lemonflavor Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 My pdoc is so perplexed as to why my depression and energy level are getting worse that he wants to remove one drug at a time to see what's working, what's not and what may be causing problems. He has me reducing the Lexapro first. Since I always have a hard time with withdrawal, I'm going very gradually from the 10mg I was taking. I went down to about 8.5mg for a week (knicked off part of half a tablet) which was no problem. Then down to 7.5mg and that was a big problem. For five days I've been more depressed and anxiety is terrible. Digestive system is in turmoil. I've even had some uncomfortable hypomania. I was thinking if things don't get better in two to three more days I would call my pdoc and ask if I can go back up to 10mg. Should I wait longer? It's torture. I don't have the dizzyness when I turn my head which I did have when going down with Effexor and Risperdal. Anyone gone through this? I'm going to start using my Ativan priviledges today because I can't take the anxiety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 My pdoc just had me go from 40 mg. to a week on 20, a week on 10, then a week of every other day before stopping the lex altogether. Experienced no problems. Of course she was ramping up the effexor at the same time which may have made a huge difference. Tommy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peaty Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 God yes, I had problems getting of Lexapro. I was taking 10mg a day and just quitting by myself cold turkey since I didn't think it was helping anymore, and the side effects were terrible. I finally went to the doctor and was switched to Zoloft. Zoloft didn't really do anything for me but it let me quit taking all anti-depressants without side effects. Of course everyone is different, but I've heard a lot more stories of people having problems getting off of Lexapro than Zoloft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bianca Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 Bridging with prozac or adding another SSRI woul possibly counteract the side effects. When I went from Lex back to Cymbalta thats what I did and I had no issues at all. Lexapro for me helped my anxiety but made my depression much worse and it made me gain weight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemonflavor Posted May 25, 2006 Author Share Posted May 25, 2006 After 8 days at the 7.5mg dose I finally felt like I was getting used to it (with the help of Ativan though) so last night I went down to about 6.2mg and feel bad again. But my wife just lost her job so... I'm afriad if I added something like prozac it would just make the process even longer because I'd have to come off that too. This stinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bianca Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 If I remember correctly there were no withdrawal effects with prozac. I stopped that and WB cold turkey before and had no issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LikeMinded Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 Building on what's been said, I understand that Prozac/fluoxetine, due to its extremely long half-life for an SSRI, is a good choice to cross-titrate (i.e. bridge) with, followed by slow reduction of the fluoxetine. Often, the reduction can be done ridiculously slowly with the use of fluoxetine syrup, which makes the dosage more flexible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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