Serotonin Syndrome from 20mg Paroxetine

[pirat3]

A long time ago, I had a doctor prescribe me 10mg Paroxetine, which he told me would be bumped up to 20 after a couple weeks. I filled the script, but never ended up taking them. I later got prescribed Clonazepam, and have been taking 1mg daily for about 6 months. I had fairly good relief of my anxiety and panic attacks with Clonazepam, but since I was running out and I had my Paroxetine I though I might as well give it a whirl.

Last night at about 6:30pm I took 10mg of Paroxetine. A couple of hours later I was starting to feel some of the "come up" of mdma. Shivery, hot and cold, shaky, jaw tightness, so sure enough I went to check and my pupils were just huge. I had no intention of getting high, so I went and took 1mg of Lorazepam to try to calm my system and get to sleep.

At about 10pm I was feeling pretty good and i thought, "well, what the hell. Let's run with it". I took one more 10mg of Paroxetine and 1mg of Lorazepam. I eventually started to feel very sick to my stomach, like I couldn't eat, was shaky, and to some *small* sense starting to get a little delirious. After a night of sleeping in all of my cloths + a hoodie and sweats over top, sweating all night but still shivering because I felt like I was freezing, I've now woken up 10 hours later and I'm still all shaky, my jaw is sore from clenching all night, I'm ready to throw up, and my pupils are still huge. Feels exactly like an mdma hangover.

Is it common to experience these symptoms on such small doses of Paroxetine, or other SSRI's in general?
What should I do to help myself recover quickly?

 

[Crashing]

I don't think you got serotonin syndrome. This sounds common to people who start SSRI's, there are usually a whole slew of fucked up side effects when you initially start using them. When my girlfriend started Celexa for a while, she said that the entire experience was like a perpetuated come up on mushrooms. Quite uncomfortable. Shaky, cold, hot, nervous, breating walls, dilated pupils etc. So i would say it is common. I wouldn't recommend anyone take SSRI's because in general they seem to be poisonous.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

That sounds like an adverse reaction in any case. I would speak to your doctor about this.

 

[Swimmingdancer]

It is uncommon to feel like you're high on MDMA, especially from taking 10mg. I would definitely talk to your doctor.

But some of the effects you described are relatively common. The most common side effects when starting paroxetine (at 20mg+) are, in order from most to least frequent: nausea, sleepiness, sexual issues, weakness, sweating, dizziness, insomnia, dry mouth, constipation and tremors.

I agree with Crashing, SSRIs are icky drugs and often have a ton of side effects and don't help very much. I would talk to your doctor about switching you to something else. I know doctors often say "oh your body just has to get used to the drug, the side effects should get better in a few weeks" but I wouldn't want to take something that made me feel that way and many people experience long-term side effects with paroxetine, for example weight gain, nausea and sexual side effects are prevalent. Plus it's not very effective (I'm not even impressed with the numbers in Paxil's own clinical trials, which are likely biased anyway IMO) and creates a nasty dependence.

As far as recovering, take some vitamins and get lots of fluids/electrolytes and try to get some sleep.