I want to suspend the medications

[sogno]

I always suffered of social anxiety and recentely depression. My doctor prescribed zoloft, zyprexa and lorazepam.
After a year I felt better, I wasn't particularly happy but not sad either. So we decided to suspend the zoloft and after a slow taper I'm not taking it anymore. Things got worse after this. But the main problem is that I want to quit taking any medication. The thought of having to take these medications to function really saddens me. I also feel that when I'm not on them I'm more anxious than before I started. To my knowledge I don't suffer of bipolarism or psychosis and I take the zyprexa for the anxiety.
I also feel like I'm emotionless, emotionally flat.
The point is I want to quit but two points scare me: first I'm worried of the withdrawal from these medications. I'm not taking heroic dosages, 2mg lorazepam and 5 mg zyprexa, but I'm quite dependent to them.
Second point, I'm scared things will get much worse than how are at the moment.
My doctor obviously says it's not the right time for suspending the medications, but I really don't know if there is a correct time.

 

[Ignot]

If you want to quit that badly, you need to stop going to the doctor, on your own free will.

Quitting 2mg a day of ativan cold turkey won't kill ya.

 

[sogno]

Take it really slow with the tapers. Taper off of everything, one at a time. The zyprexa withdrawal was a beast for me and I'm still going through it. I was on it for four years and was taking 20 mg. I also seem to become more dependent on things than most people and seem to be super sensitive to withdrawals (lucky me). Last summer I began tapering down. By the time I got to 5 mg I was really struggling. Switched over to 100 mg of seroquel and experienced three full months of hell. Take it easy with this stuff. Going too fast is brutal and I am still experiencing some troubling symptoms from it. I still have to take 25 mg or so of seroquel if I ever want to get any sleep.

Be careful dealing with the docs. Lots of them try to taper you way too fucking fast and have no clue what they are doing getting people off of meds, no problems doping you up though, of course. Going too fast off of zyprexa can be very dangerous. Buy a mg scale from amazon and to precisely measure your doses. No more than 10% a month until you get a feel to how you react. You may be fine but for some people coming off of psych meds is really hard. Zyprexa was harder for me than benzos or opiates. YMMV of course. The icarusproject and survingantidepressants are good resources for coming off of this stuff.

Good luck, and fwiw I think you are doing the right thing.

hi jammin83
well, I'm sorry you have such difficulties for coming off the zyprexa. I read some of the horror stories about zyprexa withdrawal but I also read people usually were on bigger doses than me. I'm taking only 5mg, so I'm quite optimistic I won't suffer a lot.
I'm actually more worried about quitting the zyprexa than quitting the benzos. The difference I noticed is there are a lot of infos on how tapering the benzos but very little on how quitting neuroleptics.

 

[jammin83]

Even low dosages can be difficult for some people, hopefully you will have better luck than I did. Some people are just more sensitive to it than others. You won't know if you are or not until you start, so better to be safe than sorry. The lower you get the more difficult it will be. Don't start by cutting pills in half. That's way too much. Even a mg scale is going to be tough bc most aren't quite that precise at 5 mg and less. Not sure what a full 5 mg pill weighs (assuming it's more than 5 mg bc of binders and fillers) but subtract 10% from that number. Using the back side of a ordinary hose clamp, which you can buy at most convenient stores in the US, you can grind very minute amounts off the pill until you reach 90% of the original weight.

You can also crush the entire pill into powder and weigh that or use volumetric dosing. I highly doubt that olanzapine is water soluble but you can at least make a suspension, just make sure you stir it well before dosing. To give you an example: if you have 20 mg of zyprexa and put it in 20 ml of water that will give you 1mg/ml. So 4.5 mL of the suspension will give you the precise dose you are looking for. Stay at that dose for a month before reducing again. Your next reduction will be 10% of the last dose not of 5mg. An oral syringe with mL on it (available at pharmacies) would also be useful.

Listen to your body! It will definitely tell you if you are going too fast. It can sometimes take a couple weeks before you will feel a difference, so definitely stay at that dose for a month before lowering again.

Definitely check out survivingantidepressants.com or theicarusproject.org if you run into trouble.

I hope it goes well for you.

 

[LilikoiMoon]

AD's have that power...to kill your emotions at times. While they are beneficial in many ways, they also come with side effects.

What makes you anxious? Try to figure out trigger points with the anxiety. If you want to quit the meds, do your research to find other ways of naturally curbing anxiety.

Medicinal uses of marijuana have been beneficial for some patients who suffer from mood disorders and anxiety...maybe look into that.

Lastly, I don't know your age, or if you're male/female, but I can tell you that hormones are crucial in your well being..emotionally, physically. Males are more prone to depression during the ages of 13-21. A lot of times you can have massive testosterone surges, yet they mask as depression. I learned this over the past few years with my teen son. He was having major insulin flushes, which would make him angry/anxious...after hormone testing, we learned his testosterone was extremely high. Once we got that to a normal level, he's felt amazing ever since.

Just giving you some "natural" alternatives/advice vs the medication route.

Hugs