tightlywound
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
- Messages
- 405
maybe this should be in BDD? feel free to move it if this isn't the place.
I'm prescribed 40mg of viibryd for depression and anxiety. when I first started it at the highest dose it was like a miracle drug, nothing I'd ever tried (almost everything) had ever worked so well on my depression (though it didn't help the anxiety at all), I felt better and was more functional than I'd ever been in my life for a good 6 months at least. however it is not working for me anymore, as happens w/ all antidepressants that even work in the first place. I'd like to get off of it, maybe try something else, maybe just see how I feel w/o anything as baseline for a while, I don't know, but I don't want to be on it anymore. the problem is the fucking withdrawals. I have been on almost every other antidepressant out there and NEVER experienced w/ds stopping any of them cold turkey, even 40mg paxil after quite a while on it ...maybe because none of them ever really worked at all, who knows. but the viibryd w/ds are fucking DASTARDLY I swear to god. they come on SO fast, sometimes by the time I am ready to take my next dose I am already in withdrawal and they are SO severe -- complete exhaustion and weakness but incredible alertness and tenseness, nausea and vomiting, extreme dehydration (SO thirsty constantly and will drink gallons a day and if I can even keep it down I just retain all the fluids and bloat up and produce only a tiny amount of dark urine), constipation, very severe and terrifying hypnogogic hallucinations and nightmares that will keep me from even laying down too long despite feeling too weak to stand lest I'm actually able to relax enough to start dozing off and end up trapped in hypnogogia hallucinating and unable to wake myself up; but generally that is only in the first 24hrs of withdrawal, after that first day it is literally impossible to sleep at all from the tenseness. viibryd withdrawal is basically just REALLY bad and I've experienced opiate withdrawal at least a few hundred times and loads of other withdrawals too, so I know what withdrawal looks like.
on 1/2 my dose, 20mg, I will still be in severe withdrawal to the point of not being functional. I don't know how the hell I'm going to be able to get off this shit w/o spending months upon months doing it and feeling like I'm dying the entire time. and I read that withdrawal can last months and months once you're off of it entirely.
the thing is, aside from physically feeling like death and being mentally distressed over that, I usually feel mentally better when I'm in withdrawal off of it than when I'm on it, it's definitely not doing it's job as an antidepressant anymore and I think it might actually be making me feel worse.
does anyone have any advice for getting off this hellish med? I wish my psychiatrist had warned me about the risk of dependency/withdrawals before he prescribed me it. he refuses to prescribe me anything "addictive" like stimulants or benzos which I could really use, because of my addiction history (though those are not what I've been addicted to and in fact I haven't abused stimulants really since I was like 15 and did benzos once when I was around that age and hated it and you couldn't pay me to abuse them again, but a therapeutic dose really does totally change my life, even fucking librium or something ...I need a new psychiatrist), but man the shit he has me on is fucking addictive enough, I get hella withdrawals w/o my antidepressant or antipsychotic ugh.
if I switch over to a different SSRI/SNRI antidepressant will I still have withdrawals? maybe I could switch over to one that has less awful withdrawals and then get off that one? I do think I want to be off all antidepressants for at least a month or two just to see how I feel.
also, another thing but this doesn't deserve two topics -- I want to switch off the saphris (asenapine) I'm on too. I think that it has started causing me to experience akathisia. weird that this would start after being on it for 2-3 years but I have been experiencing a lot of akathisia the past couple months and I've noticed it's worse after days I take my full 2 doses of saphris (I am rxed 10mg morning and night but very often only take it at night). I have a lot of trouble sleeping that the asenapine helps immensely -- that's mainly why I take it, I'm rxed a morning dose to "help w/ my anxiety" which is crippling but like hah it doesn't do anything for that, my psychiatrist is just a fuck. it doesn't actually make me sleepy now that I have a tolerance to it, but it does make it easier to sleep and it keeps me asleep the whole night the latter of which is my main problem. what would you recommend that would work as well (benzos or anything vaguely abuseable is again not an option at this time)? how is latuda (lurasidone) for sleep? if it's going to be another antipsychotic it would have to be latuda only because I have an eating disorder and am not about to go on any med w/ a risk of weight gain, so that rules out most antipsychotics. I'm wondering if I could get my psych to rx gabapentin or if that's "too abuseable" ...I know he thinks lyrica is too abuseable ...man I really need a different doctor ...but anyway because I've been taking on occasion my mom's gabapentin for the akathisia and it really helps my anxiety. would gabapentin help w/ sleep? or would I get a tolerance too quickly for it to help w/ that for any length of time? any other ideas?
TIA I appreciate your input.
I'm prescribed 40mg of viibryd for depression and anxiety. when I first started it at the highest dose it was like a miracle drug, nothing I'd ever tried (almost everything) had ever worked so well on my depression (though it didn't help the anxiety at all), I felt better and was more functional than I'd ever been in my life for a good 6 months at least. however it is not working for me anymore, as happens w/ all antidepressants that even work in the first place. I'd like to get off of it, maybe try something else, maybe just see how I feel w/o anything as baseline for a while, I don't know, but I don't want to be on it anymore. the problem is the fucking withdrawals. I have been on almost every other antidepressant out there and NEVER experienced w/ds stopping any of them cold turkey, even 40mg paxil after quite a while on it ...maybe because none of them ever really worked at all, who knows. but the viibryd w/ds are fucking DASTARDLY I swear to god. they come on SO fast, sometimes by the time I am ready to take my next dose I am already in withdrawal and they are SO severe -- complete exhaustion and weakness but incredible alertness and tenseness, nausea and vomiting, extreme dehydration (SO thirsty constantly and will drink gallons a day and if I can even keep it down I just retain all the fluids and bloat up and produce only a tiny amount of dark urine), constipation, very severe and terrifying hypnogogic hallucinations and nightmares that will keep me from even laying down too long despite feeling too weak to stand lest I'm actually able to relax enough to start dozing off and end up trapped in hypnogogia hallucinating and unable to wake myself up; but generally that is only in the first 24hrs of withdrawal, after that first day it is literally impossible to sleep at all from the tenseness. viibryd withdrawal is basically just REALLY bad and I've experienced opiate withdrawal at least a few hundred times and loads of other withdrawals too, so I know what withdrawal looks like.
on 1/2 my dose, 20mg, I will still be in severe withdrawal to the point of not being functional. I don't know how the hell I'm going to be able to get off this shit w/o spending months upon months doing it and feeling like I'm dying the entire time. and I read that withdrawal can last months and months once you're off of it entirely.
the thing is, aside from physically feeling like death and being mentally distressed over that, I usually feel mentally better when I'm in withdrawal off of it than when I'm on it, it's definitely not doing it's job as an antidepressant anymore and I think it might actually be making me feel worse.
does anyone have any advice for getting off this hellish med? I wish my psychiatrist had warned me about the risk of dependency/withdrawals before he prescribed me it. he refuses to prescribe me anything "addictive" like stimulants or benzos which I could really use, because of my addiction history (though those are not what I've been addicted to and in fact I haven't abused stimulants really since I was like 15 and did benzos once when I was around that age and hated it and you couldn't pay me to abuse them again, but a therapeutic dose really does totally change my life, even fucking librium or something ...I need a new psychiatrist), but man the shit he has me on is fucking addictive enough, I get hella withdrawals w/o my antidepressant or antipsychotic ugh.
if I switch over to a different SSRI/SNRI antidepressant will I still have withdrawals? maybe I could switch over to one that has less awful withdrawals and then get off that one? I do think I want to be off all antidepressants for at least a month or two just to see how I feel.
also, another thing but this doesn't deserve two topics -- I want to switch off the saphris (asenapine) I'm on too. I think that it has started causing me to experience akathisia. weird that this would start after being on it for 2-3 years but I have been experiencing a lot of akathisia the past couple months and I've noticed it's worse after days I take my full 2 doses of saphris (I am rxed 10mg morning and night but very often only take it at night). I have a lot of trouble sleeping that the asenapine helps immensely -- that's mainly why I take it, I'm rxed a morning dose to "help w/ my anxiety" which is crippling but like hah it doesn't do anything for that, my psychiatrist is just a fuck. it doesn't actually make me sleepy now that I have a tolerance to it, but it does make it easier to sleep and it keeps me asleep the whole night the latter of which is my main problem. what would you recommend that would work as well (benzos or anything vaguely abuseable is again not an option at this time)? how is latuda (lurasidone) for sleep? if it's going to be another antipsychotic it would have to be latuda only because I have an eating disorder and am not about to go on any med w/ a risk of weight gain, so that rules out most antipsychotics. I'm wondering if I could get my psych to rx gabapentin or if that's "too abuseable" ...I know he thinks lyrica is too abuseable ...man I really need a different doctor ...but anyway because I've been taking on occasion my mom's gabapentin for the akathisia and it really helps my anxiety. would gabapentin help w/ sleep? or would I get a tolerance too quickly for it to help w/ that for any length of time? any other ideas?
TIA I appreciate your input.
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