HI and all (w/response)

[Guest guest]

<<HI, how are you? I am , 42, female, been on zoloft for ten years...For

these ten years I took the minimum amount sometimes just 50 mg and I often

forgot to take it. So I did not even take it right! But every time I tried to

get off of it of course i had horrible withdrawal symptoms of anxiety and

ocd...I actually never had a panic attack until I started taking zoloft. One

thing it does is that it increases the size of your adrenal glands. I have had a

lupus-like illness in which my immune system gets very touchy and the zoloft

(this is what makes people gain weight) 'helped' my body produce more

corticosteroids which i think helped calm my immune system down...Now my problem

is I may have a neuroendocrine tumor or carcinoid (neuroendocrine) cancer and

the doctor wants to taper me off zoloft and onto elavil. I tried, elavil made me

feel like a zombie. I am constantly anxious and don't know how much is the

zoloft vs. the neuroendocrine problems. I had originally attributed this all to

systemic candida due to other symptoms but now i think it's worse and I've

really screwed myself up. The bottom line, I'm really stressed out, my immune

system is once again all over the place (inflammation) and I'm supposed to get

off this drug. I'm down to 25 mg now. Having major anxiety. Scared. Scared.

Scared. Any advice is appreciated. I am glad to hear there are poeple who have

gotten off these and reclaimed themselves. Kel>>

** Hi ,

Welcome.. I'll cut to the chase. If you're feeling all this anxiety it is

because you are coming off the drug too quickly. Forget about switching over to

anything else; just get off it and be done with it.

First, you'll need to increase again until you reach the dose that let's you

no longer feel anxious. When you find this dose, stay on it for 3 days then,

drop the drug by 5%. Here's the important part.

NEVER do another decrease until you can say you feel as well or better than

you felt prior to this last decrease, regardless of how long it has been since

the last decrease. This is the only thing that matters. This is your body's

way of communicating with you.

You merely continue this way until you're off the drug (remembering the

formula). There may be a couple of times you'll need to bump up 1 dose for a

few days but that will be temporary -- just to get you over a tough spot.

There is an article in the files on how to titrate doses to get these smaller

cuts.

Normally I do not tell people what to do with so little info from them. As

long as you are not on any other drugs, you should be okay.

Just so you know, the symptoms in the past you attribute to Zoloft are

symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of a neuroendocrine tumor.

Regards,