Do withdrawal symptoms always show up right away? Delayed onset

[LittleFire]

Hi all, seems that it is not so strange the delayed symptoms, I'm quite sure that I have them after 6 months of dropping, during that time I was just feeling great and the bam. I was also seriously thinking it's the relapse, but it feels different. All this strange headache and lack of coordination, confusion, insomnia of course.

 

I hope the symptoms will get milder soon. 1 week on withdrawal symptoms now.

 

Wish you all the best

[FarmGirlWorks]

I don't remember much as I was also doing things like quitting drinking cold turkey, getting Lasik/PRK, traveling too much... it just seemed like I was getting more and more anxious and felt low-level DP/DR.

[Fonz]

Although I experienced withdrawal while tapering after I jumped off withdrawal started sneaking in bad at around 6 months out. I'm now at 13 months off and it's at the highest level yet.

 

It's nice to read that delayed WD is a known phenomena.

 

 

 

Fonz

[LittleFire]

The delayed WD symptoms, which were very feelable, lasted for me around 3 weeks. I still feel kind of tinnitus and if something emotional or triggering happens, I can't sleep well at night. For sure my nervous system is sensitized still after all this crap, on and of meds for 2,5 years.

 

I'm thinking that my WD was easier than many people here because I was on them for short time and my body probably is more capable of dealing with. It's different for everyone.

 

Now it is 8 months I'm off meds completely after the fast taper. Feeling really ok!

[Rossho]

On 6/29/2015 at 8:31 PM, RockSie said:

Hi Mikey,

 

here I am. My ct withdrawals started 9-11 month off citalopram and the second time 5-6 month off.

Ii roxie, did your citalpram withdrawal ever get better after the late onset? Hope you are well... 

[Rossho]

On 11/24/2018 at 6:17 AM, Jansin said:

I was on Zoloft for four years, starting in late 2013 and ending in late 2017 when I CTed. 
 

Nothing happened to me, not for the first three weeks, not for the first five months after. I just slowly became more and more depressed as 2018 began and went on and also noticed some short term memory problems, but nothing debilitating.

Until finally in September I wake up one day and notice my vision was different, and then health anxiety soon followed after that, then crying episodes came into play very soon after.

 

Then in October I noticed the ringing in my ears is a bit louder than usual

 

But to this day I barely have any symptoms, and honestly after all that I have read on this site: The lack of symptoms is honestly starting to concern me.

Is there anyone else here that only experienced mental symptoms? Or anyone else that CTed without any immediate reaction? 

Jansin have you seemingly recovered from your withdrawal now after the delayed onset? 

[Rossho]

On 11/24/2018 at 8:18 AM, FarmGirlWorks said:

I almost CT'd from Zoloft (4 week "taper") and what you said above kind of tracks with my first 5-6 months. Increasing depression week by week until month 6 or so and then I've had cog fog, akathisia, extreme anxiety, leaky eyes, light sensitivity, head pressure, debilitating headaches. I had tinnitus before from a head surgery but it has gotten worse in WD. I see that you were able to reinstate so perhaps that has waylaid any physical symptoms. Everybody's recovery is different. That is great though that you were able to reinstate which, as I understand it, can arrest WD symptoms while your CNS heals.

Did you reinstate farm girl? Or did you stick it out? Did it get better? 

[Jansin]

1 minute ago, Rossho said:

Jansin have you seemingly recovered from your withdrawal now after the delayed onset? 

No recovery, I'm just in a gradual state of fog, feels like my brain isnt working quite right, no creativity, always so tired, cant think straight, can barely form sentences, and I feel very little emotion at all. Feeling very depressed and hopeless at this point.

I also have visual disturbance and tinnitus. 

[FarmGirlWorks]

15 hours ago, Jansin said:

No recovery, I'm just in a gradual state of fog, feels like my brain isn't working quite right, no creativity, always so tired, cant think straight, can barely form sentences, and I feel very little emotion at all. Feeling very depressed and hopeless at this point.

Ditto.  Well, except for the 'hopeless' part: I am going to recover sooner or later. I did not reinstate, was over six months before it got really bad and felt too risk averse to go for RI. It is at 23.5 months (not that I'm counting -- hahahaha) and I went thru a depression a couple weeks ago that was as bad as months 7-12. But DrugFreeProfessor's story about her daughter's recovery gives me hope. No (or very few?) windows and mainly a long wave until she recovered at 29 months. I really, really hope your RI goes well!

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by ChessieCat
changed @ DFP to link to her daughter's success story

[sunnysideup69]

It's really helpful reading this thread, although obviously I'm sad that you're all suffering. But you have totally explained something for me.

 

I jumped off from 5mg Citalopram to 0mg back in April 2015 and was getting recurrent obsessive thoughts and more anxiety by December. Began feeling worse. Moods all over the place.

I cut from 5mg to 2.5mg Citalopram in April 2017 and by December had become very easily stressed by anything, and highly intolerant of noise...any background noise was unbearably loud.

Admittedly I made the mistake of self medicating with non prescription substances shortly after both times, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

But the thin I've realised is that the distress was probably delayed withdrawal from cutting dosage too much.

 

Lightbulb moment.

[VincentV]

On 2/14/2013 at 3:22 AM, Altostrata said:

Symptoms are attributed to something else, such as the flu or situational stress.

 

This is interesting. I used to say my with drawal hit pretty squarely two months after my last dose but looking back more throughly over my journal tells me this isn't true. I first developed noticeable (noticeable enough for me to record week long waves) symptoms two weeks after my last dose. They just got worse, coming to a head 2 months after.  I wonder how many others peoples symptoms actually start much earlier than they realise. 

[luvkids]

 

 

On 1/18/2014 at 7:27 AM, mammaP said:

Haven't a clue Claudius! I would get symptoms if I missed or was late with a single dose,

and a bout of tummy trouble with D&V saw me being admitted to hospital twice with what I 

now know to be withdrawal when the effexor wasn't absorbed. One time they were convinced

I had a brain bleed and I had scans and lumbar puncture. All I needed was my 'fix' ! 

 

Then I started to taper and it went very well, very smooth with little discomfort over about a year.

Then stopped at just 5 beads. I forgot one day and didn't feel a thing so thought I must be ready. 

 

4/5 weeks later I was hit by horrendous withdrawal, ended up here and took 7 months to stabilise again.

 

Everyone seems to be different, no 'normal' where withdrawal is concerned! I am just glad I found SA and

wish I'd found it before my taper. I didn't cut by 10% of the current dose, just stuck to the same reduction

thinking it was right. We live and learn! 

So what did you do during that 7 months to stabilize?  I am going thru Paxil withdrawal after being completely off and doing fine for 3 months.  Any suggestions?

[Sani]

On 1/18/2014 at 4:36 PM, Claudius said:

As we know, the leaflets, for as far they offer any information about withdrawal, mostly state that WD starts within one or a few days after stopping the daily intake. For some people this appears to be true, on this and other support sites I read many testimonies from people who get sick after missing even one dose.

But also there are many stories of WD hitting much later, weeks or even months.

 

For me, when quitting Paxil cold turkey from 10 mg, I felt perfectly fine for exactly 6 weeks when suddenly the brain zaps started and I became very ill within a few minutes. Most attempts went this way, and it was this time delay which made that it took years before I finally realized that is was withdrawal anyway.

 

Paxil is notorious for its short half-life and even the doctors who do recognize withdrawal mosty tell that Paxil withdrawal will hit pretty soon after quitting because of this short half-life.

But it didn't for me, and I know several people for which it took 2-4 weeks, my own 6 weeks appear to be on the long side.

 

What made it increasingly complicated, I tried one time to cut my dose by splitting the half tablet, and one other time to alternate between a half and a quarter tablet.

We know now that this is a very bad scheme, but what I still do not understand is that on those cases, I got sick WITHIN ONE DAY instead of after 6 weeks! I would rather tend to believe that WD would hit later because the body still receives the drug, albeit in a lower quantity, so the "buffer" which causes the delay in WD symptoms would last a longer time and the delay time for the start of WD symptoms should be longer instead of much shorter!

 

My own explanation would be that alternating throws the brain in chaos immediately, while quitting cold turkey gave a delay of 6 weeks. This however does not explain why OI got sick immedaitely after taking a quarter tablet (5 mg) daily instead of my normal dose of 10 mg.  A poosible reason could be that dividing the half tablet casues too much deviation in dosages because the half tablet has no splitting line anymore on it.

 

Of course, now 6 years after quitting is does not make any difference for me anymore but I still wonder what kind of strange mechanisms are invovled here.

Any ideas?

 

 

True. I started having withdrawal after 10 weeks. And I took a longer half life Lexapro. Docs didn't believe me n I face laughed saying how is it possible after so my months. But I feel withdrawal happens not only when the drug leaves ur system, but when the brain tries it best to work totally without the drug. The first time that I withdraw cold turkey (from 5mg to 0), my symtoms started in 2 weeks and were much intense unbearable... But when I tapered (took four months) and jumped from 1mg to zero, my withdrawal started really late and they were pretty mild and Managable. Even I'm not sure how the mechanism works

[HardTimes]

Judging from the quantity of posts here it looks like delayed onset is very common. I want to point out that, in my case at least, symptoms CHANGE over time, which can also mask or confuse a diagnosis. In my case, when I was taking Citalopram regularly if I ever missed a dose I would feel weird by later on that day, indicating that some form of withdrawal happened very quickly. But when I actually quit from a low dose those strange feelings dissipated fairly quickly. If anything I felt really pretty great. Then, weeks later, the 5am awakening with severe hot flashes began - But I didn't think that had anything to do with withdrawal (as I had never heard of "withdrawal syndrome"). Then other symptoms started arriving a few weeks later. Now, 10 months on I think things have just gotten worse in many ways, though the symptoms are not quite the same as they were (the head-tingling sensations, for example, are gone, but now I just feel extremely nervous all the time). I'm now trying to stabilize by taking a tiny reinstatement dose, but it isn't easy to say if the situation is improving or not, as it just seems to fluctuate so much. But I guess my point in posting on this topic is just to suggest that, in my experience at least, it isn't the case that there are no symptoms, followed by a delay, and then suddenly a collection of unchanging symptoms arrive, but rather than various symptoms seem to appear and morph and diminish as time goes by. And the most frustrating thing is that, no matter how much I try to keep track of it all, it still feels like an uncontrollable mass that I am powerless to figure out. Should I increase my reinstatement dose? Or is it the reinstatement that is the problem? More exercise? Less exercise? More magnesium earlier in the day? Etc. Given the pattern of "waves and windows", it is hard to tell if one's treatment strategy is working or not, since good times might just be a temporary window, and bad times might just be a particularly bad moment of a wave. It seems to me from everything I've read here that reinstatement and/or fairly serious lifestyle efforts are the only ways forward though...

[DaBro]

An admin in a FB group ‘Zoloft should be illegal ‘ suggested that the SSRI gets embedded in our brain tissue at neurotransmitter sites, so the half life theory doesn’t apply. WD is related to when the SSRI is released from the tissue. For some people it may be faster than others.