SSRI discontinuation syndrome: how to reduce symptoms

[NeneQ1972]

Looking for any advice anything at all on what I might be able to take to help me with the worst withdrawal symptoms yet after tapering off venlaflexine 300mg to nil in the last 3 months. It's a Sunday here and I can't contact my psychiatrist or GP so I'm desperate to get any information I can on what I might be able to do to get some sleep! I saw my psych on Thursday after stopping venlaflexine altogether as of last Monday - final dose was 37.5mg over 10 days to nothing. So am now on day 5 of no venlaflexine at all and have had about 6 hours sleep since Wednesday evening. I am experiencing every symptom listed for discontinuation syndrome including visual and auditory hallucinations. I have been taking a supplement called SAM-E, omega-3 and a thing called "nuerocalm" which is a mix of Bvitamins and folate mostly (all under advice of my psychiatrist and compounding chemist). I take dexamphetamine for ADD and have been on 4 x 5mg daily for almost 4 years with much improved sleep since starting on the dex - if anything it has always calmed me and helped me sleep well rather than have the effect one would normally see in people taking stimulants who are not ADD) I say this in apprehension of the obvious thing most people would think about sleeplessness in people taking stimulants. I have been trawling the Internet trying to find information on what might help me get through the next week or so and get some sleep. I am determined not to return to venlaflexine as I've come so far and am finally off the poison. I am convinced the horrible side effects are short term and due to the cessation altogether of venlaflexine - the general consensus being the final 75mg is the worst for symptoms. I saw that tramadol may help relieve symptoms and its possible I can get this today from the emergency dept at the local hospital, however I don't want to take anything that might even slightly cause further discontinuation issues for me. I'm babbling now I know... I hope I am making some sense to someone who might have been here before me??? Anything at all, even just someone who has been here telling me to hold on and it's going to be ok will be a huge help. I hope you're out there....

 

[NeneQ1972]

psytaco, my friend.

Dude, Fluoxetine and Reboxetine.

Stop taking your Zoloft ASAP, after a consult with two different doctors, and get both meds filled out by different pharmacies, and then, after the 2 days or so of not taking nothing, start on about 4 mg Reboxetine b.d. and about 20 mg of Fluoxetine, once daily.

The reason is this:
Fluoxetine is the SSRI equivalent of diazepam. It has a long acting half-life. It's either converted in to norfluoxetine or desmethylfluoxetine, which has a half life of roughly 7 days or so. Diazepam, get's converted into 3 different drugs in your body after ingestion. Oxazepam, Temazepam, and Desmethyldiazepam (or Nordiazepam), which has a half life of about 200 hours or so, depending on individual to individual.

Reboxetine is a NRI. It may help you with some of the conditions that you have, ohh fuck, wait a minute, you're withdrawing off Zoloft, right? In that case, fuck the reboxetine.

Good luck brother.

Hiya! Please see my earlier post. Can you give me more info on what these two drugs are and how I might convince a medical centre GP who knows nothing about me to prescribe them to me? It's Sunday and I can't get on to my usual psych or GP for another 24 hours and I'm in hell! If these drugs can help me I wanna try and get hold of them today. Hope you can help with more info.

 

[NeneQ1972]

I am doing CWE for codeine which helps with the zaps slightly, but it isn't strong enough to deal with the anxiety. I am praying it will start to get better in a few days, though Angel Dust's post doesn't fill me with hope.

What does CWE mean?

 

[drug_mentor]

Unfortunately NeneQ1972 I can't help with most of your questions, but CWE is cold water extraction, in this case psytaco was referring to CWE of OTC codeine products. It is a bit late to go to the pharmacy but maybe if you have some codeine products laying around you could use those. CWE is pretty well documented on this site and is not hard to perform. Here is a thread with heaps of info on CWE.

Good luck with everything! I hope you manage to see a doctor ASAP and get whatever meds you need to do be comfortable.

 

[Azron]

Unfortunately anyone who takes A.D's whether it be SSR;s,snri,tca's or what ever they have brought out these days is the worst part of taking them and imo negatively outweighs the price of therapeutic response (a lot of the time). The discontinuation syndrome is normally hell. But I do believe as mentioned by others codeine (CWE) works for me, but then I get addicted to the codeine, and i've already got a real messy benzo addiction I got to work through slowly and the codeine (not just codeine) is not a real viable option as im just building up my tolerance to a heap of drugs. To get off them them taper down slowly, like any DOD i guess and i know im a bit all over the place but i'd stay on the lowest dose of a just a ssri.. one of the weaker ones (arguably) citalopram. Iv'e never had any problems with switching ssri/sswhatevers with eqch other and say stay on 5mg of that then maybe use some valium VERY SHORT TERM if you want to get off the AD's completly, but also cease the valium ASAP. This will take a while and alot of patience,

CONSULT YOUR DR. I ONLY HAVE LIVED EXPERIENCE AND ANY ADJUSTMENTS MADE SHOULD BE WORKED THROUGH WITH HIM/HER