Coming off antidepressants, antipsychotics and benzodiazepines

[Nazman]

Has anybody experienced this? Two weeks ago I changed from 100 mg sertaline to 50 mg sertaline, 5 mg to 2.5 mg zyprexa and .5 mg clonazepam to 2 mg diazepam. I've another appointment with my doctor next week. I feel I'm doing well and my partner is actively monitoring my mood. I feel much less subdued and excercise is easier, which is important as I've blown out because of the zyprexa.

My question is, would another step down be possible. I'm thinking 25 mg sertaline, switching to seroquel from zyprexa and taking the Diaz prn. I do abuse benzos and codiene on a bi weekly basis and drink three nights of the week. I'm also taking ephedrine to lose weight.

Has anyone undergone a relatively quick taper from a combination like this?

 

[Vaya]

My suggestion is that you contact your physician with these types of concerns. We are not doctors, and any advice you receive in this community cannot be construed as medically sound.

Aside from that, if all is going well, I wonder why you seem interested in increasing the speed of the taper? First of all, you're really lucky to have someone close to you who knows you well enough to accurately monitor your moods and give you honest feedback. Be thankful for that one! Secondly, though, that represents quite a cocktail of psychotropic medications you're on - tapering too quickly from even one of the three classes of drugs has a high likelihood of leading to psychological instability. I think that it's great you're doing well, and my suggestion would be to take it as slowly as possible to give your brain the necessary time it needs to adjust to the changes.

"Slow'n'steady wins the race."

~ vaya

 

[paranoid android]

Well one piece of advice i will give you is to stop taking the ephedrine now! That shit is murder on the heart even in low doses. It's actually worse then amphetamines for your heart believe it or not. Anti-psychotics or atleast most of them have some cardiotoxicity and although zyprexa is not that cardiotoxic at all from what Ive read taking it with ephedrine will only make matters worse. Also ephedrine like all pills geared towards weight loss is pretty much useless for that purpose. Exercise and diet changes is the only way to really keep the weight off. Also ephedrine can worsen just about every mental condition in the book and it's the last thing you want to be taking when tapering off those meds. So throw it in the garbage bin would be my advice.

Ive tapered off anti-psychotics before and the best way to go about it is very slowly. It's the same with all psych meds and that goes double for benzodiazepines. The slower your taper the less chance there is of something going wrong so i would strongly advise sticking with the taper your doctor gives you. Yeah weight gain can be a bitch from meds like zyprexa but having the original condition come back worse then ever would be a much bigger bitch.

What are you on the meds for if you don't mind me asking? Ive been on combos like that for a long time now (right now it's wellbutrin, clonazepam and lamictal) and one thing i can tell you is that every time i tried to go cold turkey or taper too fast from them it ended in disaster. One time i decided i didn't need my risperidone and lamictal and i ended up needing enough zyprexa and seroquel to knock out the US army just to bring me back down to earth. So yeah slow and steady is the way to go

 

[Alex000]

I would suggest you just stick to your taper off the Zyprexa instead of switching to Seroquel. Good for you for coming off neuroleptics (anti-psychotics)! Seriously, getting off of them is almost always the best case scenario. They are toxic and unhealthy drugs. Also, I think it is good you are tapering your Zoloft, if you aren't experiencing any serious depressive mood episodes or discontinuation syndrome symptoms. I think another drop would be fine, if you tolerate the first drop with ease esp. because it has been two weeks. As for benzos, I am surprised you dropped from 0.5 mg Klonipin to just 2 mg Valium daily, that is quite a drop right there. I would be careful since benzo wd's can be dangerous, but you weren't on a high dose of Klonipin and from your post your drop to 2 mg Valium seems to have gone well. Frankly, I would stick to the 2 mg Valium for a little while longer just to be safe, but with the other drugs I say go for a responsible taper. SSRI's can really fuck up your mood and emotional affect, and like I said anti-psychotics are just not healthy. Wish you well.

 

[Missykins]

You're making changes to a number of different medications at the same time, so I would proceed cautiously. Therefore, I wouldn't make any additional changes until you meet with your physician again.

 

[Nazman]

What are you on the meds for if you don't mind me asking? Ive been on combos like that for a long time now (right now it's wellbutrin, clonazepam and lamictal) and one thing i can tell you is that every time i tried to go cold turkey or taper too fast from them it ended in disaster. One time i decided i didn't need my risperidone and lamictal and i ended up needing enough zyprexa and seroquel to knock out the US army just to bring me back down to earth. So yeah slow and steady is the way to go

Point noted about the ephedrine, the zyprexa made me put on 30 pounds and I need to half of that in about 5 months because I'm getting married. The jump from 5 mg to 2.5 mg wasn't bad for the zyprexa, I noticed I'm up earlier in the morning and I'm less subdued (and conversely more prone to anxiety). I certainly have G.A.D, but some medical advice I have had in the past has pointed towards bi-polar. My current pysch and doctor disagree, because I'm too 'high-functional'. Alex00, I was originally going to ask for a switch to Seroquel, but I read the weight side effect is even worse than with Zyprexa!

The SSRIs have certainly worsened my sex drive to the point that I need to get away from that class of drugs completely. I was on Lexapro for a time before the Sertaline.

The benzos I'm fortunate to have never become habituated to, but I end up taking them recreationally. I imagine the doctor will agree to reducing my allocation to something like 2 mg diaz a day, PRN.

What I'm leaning towards suggesting to him is Zispin (Mitrazipine) as a replacement for both the anti-psychotic and the anti-depressant. My research indicates it has enough of the good and less of the bad effect profile of the sertaline and zyprexa. I'm confident I can make a decent case for this. He's a bit of a McDonalds type doctor, in that you are in and out within 10 minutes, and I can't replace him for financial reasons.

What I have noticed already in effectively halving the dosages of all three classes of drugs is that I'm sleeping less, eating less, exercising more and being listless less. I'm also better craic to be around. I'm eager to continue this and will update you here with what happens at the doctors next week. Thanks for your responses .

 

[Nazman]

So he agreed to reduce zyprexa to 1.25 mg a day with a view to getting off it next month. Also he changed me to mitrazipine from the sertaline. The Diaz remains at 2 mg. all in all I'm pretty happy with how it's been going and how today went.