andy013: 4 years off and counting...

[andy013]

4 minutes ago, DataGuy said:

@andy013,

In addition, reinstating is extremely unlikely to work after 5 years off the medication.

 

What is your source for this?

[DataGuy]

 

 

There are some academic articles also saying that withdrawal syndromes are often not amenable to reinstatement. I can try to find one of those if you like. 

[DataGuy]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31774947/

 

"When drug treatment ends, oppositional processes may encounter no more resistance, resulting in the appearance of new withdrawal symptoms, rebound symptomatology, persistent post-withdrawal disorders, hypomania, or resistance to treatment if it is reinstituted (Figure 1). In the long run, antidepressants may increase chronicity, vulnerability to depressive disorders, and comorbidity.24 The model is complex and multifactorial and is influenced by duration of and prior exposure to antidepressant treatment as well as by psychosocial and genetic factors.24 The duration of the oppositional process when drug treatment ends may be variable, from a few weeks to months or years. The number of clinical studies supporting the oppositional model of tolerance24 has progressively increased over the years.21,26"

 

 

[andy013]

44 minutes ago, DataGuy said:

There are some academic articles also saying that withdrawal syndromes are often not amenable to reinstatement. I can try to find one of those if you like. 

 

They don't even understand what causes withdrawal or "post-withdrawal disorders" so how could they know what would help it? Besides I doubt many people as far off as me have reinstated before so how could you know if they would benefit or not. I don't really want to get into a discussion about it though. I don't really have much choice. I either live this way for the rest of my life or I try the low dose SSRI and see if I feel better that way. People sometimes message me asking if I have tried changing diet etc. I think really deep down they just don't want to accept that some people are permanently damaged by these drugs. They think if they can fix me then that means there is hope for themselves. Unfortunately I have tried a bunch of stuff and nothing worked. Symptoms improved for the first few years and then stagnated. There are more people like me who are harmed long term but I don't think they post much on here as they have just accepted it by this point.

 

I'm more interested in getting feedback about the method. Does starting at 0.1mg and increasing by 0.1mg each month sound reasonable?

[ChessieCat]

1 hour ago, andy013 said:

People sometimes message me asking if I have tried changing diet etc. I think really deep down they just don't want to accept that some people are permanently damaged by these drugs.

 

And it could be that they care about you.  They are probably just trying to help you to brainstorm your situation to see if there is a way to not start taking the drug/s again.  Which is what I am doing below with the questions I am asking you.

 

1 hour ago, andy013 said:

 

Unfortunately I have tried a bunch of stuff and nothing worked.

 

 

It would be helpful if you could give us more information on what you tried during the 2 year period since you last posted.

 

Please note that these questions are being asked to try and work out if you can refrain from reinstating.  If, as DataGuy said, you had a bad reaction before, perhaps reinstating, especially this far out, is not a good idea.

 

What things did you try, eg nootropics, gaba or anything similar?

 

What happened when you tried each of those things?

 

Did you, or doyou, consume alcohol?

 

Have you suffered an illness of any kind and had to take antibiotics, steroids/cortisone or similar?

 

Has your work/home situation changed in any way?

 

Any added financial stress?

 

Have you had a relationship break up during this period?

 

Have you lost a family member or close friend?

 

It could be that something you have taken and/or something has happened/changed to make things worse.

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by ChessieCat

[AlaskanGlacier]

I've heard of people taking 10+ years to heal. No joke... and my fear would be that if you reinstate, you would lose a good deal of the progress and healing that HAS happened, whether or not it seems like everything has been the same for years or not. It's a terrible situation. It just seems that going back to the very poison that so badly damaged you is a horrible decision. It might seem like the only decision, I get that. But there are more things that can be done. Colon cleansing, liver cleansing, kidney cleansing, juice fasting, earthing, etc. Going back to the neurotoxic poison seems like a lose lose situation. Wish you luck.

[andy013]

I know what you are saying Alaskan but honestly, I don't have anything to lose. If I stay the way I am now then I might as well be dead. I have lived almost a decade of my life with these symptoms in some sort of semi-dead state already. I have no friends, I have no relationships, I have no career. I have no life. I'm a 33 year old man who lives with his retired parents because I can't function at all ever since I took that poison. It seems very likely the remaining symptoms are permanent. I have had absolutely no progress in 5 years. I think it is very unlikely for me to wake up in 1-2 years from now and just magically be better. I know you guys are scared of these drugs as much as I am, but I have tried everything else I can think of. I don't have any confidence that any of those things you mentioned would benefit me (colon cleanse etc.).

 

I don't drink, I haven't taken any antibiotics and nothing in my life has changed. I honestly should have done this sooner as it doesn't make much sense to continue living the way I am. If it doesn't work then so be it, I will just be another victim of these drugs. If I stay the way I am now I can't see my future being very bright anyway.

[LexAnger]

I know your struggle! 

Can only wish you luck!!

 

 

[andy013]

Thanks Lex

[AlaskanGlacier]

13 hours ago, andy013 said:

I know what you are saying Alaskan but honestly, I don't have anything to lose. If I stay the way I am now then I might as well be dead. I have lived almost a decade of my life with these symptoms in some sort of semi-dead state already. I have no friends, I have no relationships, I have no career. I have no life. I'm a 33 year old man who lives with his retired parents because I can't function at all ever since I took that poison. It seems very likely the remaining symptoms are permanent. I have had absolutely no progress in 5 years. I think it is very unlikely for me to wake up in 1-2 years from now and just magically be better. I know you guys are scared of these drugs as much as I am, but I have tried everything else I can think of. I don't have any confidence that any of those things you mentioned would benefit me (colon cleanse etc.).

 

I don't drink, I haven't taken any antibiotics and nothing in my life has changed. I honestly should have done this sooner as it doesn't make much sense to continue living the way I am. If it doesn't work then so be it, I will just be another victim of these drugs. If I stay the way I am now I can't see my future being very bright anyway.

I feel your pain man. I'm 32 going on 33 and have lived in this state of hell since I was 18. Same symptoms as you and living at home with parents barely scraping by. Praying that things start getting better now that I'm one year off after the Prozac taper. It's hell. Torture. I have had every sxs you mention and know the social isolation well. It's like these drugs completely destroy your ability to interact with other human beings. It's sick. I wish you well :(. This is insanity.

[AlaskanGlacier]

Going to throw one more thing out. Look into the work of Andreas Moritz and his books on liver flushing and Dr Bernard Jensen and his books on colon cleansing. Read a few of their books. I know you're going to do what you see fit, but might be worth it before going back on.

[Altostrata]

What are the major symptoms you have now, that you attribute to withdrawal syndrome? Are you getting at least a half-hour a day of gentle exercise, such as walking?

 

The papers referring to reinstatement are always referring to "normal" dosages of drugs, which often do cause unanticipated reactions in sensitized nervous systems, which is what happened when you tried 10mg citalopram in June 2011.

 

When we talk about reinstatement, we talk about trying a very small dose, such as 0.5mg citalopram, to see what it might do for you. It's possible one could feel better with a small dose, even years later. If it's not immediately awful, you'd give it a week or so to see effect.

 

No guarantees, your decision. Please let us know how you're doing.

[andy013]

Thanks for the advice Altostrata.

 

I want to let you guys know that I am finally going to start taking the citalopram in a few days time. My plan is to start on 0.1mg for 1 month and then each month I will increase it by 0.1mg depending on how I feel. I want to take it super slow as I am very scared of these drugs and the symptoms they may make me experience.

 

I just want to say that if this reinstatement does not work for me then it doesn't mean it will not work for you if you are in a similar situation to me. I have a somewhat unique experience in that I have some other problem / illness that is causing a bunch of other symptoms. I am hypersensitive to vitamin D. It seems to cause hypercalcemia in my system even at very low doses. I think it could be sarcoidosis or maybe hyperparathyroidism, but I'm really not sure, these are just guesses. Unfortunately I went to doctors for over 2 years and they wouldn't help me. As soon as they saw my blood tests were normal, they didn't believe a word I said. It wouldn't matter if I told them I was keeping my vitamin D very low to prevent the symptoms. It wouldn't matter if I told them I only get the symptoms in the evening and they were testing in the morning. They just saw all these things as excuses and would talk down to me as if I was a child. I gave up trying to get help from them. The only way they would help me would be if I kept showing up at the E.R and then they might finally figure out that something is very wrong.

 

Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning this is because these symptoms that I get from vitamin D also cause a sort of hypomania. I get mind racing and I can't sleep. But this hypomania also helps with some of the lasting symptoms I have from the SSRI. For instance, normally my sex drive is very low and I have genital numbness since I took the SSRI, but when I get the hypomania I actually get close to normal sexual function returning. I've even had a bunch of times were I've had hypersexuality and I felt extremely horny. The same is true for other symptoms like concentration and focus and energy levels and social function. They all improve somewhat when I experience the hypomania from the vitamin D. At first I thought this was the vitamin D making me normal. But then I started to get all the hypercalcemia symptoms at the same time: bone pain, kidney pain, thirst, itching, acid reflux, vomiting. It was clear to me that whatever was going on my body with vitamin D was not normal and it was probably just a fluke that it was messing around with my brain chemistry and compensating somewhat for the SSRI damage. I tried to live with these vitamin D effects for a while since I felt better than before but I've come to the conclusion that they are never going to make me feel normal or allow me to live a normal life. That's why I'm going to reinstate the SSRI as a last resort.

 

The reason I think this is important to know is that I can't control when I get the hypomania exactly. I try and restrict my diet because there are foods that seem to make it worse but I'm not confident I can't prevent it entirely. I am worried that when I take the citalopram then it might combine with the hypomania and cause serotonin syndrome or just make me feel really bad or cause more lasting damage / desensitisation. At this point this is a risk I need to take or else I'm stuck like this for the rest of my life. It's important for me to reiterate this in this thread just so that people are aware if this doesn't work out for me then it may be because of these effects interacting and if you are thinking of reinstating yourself then you might have a different experience.

 

Anyway, I will post back once I have started the drug.

 

Wish me luck, I sure need it.

Andy

[andy013]

Hey, just a quick update. I have been taking 0.1mg for over 2 weeks now and I haven't noticed anything different. I think this dose is just too low to have a big effect, but I'm glad I can start very low and slowly increase it. I will probably go up to 0.2mg next week and maybe start increasing by 0.1mg each week going forward as staying on these very low doses for 1 month might be a little over cautious. I'll see how I feel.

[ChessieCat]

That's good news that things haven't worsened.

 

Just be careful and aim for better not best.  And compare to how you were at your worst not how you were at your best.

 

I think 0.1mg every 2 weeks is a reasonable amount and holding period.  However once you get a bit a higher (if you have to keep increasing) you might want to make the intervals longer and/or make small increases.

 

Please continue to let us know how you are.

[andy013]

Hey, another update. I am really not feeling very good now

 

I went up to 0.2mg for 2 days and I started to feel very foggy in my brain and it felt like I had pressure in my forehead / temples. I also had insomnia quite bad. I decided to go back down to 0.1mg since it had only been 2 days, but now I have been back on 0.1mg for 3 days and I am feeling worse as time goes on. My mood is now very low. I feel very depressed and withdrawn. Not sure if I should stay on 0.1mg or go back up to 0.2mg now...

 

I really think I am screwed guys. I tried everything to get better from this poison. I just want the suffering to end.

[ChessieCat]

If your sleep has improved since returning to 0.1mg then you might consider staying at 0.1mg for longer.

 

However, if you do decide to increase perhaps try extra  0.025mg (total 0.125) or extra 0.05mg (total 0.15).  If it was me I would NOT be going back to 0.2mg.

 

If you are making/taking you dose as a liquid you can increase/add more water to dilute it so that it is easier to measure smaller amounts.  I've done this myself for my last reduction.  Instead of adding 2mg capsule contents to 200mL water I am using 2mg capsule contents in 400mL water so that instead of trying to measure 11.5mL I measure 23mL.

[andy013]

I'm still feeling rough and my sleeping is very poor. I had like 2 hours sleep last night. I don't think I will increase back to 0.2mg. I think maybe I will try and discontinue the drugs now as it is obvious they have just made me much worse. I'm not sure if I should stay on 0.1mg for a while though to see if I stabilize a little. I've been taking 0.1mg since the 28th of January, so a little over 3 weeks. I could stay on for a while, just stop or slowly wean down. I'm not sure what the right thing to do is.

[andy013]

I think it's over for me guys. The suicidal thoughts are getting really bad. I'm only sleeping 2 hrs a night and I'm burning up and I have no appetite. Holy **** these drugs are some serious business. I knew the risks when I made this choice, but how quickly this has happened has even surprised me. I just want my suffering to finally be over. I've suffered enough for one life. I almost made it 10 years living with the damage from these poisons.

 

[andy013]

Holy ****. I just had a panic / depression attack in my work. Started to feel quite anxious and then burst into tears and had to run out and spent the next hour sobbing. I really don't think I can keep taking even 0.1mg. I think I need to stop.

[andy013]

I have been off citalopram since February now and I'm definitely a bit worse than I was before I took it. I guess I'm in withdrawal 2.0 now. I sometimes get anxiety that I didn't have before. Just randomly feeling anxiety like I did back when I was on 0.1mg and had the panic attack but much milder and it tends to pass after a few hours. I also feel more withdrawn socially than before (it reminds me of the first few years off the drug when things were a bit worse than they were recently) and my mood is a bit lower at times. My sex drive also feels lower and I feel more numbness in my genitals I think, but it's hard to say as I always had ups and downs since I started withdrawal. I'm probably lucky that this second withdrawal is as mild as it is to be honest. I guess that might be because the dose I took was very small.

 

I think I'm just screwed from these drugs with no hope of ever recovering really. It's so crazy that a young healthy person can take a drug for a few months and have damage to this extent. I guess I just got unlucky.

 

Something I was thinking about recently is that perhaps mRNAs could be used to help people with withdrawal and PSSD. I read somewhere that they can actually target certain cells with mRNA. If you could upregulate tryptophan hydroxylase in serotonin neurons then it might have the same effects that I have had from vitamin D throughout withdrawal. Although I think vitamin D affects a whole bunch of things in the brain so who knows what combo is producing the effect that I experience. Maybe they will have a treatment for this hell one day...

[andy013]

I have decided to try one more time and reinstate the citalopram. I realized that last year when I had the bad reaction it was after I got scared on 0.2mg because of mild side effects and then I reduced the dosage. 3 days after I reduced the dosage I became suicidal and then a few days after that I had a massive anxiety attack with crying etc. I think if I hadn't reduced the dosage then it's possible that this would never have happened. I was stupid at the time and thought that because I had only been on 0.2mg for 2 days that it would be fine to drop back to 0.1mg. Obviously this was wrong.

 

I don't know what will happen but reinstating is the only thing I can think of that has any possibility of making me able to live a more normal life. My plan is to increase the dose very slowly and to stay on it for the rest of my life.

 

I still don't feel back to "normal" since I stopped last year, I still get some mild anxiety at times that I never had before and I think my mood is generally lower as well. It's clear to me that these drugs cause lasting changes to my brain even at low doses and for short durations.

 

I was reading recently about Dr Ed White's death and can't help but feel like I'm on a similar trajectory. He also had suicidal thoughts multiple times when changing his dosage and ended up dying after reducing it down to a low level. I was actually very close to that point last February and I'm very lucky to still be alive for now.

 

Unfortunately I don't really have any other choice. I can't really function or live a normal life the way I am now so I need to take a risk and hope for the best.

 

I will try to keep this thread updated with my progress.

[andy013]

Well, I tried to reinstate 0.1mg of citalopram but it made me feel anxious again like I felt back in Feb 2021. Looks like I'm hypersensitive to it now. I can't tolerate these effects so I'm just going to discontinue it. I guess I'm stuck with permanent brain damage for the rest of my life.

[andy013]

Just a quick update. I feel significantly worse since that 1 dose of 0.1mg on the 4th of April. I feel like I'm back in the early years of withdrawal. My mood has tanked pretty badly and I feel quite an intense foggy head almost all the time. I'm also more socially withdrawn and feel like social situations drain me a lot more like they used to in the first several years off the drug. This brain damage sucks

[1WishToHeal]

i'm anti drugs because i'm so damaged, but why not another drug other than the citalopram because that one caused troubles many times? It proved in 2011 that that drug didn't fit you.

 

i'm sorry i know it's difficult and just a  sick gamble.

But just curious when reading your thread.

[ChessieCat]

4 hours ago, 1WishToHeal said:

i'm anti drugs because i'm so damaged, but why not another drug other than the citalopram because that one caused troubles many times? It proved in 2011 that that drug didn't fit you.

 

i'm sorry i know it's difficult and just a  sick gamble.

But just curious when reading your thread.

 

@1WishToHeal Please do not make drug suggestions to members and note the following from the "What will get you warned or banned" topic:

 

On 6/16/2011 at 4:45 AM, Altostrata said:

Drug shopping or recommending drugs
This is a site for going off drugs. It is not a site for finding out what drug to take next, comparing drug cocktails, or recommending what drug to add. This could be dangerous. People could be hurt by your advice.

 

[andy013]

@1WishToHealWell I did take citalopram for 4 months or so at first and didn't have too many side effects until I stopped it. I figured that if I were dependent on that specific drug then reinstating the same drug was the most sensible thing to try. At this point I've gave up ever reinstating another SSRI, I think it would probably kill me if I ever tried it. I've just accepted that citalopram gave me brain damage and I will have to live with all these symptoms for the rest of my life.

[1WishToHeal]

@ChessieCatok sorry, i formulated it wrong i guess. I didn't suggest but more question like. But I understand the confusion. I will pick my words more careful next time.

 

@andy013

I wish i could answer more helping things. But i'm bedridden myself too because of those drugs/reinstatement. So i'm sorry. i hope you will find relief someday. Thanks for explaining!

[Altostrata]

Hello, @andy013, how are you doing?

[andy013]

Not great. I've had worse symptoms since I took 0.1mg last year. I get bad waves that I didn't have previously. I feel even more socially withdrawn, I get worse brain fog and focus and worse fatigue.

[Vasherr]

Hi, this may seem out of nowhere but were You ever tested for H Pylori?

 

I am a part of Reddit group with H Pylori sufferers as I had it a year ago and now possibly have a recurrence and there are many people with debilitating mental symptoms that slowly resolve after eradication, and these are people not in withdrawal so maybe You are experiencing a physical illness apart from withdrawal issues.

 

V.

[andy013]

On 2/20/2024 at 8:05 PM, Vasherr said:

Hi, this may seem out of nowhere but were You ever tested for H Pylori?

 

I am a part of Reddit group with H Pylori sufferers as I had it a year ago and now possibly have a recurrence and there are many people with debilitating mental symptoms that slowly resolve after eradication, and these are people not in withdrawal so maybe You are experiencing a physical illness apart from withdrawal issues.

 

V.

 

Hi Vasheer, yes I've done the test for H Pylori and it was negative.