• BASIC DRUG
    DISCUSSION
    Welcome to Bluelight!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Benzo Chart Opioids Chart
    Drug Terms Need Help??
    Drugs 101 Brain & Addiction
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums
  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

Antidepressant withdrawals

Z

Z-girl

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
Messages
64
Location
Ireland
Does anyone have any tips or tricks for making antidepressant withdrawals easier?

I'm on Lexapro for the last 4 years, have been tapering down from 20mg for the last five months or so now. I'm currently at what I can only assume is the tail-end of taking it now. I'm down to 5mg about once a week.

Right now, I haven't taken a 5mg pill since ten days ago, but I'm still getting terrible withdrawals. I though they would have started to subside by now. I'm getting horrendous headaches, along with dizziness, nausea and terrible irritability. The headaches and dizziness are definitely the worst part.

Ten days in, and with no sign of them going away yet, I'm starting to get desperate for something to ease them. I've been taking ibuprofen but it doesn't do much. I'm loathe to take any kind of benzodiazapine because I had a dependance on them before and don't want to tempt fate by taking them again. But I would love some help, any help at all!! If anyone has any experiences to share, or even any wild ideas to throw out there, I would be very grateful :)
 
As someone who has done this myself, there wasn't anything that helped. It was a rough four weeks. I wish you the best of luck.
 
I got pretty bad "brain zaps" when I stopped using lexapro. They just stopped after a week or so, so I don't have any advice on ways to ease the withdrawals.
 
ive been on various SSRI's/SNRI's for the last 8 months, i really hope the withdrawals are not too harsh as i find dealing with Benzo withdrawal almost impossible and Opiate withdrawal isnt much fun either but withdrawing from both Benzos and Opiates at the same time has literally pushed to the limits of insanity and almost beyond.

Anyway i wish you the best in your recovery ;)
 
Try motrin 800 4 times a day for geadaches nice relaxing warm/hot baths if you can try relaxing in quiet places. And keep Remind yourself it will be over soon and try taking melatonin or valarian root or drink camamile tea for sleep and you could tey taking vitamin B complex for stress and anxiety to help.

Also dont feel guilty if you slow down the tapering process dont rush it. Your body needs time.
Just throughing some out there for tou.

I hope you gwt theough this soon and as painless as possible. Good luck and sending hugs your way<3 ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨magic dust to make you feel better :)
 
There really isn't anything you can do... I went days without my antidepressant and the worst that happened was brain zaps. With time they had gotten better and even there were times I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms. So I would suggest to just play it safe and rest....you should be fine soon. Its really not good to go cold turkey off antidepressants though but since you've already done it I would say live out the withdrawal and you will be fine. Good luck :)
 
SSRI discontinuation syndrome can be pretty unpleasant but it almost always eases up within a week or two. Sometimes doctors will switch you to an SSRI with a longer half life (usually fluoxetine) for a smoother taper but Lexapro (escitalopram) already has a reasonably long half life, albeit not as long as fluoxetine, so I'm not sure if there would be much point especially now you have already gone 10 days without any. I would go back to your doctor and see what they suggest.

You're right to want to avoid benzos - the last thing you want is a benzo addiction at this point, so I would follow Kayla's advice - be kind to yourself, you could try herbal supplements if you wish, simple painkillers and relaxing things like taking a bath. I would definitely go back and see your doctor and explain what is going on too. Good luck <3
 
Z-girl said:
Does anyone have any tips or tricks for making antidepressant withdrawals easier?

I'm on Lexapro for the last 4 years, have been tapering down from 20mg for the last five months or so now. I'm currently at what I can only assume is the tail-end of taking it now. I'm down to 5mg about once a week.

Right now, I haven't taken a 5mg pill since ten days ago, but I'm still getting terrible withdrawals. I though they would have started to subside by now. I'm getting horrendous headaches, along with dizziness, nausea and terrible irritability. The headaches and dizziness are definitely the worst part.

Ten days in, and with no sign of them going away yet, I'm starting to get desperate for something to ease them. I've been taking ibuprofen but it doesn't do much. I'm loathe to take any kind of benzodiazapine because I had a dependance on them before and don't want to tempt fate by taking them again. But I would love some help, any help at all!! If anyone has any experiences to share, or even any wild ideas to throw out there, I would be very grateful :)
Click to expand...



I would suggest GABA. It's at your local health food store and I has to stop taking Paxil because I could no longer afford it. I took it for 3 days and it stopped all withdrawals on the 3rd day. I continued to take it for a little while longer and stopped with no withdrawals. I hope this helps. And the people at the health food store will most likely tell you all about it. It had a calming effect on the brain.
 
Thanks so much guys, for all your help.

I tried Valerian for two days, but I think it made the withdrawals worse, so I stopped. Today I got Nurofen Plus in the pharmacy (which is ibuprofen plus codeine) and that seems to have helped a little with the headaches, so I'll keep that up for a bit and see how I get on.

GABA I hadn't thought of, but that's a great idea Zoeylynn, thanks! I will definitely try that, it makes total sense that that would work.

Thanks all for the kind words and support, it is much appreciated :) I'll let you know how long the withdrawals last, and if I find anything that helps...hopefully this thread will be able to help some other poor soul coming off these wretched drugs!
 
Last edited:
Try to get ER 5-htp after the AD drug has left your body.

This will slow down that drop of serotonin from resulting in jarring shocks, and emotional instability...
 
Tapered off Zoloft not by choice. EMT's took me away in an ambulance and confiscated my meds and I never got them back. The hospital let me go the next day, wrote me a script, but I ran out before seeing my doctor this Friday... she's a clinic doctor so there's no way to reach her.

MAN DO I FEEL HORRIBLE!! What the hell can I do? I do NOT want to be on this shit ever again now knowing what it does to the brain and body!!
 
Hey guys, just wanted to update!

So when I started this thread I was off the meds for ten days. I lasted another two days of hell, then cracked and took 2.5mg of the Lexapro (I managed to quarter a 10mg pill), and that subsided the withdrawals, as I knew it would. I expected to be feeling the withdrawals again two or three days later, as was normal for me while I was coming off them, but actually they just never came back after that!

I have one thing to say about antidepressants. I would never say 'don't go on them', because they can definitely help people, and sometimes are really needed. However, never are you warned about how hard it is to come off them again. Your body gets physically addicted to them, and there are very distressing withdrawal symptoms. If anyone who reads this is thinking about going on antidepressants, just be aware that they are hard to come off of. Having said that, they did help me, so I guess there's a price to pay for that too.

Anyway, good luck to anyone who is trying to come off these blasted drugs. Stick with it, it takes some time to come off them completely, but if you do it slowly, gradually and patiently, then you will succeed.
 
Thats great to hear Z Girl and good for you for hanging on in there, any WD is unpleasant but pretty much all dependences can be beaten in time.

I tried to stay off ADs having had little but side effects from the ones I'd tried but when its a choice between feeling like you might kill yourself everyday and taking some medication the issue of what happens when you want to come off pales into insignificance.

I'm keen to come off me AD but it will be a slow process and I still expect it not to be a pleasant one but I really do believe the benefits for me were well worth any discomfort, you can never be sure but I'm not convinced I'd be here if I hadn't found something that stabilised me enough to get into the right mindset for therapy.
 
Glad to hear that, Z! :)

Atm23, slow and steady wins the race with tapers. The slower the better, and the less chance of a relapse in the case of addictive substances like benzos and opiates. Z Girl was on the right track, and took 2.5mg a couple of times to easy WD's, but personally, I would have broken the 5mg in to 4 pieces, and taken 3.75mg for a week, then 2.5mg for a week, then 1.25mg for a week, etc, just because that's the only thing that worked for coming off benzos for my case.

Also, exercise and a diet rich in protein (contains L-Tryptophan, don't take it as a supplement, though, just through protein rich food) will both help rebuild and release serotonin. :D
 
^^^

In the middle of a Benzo taper just now, with you all the way, slow is the only way with Benzos unless you like looking like a bad breakdancer;)

I'm on Venlafaxine which seems to have a terrible reputation for WDs but I'll juts have to see how it goes, I'm cutting my dose in a couple of months then leaving it until next spring as my Doc advises against trying to come off in the winter which seems like good advice.
 
I went several days without my meds and felt horrible. While nothing helped, I found there are a couple things to stay away from. Stay away from caffiene and sugary drinks, they will only increase the jittery, dizzy feelings. I also found that juice increased those feelings as well. I tried to avoid any activities that increased heart rate, this caused brains zaps for me.

These are just based on my experiences. I'm not sure if its the same for everyone.
 
I was on paxil for 3 years and had horrible withdrawals. The only thing that helped was weed and bed rest. Oh, and masturbation (took the edge off). Unfortunately the weed ran out so I had to suffer for almost 2 weeks.

Once it's out of your system you will feel like a new person.
 
atm23 said:
In the middle of a Benzo taper just now, with you all the way, slow is the only way with Benzos unless you like looking like a bad breakdancer;)
Click to expand...

Even with a very slow diazepam taper, I was twitching all over the place coming off of a tapered dosage of 0.5-1mg daily. Benzo dependence is EVIL! :p I can only imagine how bad it would have been if I hadn't tapered. Good luck! :D

atm23 said:
I'm on Venlafaxine which seems to have a terrible reputation for WDs but I'll juts have to see how it goes, I'm cutting my dose in a couple of months then leaving it until next spring as my Doc advises against trying to come off in the winter which seems like good advice.
Click to expand...

Yes, Effexor has horrid withdrawals, the worst of the SNRI's. But who cares? You're a Bluelighter! We actually know how to taper off of drugs properly, we don't get all gung-ho and flush our meds down the toilet and go cold turkey off of massive doses. Most of the horror stories you read on Erowid or on the internet are people like this, uneducated in the fine science of neurochemistry and psychopharmacology.

If your Effexor comes in capsules, I would weigh the powder and make very small cuts over time, since especially at higher dosages, jumping down to the next highest dosage will cause significant withdrawals. If it is in tablet form, I would cut it in to 8 pieces, and take 7/8 pieces, then 6/8, etc, always using a scale to verify amounts, then maybe even use a liquid taper at the lowest cut. I've never taken or withdrawn from antidepressants, so I don't know how bad Effexor withdrawal really is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top