Re: New Member (w/response)

[Guest guest]

<<Dear , thank you so much for replying. I have not been on the site

recently to reply. Since the original post I have had to increase my dose of

Seroxat to 15mg per day and I feel better again.

My reductions had been from 20mg to 19mg to 18mg etc, every 5-6 weeks. I guess

that makes it more like 8% if the last withdrawal was from 14 to 13mg.

I will be trying again, soon, to come off again so may try 3-4% withdrawal as

this seems to be a better way to go.

The doctor recently suggested that I try Docusepin to help me with the

withdrawal, but it made me feel feverish, agaitated and really quite weird, so I

came off after 4 days.

Are there any other safe drugs that I could use to help me withdraw?

Thanks

Dan>>

** Hi Dan,

There is no such thing as a " safe drug " . Any drug you take in an attempt to

ease the withdrawal of another will end up being a drug from which you will have

to withdraw after you've discontinued the first drug. There are no short cuts.

It would be a good idea to do 2-3% reductions. For information on the

frequency of these reductions, just take for the post I'm sending titled

" Withdrawal Explanation " . This is for psychotropic drugs, not for drugs a person

is taking for pleasure or taking more than has been prescribed.

At some point, because of the short half-life of Seroxat (Paxil), you may

want to switch over to a longer-acting antidepressant. But you don't need to

think about that now. It is also not without difficulty to do that so shouldn't

be done unless absolutely necessary.

If you have too much difficulty it merely means you need to make smaller

reductions or you're not paying attention to what your body is telling you.

Occasionally in endeavor you'll find as you get on lower doses that sometimes

you feel stuck and can't seem to move on without more of a withdrawal reaction

than you should be having. The solution is simple but prone to misunderstanding

if I tell you about it now. Instead, if you run into any problems, just post

here and I'll tell you how to handle it. Be sure to include all the details of

how large your reductions have been and how long you have been at each dosage.

Regards,

[Guest guest]

<<Hello ,

Thank you for your prompt response. You asked how I got on so many

medications and how long I have been on them. The quick answer is that I

have been on some pretty heavy medications for 10 years and the psychiatrist

put me on them.

When I was 46 I had a psychotic break. I had always had a problem with my

rage mostly directed toward my husband and my kids' teachers. I learned

after seeing first a spiritual director who was also a certified

psychotherapist, then by getting a second opinion by another psychologist

that I had Borderline Personality Disorder. She worked in tandem with a

psychiatrist. I went through five years of intensive therapy and many other

drugs in addition to those I am taking now. I was diagnosed with PTSD from

the psychiatrist. I was on so many drugs I was a zombie- gabapentin,

neurontin, and those I am on now. I have recovered from those diagnoses but

still have ongoing severe anxiety which I believe I have had for years (I

had panic attacks in my twenties.) That's how I ended up on this drug

cocktail.

I was stabilized so to speak on this drug cocktail and was able to do my job

And my home life was peaceful. However, I started to notice how numb I was

and realized that if something happened that was upsetting I could not even

cry. I began to finally read up on the drugs I was taking and that scared me

to death. This has only been in the past few months. When I read about

getting Tardive Dyskenisia from Geodon I became scared. When I read about

the experiences people were having withdrawing from antipsychotics and

benzodiazapenes I was really frightened. So when I asked my psychiatrist to

start tapering off the Geodon she was the one who had me reduce from 40 to

20 to 10 to 5 mg and back up to 10 mg.

How do I reduce by 2 or 5 % from 10 mg? >>

** Hi

Given your history and the number of drugs you've been on, I can't do well by

you without doing a private consultation with you. You'll see in the folder

about consultations in the files that I talk about the circumstances under which

a consultation would be necessary. Your situation warrants it.

You can find out more about consultations by going to our files and finding

the folder titled Consultations with . There is an explanation there

as well as a 10 page form to fill out (copy it and paste it into an email to

fill it out). Here's a link:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Withdrawal_and_Recovery/files

If anyone ever offers to help you without collecting much more information

about you, run. Nobody who knows what they are doing would ever just wing it.

It's important to make things better, not worse.

Just so you know, you did not have a " psychotic break " at age 46. That

doesn't happen. You've had hormonal imbalance most of your life causing you to

be out of control at certain times. Chances are you were fine until you

ovulated and then as your cycle moved along, you deteriorated more. Getting

your period would reset your clock so to speak and you'd get a bit of a

breather. How close am I? At age 46 your hormones were changing

(perimenopause). This was the straw that broke the camel's back. If this sounds

totally wrong then it is thyroid and/or adrenal issues you've had.

Either way, the drugs they have been poisoning you with make either condition

worse.

For now, you need to get stable. Increase your dose until you feel better.

Then, I think it is best to get an accurate take on what has been going on with

you in order to know what supplements to use before you begin the journey of

coming off these drugs. This can be done via saliva and/or urine tests. I can

tell you more about it.

Regards,