.

 

The new symptoms were sensitivity to sound and light. Irritability and low mood, inability to concentrate or focus, problems sleeping and night sweats. I had developed tinnitus 2 weeks after stopping Lexapro, and now it got worse. I'd had none of these symptoms before starting on ADs, I was put on them for anxiety, which I had subsequently dealt with by changing my circumstances and therapy.

 

I ended up getting a new diagnosis of ADHD and started on stimulant meds, which helped a bit, but here in Australia we only have instant release dexamphetamine and so all my symptoms would come back every 90 minutes. Symptoms kept getting increasingly worse over the next year, but I was still functioning. Like the OP, I completely crashed about 18 months later.

[Horns85]

I was 'ok' months 1-7. I had some symptoms but nothing I couldn't handle. Looking back, I thought they were bad at the time, little did I know! Month 8, my CNS crashed. I'm at a year now and it's at its worst. I am in a stressful situation at the moment but I understand your suffering!

 

Hang in there!

[Muddles]

A few people I know of got hit with withdrawal months off the drug. Has this happened to anyone else?

[NoMeaning25]

At 3 months off. I actually felt the best ive ever felt during the 2nd and 3rd month. 1st month i had physical symptoms like those of real drug addiction

[Darwin]

been sick since the beginning unfortunately

[LoveandLight]

During tapering but didn't know was WD then after one week v v bad..other times I withdrawn it didn't hit til maybe a few months after..but in a way I'm glad it was as severe this time and led me yo google, otherwise I'd be in the damn system not knowing what was wrong the rest of my life.

[Petunia]

I also had delayed onset withdrawal, we have a topic here:

 

Delayed Onset of Withdrawal Symptoms - Symptoms and ...  *topics merged

Edited November 4, 2015 by Petunia
updated

[Fresh]

I had it too . . . things began to get very bad 6 months after my last dose of cymbalta in 2013.

[RockSie]

Me too. I quit citalopram ct twice and the wd hits me between 4-11 month. I can't remember exactly.

[marie123]

I wonder if the late bad withdrawals (few months later) happen with every AD and if it happens to a minority or majority of people.  I know I have to finish tapering Trazadone and then start tapering Remeron.

[UselessSpork]

at first i had no idea i would be this sensitive and i was clueless about WD. So i went down from 45 mg to 4 mg in about 2 months... at first it wasnt a problem but eventually it started to get really hard. then i decided to jump off 4 mg and it was hell on earth for around 3 weeks. so i reinstated and after holding for 2 months i improved and on april 19 2015 started tapering alot more slowly, again thinks were going fairly smoothly until around july 13 2015 when i tapered from 1.9 mg to 1.6 i hit a wall.... i started having alot more intense depression and anxiety.. i held a bit and reduced from 1.6 to 1.5 and things only got harder... i am still holding at 1.5 mg and it has been absolute hell. im about just as bad as when i jumped off completely from 4 mg for those 3 weeks. It is very hard to understand how im doing just as bad now after holding on 1.5 mg for 2.5 months, than i was after diving off 4 mg to zero after a very fast taper. horrible time.. i want this to make some sense.... either way im not sure if this counts as delayed withdrawals.

[Sampo]

I had been 3 months without Sertraline when withdrawal symptoms really started. When I ended it first time it took maybe 4 months to get PSSD.

[downtongirl]

do delayed withdrawal symptoms last as long as regular withdrawal symptoms?

[Petunia]

Delayed symptoms are the same as regular symptoms, it just means they don't start until some time after the drug is stopped. They can last just as long as regular withdrawal symptoms.

[zandro]

Sorry to revive this old thread but how do you explain withdrawal symptoms after months of stopping the meds? I mean why do you feel OK in that period? What happens to the brain in than time frame? Seems unscientific.

[scallywag]

zandro, the healing process isn't linear.  I'm sure there's a good explanation for which withdrawal symptoms occur and when they arise, intensify, decrease and resolve. We just don't have it now; our science and research tools haven't got that far yet.

 

You may not have seen this other topic in the Symptoms forum: One theory of antidepressant withdrawal

[Jazzks]

Same things happened to me after 2 months, irritability, nauseas, headaches , vertigo, rage, acne , the whole works. Anyone use fish oil to balance out after with success? This is my next option. I tapered for 6 months. After the third month symptoms are even worse.

[Henosis]

I certainly don't have a sound physiological mechanism for it, but I didn't notice a thing during tapering or after my last dose of Paxil. It took approx 6 weeks to be plunged into WD chaos (though coincidentally it occurred around the time I was discontinuing another medication (not a psych med))

[Henosis]

Approx 6-7 weeks after my last dose is when I was plunged into withdrawal. Prior to that, I didn't even notice a change in *anything*.

[rapunzel2]

Hi guys, I'd like to chime in on this because this is EXACTLY what happened to me. I was tapering over 4 months since End October 2012. Extremely mind WD symptoms, but nothing too noticeable (especially after I switched to decaf; WD symptoms were virtually non-existent). Sleeping was perfect. Then mid Feb I had some highly stressful situational anxiety that lasted about a week. During that time I was waking at 4AM and not falling back asleep. Had trouble falling asleep too. After I resolved the situation, my sleeping never normalised. I'm still experiencing early morning waking and not falling back asleep and very broken, unrefreshing sleep. I'm no longer anxious (except about my sleeping now) but just cannot get a good night's sleep. So I think that maybe (for some people) a stressful event could possibly 'trigger' withdrawal symptoms, even if they were going along pretty well. Maybe it's got something to do with the cortisol not being able to get back to normal or something. What do you think?

 

bingo, that's exactly what happened to me. 

I've had delayed onset before. but this time got it with tapering. was doing fine, until really stressful situation, couple of months after cuts. it sent me haywire. recovering from that at the moment, slowly. 

[marie123]

It was six weeks for me before I got hit with Trazodone withdrawals. I had extreme weakness, nausea, and dizziness. Went to the doctor the first time and he dx'd me with norovirus. I was still sick a month later so I went back to the doctor for the second time. My doctor told me I had a bacterial infection and was prescribed antibiotics. Well he was wrong!wrong!wrong! What a mess. I never felt better and I came to conclusion that it could be withdrawal. I was surprised because I felt better after jumping and for the first six weeks. I came here to SA and confirmed it.

 

Marie

[Henosis]

I'm also very curious about determining the causation of this. In my case it was complicated as i didn't experience any withdrawal symptoms during fast tapering or the three months after quiting high dose paroxetine. It ended up only arising upon major CNS disruption from a suboxone withdrawal. I was left assuming it was the suboxone withdrawal causing all the problems, but ultimately determined it was almost purely SSRI related once I re-instated (relief within 24 hours). Complex indeed.