Misc Need help tapering from Zoloft!!

[etard7007]

I am sick and tired of taking this damn anti-depressant. I never wanted to start taking it in the first place I have always been reluctant to take anti-depressants.

Basically I suffer from extreme anxiety/insomnia and ocassional panic. off the bat my psychiatrist wanted me to take zoloft. after therapy and trying different things he started giving me klonopin to sleep and in case my anxiety got bad during the day.

i basically ignored the zoloft and never took it, and was doing just fine with the klonopin for a while. i stopped seeing him because he wasnt covered by my insurance and i havent taken any benzos since then. this was about 8 months ago.

shortly after i stopped seeing him i had this awful panic attack and emotional breakdown of sorts and said "fuck it ill start taking the zoloft it might help"

i started taking 50mg a day and within a week i started to feel "better." i think it might have been partly from the zoloft and partly placebo because i was hopeful about it.

well as time passed i realized just how much i dont like the stuff. the side effects are awful. especially the sexual side effects. it makes me have absolutely no sexual desire. whatsoever. i look at a hot girl and i obviously am attracted to her but its weird i just dont feel any sexual desire. and its impossible to orgasm or feel any sexual pleasure at all... im lucky if i can finally bust one out masturbating after a month of NO LUCK, sex or masturbation.

and i get these awful headaches. and i still feel negative about everything, my anxiety is pretty bad. i still have that tight uncomfortable feeling in my chest.

so anyway, i really want to get off of this drug. i stop taking it sometimes, like a few days ago i didnt take it for 2-3 days... but i started feeling extremely depressed so i had to take it again yesterday.

i am looking for a good taper method. if anyone has any advice or knowledge on a good way to taper from an anti-depressant i would really appreciate it. i am trying to locate a new psychiatrist so he can help me with it, although i just want to do it myself and get off of it NOW.

thanks in advance.

 

[Cane2theLeft]

With any taper, the basic rule of thumb - the slower you go, the less discomfort there will be. I'm sure people around here can give you specific schedules to help you get off of this with minimal discomfort (listing your current doses might help) but in my eyes this should be a secondary concern.

Even if all of the negative things you're attributing to the zoloft (side effects, etc.) are caused by the zoloft, if its at all mitigating your anxiety and depression then getting off it without other ways to cope with them is likely going to make your situation worse.

I'm not telling you to stay on them but I think its important that if you make the decision to try to physically get off of them, you first have to have something solid in place to help you psychologically cope with the issues that you lead you to get on them in the first place. This could be seeing a counselor or therapist you talk to, trying other pharmaceutical options but just SOMETHING so that you aren't crushed by the return of these symptoms by whatever degree the sertraline was reducing them.

Also I'm thinking this might do better in The Dark Side but we can see what kind of discussion it generates here first

 

[TestOfSanity]

I feel you, I wish I never would've taken SSRI's either. I was on them for over a year, 40mg celexa. This is how I quit. Do you get "brain zaps"? I took the SSRI's on a tapering dosage, based on brain zaps, which from what I've read are fairly common for anti-depressant withdrawl. I would ignore them as long as I could, and when I couldn't I would take a some, and the next time less and so on. One day I got to the point, where I still had them, but could ignore them. Then I stopped. The ordeal took 2-3 months, but now, 6 months later I feel good. It took another 2 months, until I felt completely unaffected. I hope this helps you. Any questions, just ask.

 

[psychopath]

My tapers are dictated by available substance.

If you have 20 pills, figure it out to where you take like 10 mg on the last day.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

The best way to taper is to slowly reduce your dosage.

I would reduce a 100mg dosage 10mg at a time, or a 50mg dosage 5mg at a time.

When I tapered off of it, I went down 25mg at a time, spaced each step two days apart. I still went through unbearable withdrawal.

It is advisable to switch to Prozac and taper off of this drug instead; it is less likely to cause extremely negative withdrawal symptoms whereas Zoloft will do just that in a large percentage of patients.