Tried tapering, went insane each time,so here's to some cold turkey

[MissMeow]

I'd been on Paxil for about a year when I first tried to quit, we tapered the doses down gradually over 6 weeks and by the middle of the 4th week I was literally ripping my skin off because every inch of my body itched like I had a bad sunburn. So I gave up and went back on it. Tried again, tapered slower, started hallucinating black people. People laugh when I say this but I don't mean African Americans,(that would be far less disturbing lol) I mean, shadow-like BLACK people-ish things. They'd always be out of the corner of my eye but I could see them there. I knew they weren't real so they really didn't bother me, but they bothered my doctor and the doc put me back on the Paxil.

Finally I had it, like had it had it, I've put on at least 40lbs (I was 100lbs so 40 is a BIG change) even though I'm more active than I've ever been in my life and eating healthier than my normal junk food diet. I get tired at the drop of a hat and my hair is so thin it feels like after I used to bleach it.
So I quit cold turkey a week ago and have been taking supplements (Choline, B-Complex and Soy Lecithin) as well as a low dose of Prozac and am kind of waiting to see how bad things are going to get.

Right now it's Spring Break for my school however I can't really go away from it all, or avoid people and stressful situations, as everyone reccomends, as I live in one of the busiest parts of Tokyo. Just walking the couple blocks to the grocery store is an ordeal on the best of days. Climbing the stairs in a building to the 6th floor today left me completely winded. That's not normal.

However so far, I've been off the pill, cold turkey, for a week now, and have been feeling pretty good all thing considered. My dreams are f*d up to the max, and I keep waking early (but when the sun rises at 5 am its hard to sleep in anyway). But so far my skin hasn't started crawling and I only find myself THINKING about the shadow people. I'm a writer so I've been treating them as characters in a story and it makes it seem less odd to be thinking about something you could hallucinate at any given time. I've had a couple minor panic attacks while out in public with friends but I think I hid them well enough no one noticed.

Today the first real physical symptom hit me in that all my muscles are aching like I ran a marathon.(by this point in tapering I was already feeling fightorflighty) I had to get a taxi home because I just could not walk one more step. I know everyone suggests exercise but I get more exercise just walking this city every day than I would on a treadmill lol.

My main concern is the next semester of school starts in a week and I'm afraid I'm going to be a puddle of sobbing goo for it.

I have one friend who's been thru the drug russian roulette with me, and her advice has basically been just to dive in and roll with the punches and just remember it'll get better. So here goes nothing, I mean so far so good right?

[LCrawford67]

Welcome to paxilprogress!

Unless you tapered in 10% increments, every 3-6 weeks, you tapered entirely too fast and that would explain your withdrawal symptoms. Most don't have much success with the Paxil to Prozac switch, but some do. It's only been a week, so it'll be a wait and see.

My best advice to you would be, if the switch doesn't work, get back to your regular dose of Paxil immediately and get stable. Once you're stable and ready to taper, as we recommend, we'll walk you through it. You absolutely CAN get off Paxil comfortably by tapering slowly, but it does take time and patience. However, one day at a time and I hope this switch works for you

What dose were you on?

[julieannboo]

If you found it hard tapering then cold tapering will be much worse.
The only way to taper safely and with minimal side effects is 10% drops every 3-6 weeks.
Best of luck and welcome x

[aberdeen]

I hope it works for you! I would be worried that if coming off while tapering was uncomfortable (to say the least, yikes the black shadow people sound scary!) then cold turkey might sneak up with some symptoms down the road too? But maybe not. If it does though, you came to the right place to try and get off Paxil the calmest way possible. Good luck, hopefully you feel great soon!

[mustangwoman]

I had something similar to the "black people". My doctor wanted me to try Wellbutrin to counteract some of the side effects of the ssri, namely weight gain and low libido. I could not take this because in the corner of my eye I could see shadows like movements that were not there, along with intense anxiety. Those side effects have lessened quite a bit now that I am on a much lower dose of luvox. I haven't lost all of the weight I gained on Luvox, but I have lost about 13-15 of the 30. My libido is improving on these lower doses also, sorry if TMI.
I don't want you to suffer needlessly if the cold turkey doesn't work for you the ultra slow taper is quite manageable. We just want you to be well and happy.

[MissMeow]

So far so good, I've had a few panic attacks out of no where but I've gotten so good at hiding them no one noticed. My body feels like it's breaking down, my joints are killing me and I feel like an old lady. But I've been keeping active and walking a lot so I'm doing the best I can, even if I do come home at the end of the day and put cold plasters all over my body.
Sleep...isn't really happening. I was super tired round 9 pm so I laid down and fell right asleep, 3 hours later I was back up wide awake and have been awake all night.

Honestly things are going much better for me this time than when I tapered, I'm astonished about it myself. I expect it to get worse before it gets better but I'm really determined to get off this evil crap. If I have to ride the worm, I will.

I have yet to see how classes go since the new semester starts Monday, my brain hasn't been very...on top of things lately and I'm worried I'lll be a slug in class. Ahhhh man something so simple should never be made so hard.

[Backtopaxil]

Body aches, I can relate to that. Actually they are getting better while tapering. Knees were bad but are behaving now. Walking is wonderful. I am holding off on weight training.

MY doctor says that wd simulates arthropathy ( joint disease) but it is not and goes away. I take magnesium and fish oil and am thinking of lecithin ( anticholinergic help).

[MissMeow]

So tomorrow will be the start of my third week cold turkey. By this point in tapering I was going insane and slept most of the day, this is like night and day to that.
I've been forcing myself to walk A LOT everyday, even though this past week was my Spring Break and I wanted nothing more than to sleep in,I pushed myself out into the world and I'm glad I did because I think it helped keepme from focusing on the withdrawl symptoms as much, and the walking as an exercise helped keep my endorphins up.
My joints are still killing me, and that's only exacerbated by an injury I got on like the second day of break, so I'm not sure how much is withdrawl and how much is I just really hurt myself. I should know not to play sports, it never ends well lol.

My sleeping is still crap, I wake up every night between 12 and 2 sometimes I get back to sleep other times if feels like I don't need to, like I just dont feel tired at all.

I'm still seeing the shadow people out the corner of my eyes, but I think because I know it's just the withdrawl causing it, I don't really mind it.

It's been pretty good for me so far, but I fear going back to school and mingling with classrooms full of people I HAVE to speak with. Not sure how well the brain's gonna handle that, but I guess I'll just have to see!

Right now I'm taking 10mg prozac, soy lethicin 400mg, choline 250mg and Bw/C&Zincabout three times a day, the Choline seems to be the big one, when I have a headache coming on I usually take one or two of that and a normal painkiller and it dulls them from migraine to "its okay I can deal with it"

For me the 3 week mark is where things always got so bad I'd break and go back on it, so please wish me luck in making it thru this week!

[iwantpeace]

ahhh that explains a lot. So you didn't really CT, well you CT'd the Paxil but started on 10mg Prozac...they call that the 'prozac bridge'. How long do you intend to stay on the prozac for? The reason some doctors do that is because prozac has a whopper of a half life and tends to be 'easier' to withdraw from.

You could also be experiencing start up effects from the prozac. It can be very stimulating, which might be why you don't feel tired.

Good luck in your first week back at school!!!

[MissMeow]

Okay so I ended up back on my 20mg dose after I became way too low to even attend class. I missed an entire week of classes just getting back to "regular" on the the 20mgs. Augh.

So I want to try to slow 10% taper but I'm totally not clear on how to do it. I know you're supposed to drop 10% stay on it for 3-6weeks, then drop another 10% but what I wonder is how do I measure what 10% of the pill is when pill cutters obviously aren't that precise?

Someone reccomended using a nail file to file it down but that doesn't seem very accurate either. If anyone can explain the easiest way to do this, I'm all ears. Also finding someone to compound the drug or liquid paxil is pretty much out of the question as no doctor in Japan would do that at the request of a crazy white girl lol.

[Bilo76]

Buy a weighingscale that can measure 0,001 g. I bought one for 40 dollars. Then you ca n file and weigh. For instance: 10 mg pill of lexapro weighs 1,2 gram.

[MissMeow]

Waiting for my scale to come in to start tapering on the slow and steady, but before that I have a question if anyone can give advice. One of the worst side effects of being on Paxil I have, other than weight gain, is overheating. It's been 70-80 and 100% humidity and we're not even in to summer here yet, just rainy season. I literally come home out of breath because I get so overheated, it feels like 90-100 out at LEAST, and I know it's not, it's just the meds making me feel that way. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle the over heating? Is there anything I can take for it or should I just resign myself to being a sweaty out of breath gaijin all summer?

[aberdeen]

Originally Posted by MissMeow

Waiting for my scale to come in to start tapering on the slow and steady, but before that I have a question if anyone can give advice. One of the worst side effects of being on Paxil I have, other than weight gain, is overheating. It's been 70-80 and 100% humidity and we're not even in to summer here yet, just rainy season. I literally come home out of breath because I get so overheated, it feels like 90-100 out at LEAST, and I know it's not, it's just the meds making me feel that way. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle the over heating? Is there anything I can take for it or should I just resign myself to being a sweaty out of breath gaijin all summer?

Effexor was just awful for overheating, I was always hot and sweaty, even doing nothing! I just dealt with it, not sure whate lse to do besides drink water and take it easy and wear deodorant,lol. Gross isn't it? Last summer I had awful withdrawal but I did like the fact that I wasn't overheating anymore. I kept thinking it was a nice cool summer but it was actually very hot and humid!!

[MissMeow]

Originally Posted by aberdeen

Effexor was just awful for overheating, I was always hot and sweaty, even doing nothing! I just dealt with it, not sure whate lse to do besides drink water and take it easy and wear deodorant,lol. Gross isn't it? Last summer I had awful withdrawal but I did like the fact that I wasn't overheating anymore. I kept thinking it was a nice cool summer but it was actually very hot and humid!!

Man, at this point I'll trade the hot flashes/overheating for like the muscle cramps or even the zaps of withdrawl or something, its so unbearable to just be standing on a train and get so dizzy from your temp rising so high that you have to lean in a corner to stay up right! ;_;
I drink constantly but it's like I can never get enough water in me to make a difference X_X

[Brassmonkey]

I use to sweet by the bucket full, it was gross, now that I am in to my taper it is calming down a lot. Don't just drink water, use a sports drink to keep your potassium and sodium levels where they should be. I usually use Poweraid 0 because it has no calories. I also wrapped my pillow in a towel. It should get better as you go down in dosage.

(((((((drippy HUGS)))))))))

[Bilo76]

Haha this topic title. Thats like saying "every time i get drunk from a few beers, so here's to a whole bottle of scotch".
Well good luck m8

[Backtopaxil]

Actually I think of a somebody that tried to quit, got fed up and threw a "cold turkey" against the wall !

[MissMeow]

Okay so I'm not starting a new journal here, just to keep how foolish I was at first as even more proof for others not to try it.
I am however starting over from scratch tapering at 10% and hopefully weaning off the Paxil and back on to the Prozac, which I never had any negative side effects from while on it, or getting of it so I feel like if it can help me taper, gotta try it.
I took my first -%10 today and I'm going to see a doctor tomorrow who can hopefully help me get back on the Prozac as well as do a checkup on me to make sure I haven't damaged my body with the three different withdrawl periods I've had (fast taper, slower taper, CT).

Right now my worst symptom is I literally overheat when I go outside, I can't walk more than 3 blocks before I get overheated and start sweating like crazy and then get dizzy and eventually , if I push myself, I'll pass out. From what everyone's said here and around the web this is more a symptom of being ON the Paxil and as I taper down things should get better.
And I'm praying to God that they will get better as I had to make the difficult descision of taking the semester off from Uni classes with the plans to return next semester after I give myself time to get straight. I'm staying overseas but I had to give up my scholarship which paid for my housing so this was a really crap financial thing but in the long run what I think is probably best for me.
Uhhhh so yeah, I went into this the wrong way three times, please send me your support for doing this the right f'in way!

[lotusflower]

Dear MM,

If you keep it nice and slow, you'll be fine. Once you get settled into your taper, you will be fine to resume your studies.
I, too, lived in Tokyo......worked there for a few years. I lived in Hiroo also in a very busy section, loved it there and would have stayed longer if not for the crowded conditions everywhere.
best to you, joanne

[Timinjapan]

Dear MM,

Lotusflower is giving you good advice. Slow and steady will make things easier on you and you'll get down to zero in the end. But easier doesn't necessarily mean easy. The existence of this site provides some pretty strong evidence that tapering Paxil can be an ordeal.

I don't envy you having to stay in Tokyo over the summer, and with the possibility of power cuts too. To cool the body, heading for the mountains, taking cool showers and baths, drinking lots of water and herb tea, and putting something cooling on your hands and feet - like Tiger Balm, etc. - would be my first choices.

Take things one day at a time and don't be overwhelmed by the inevitable setbacks. And remember, lots of people here will be supporting you.

[TryingtoGetWell]

Welcome, Tim,

I was just about to log off when I saw your post.

Just wanted to suggest that you might want to slow down the amount (and speed) of your taper now that you're below 5 mg. You're right that recovery from these meds is nonlinear, but you might find that some inevitable setbacks aren't really inevitable. Or at least make them much milder.

There's information on how to use jeweler's scales to cut and file pills to very small doses in order to keep the amount of taper to 10% of last (most recent) dose even when you get down to low doses. And most people allow at least 306 weeks between those drops.

The liver clears the medication faster at below about 5 mg., so this is a good time reduce drops. Plus as you get lower in dose, the proportion of the drop increases even if you drop by the same 1 mg. (For example, dropping by 1 mg at 10 mgs is 10%. Dropping by 1 mg when you're down to 2 mg is a 50% drop!) The body feels the effect of the proportion of the drop more than # of mgs.

Hope that helps.

[Timinjapan]

Dear TTGW,

Thanks very much for the welcome, and also for the advice. I agree with everything you've said. In fact, I was expecting to get some wd symptoms within a few days of the latest drop in line with what many people on this site have reported, and they have turned up on schedule. So I'm planning to hold at the present level for a month or so and then make a smaller drop.

[Backtopaxil]

Originally Posted by TryingtoGetWell

The liver clears the medication faster at below about 5 mg., so this is a good time reduce drops. Plus as you get lower in dose, the proportion of the drop increases even if you drop by the same 1 mg. (For example, dropping by 1 mg at 10 mgs is 10%. .

hi, this is interesting, where did you read that the liver clears the medication faster below 5mg? I would love to read that article. ( I am at getting close to 5mg)

[TryingtoGetWell]

Originally Posted by Backtopaxil

hi, this is interesting, where did you read that the liver clears the medication faster below 5mg? I would love to read that article. ( I am at getting close to 5mg)

It was a former member who made me aware of this phenomenon, and although I don't have the reference that indicated it was significantly noticeable at about the 5 mg point, I believe she was referring to paroxetine's autoinhibition - that paroxetine inhibits its own metabolites, in a dose-dependent manner that seems to be in multiples at lower doses. (I think I read that the reverse occurs when going up in dose, i.e. plasma concentrations increasing in multiples at higher doses.)

I don't know if I'm explaining it right at all. I'm so NOT a scientific type.

I'll list a couple of links to pharmacology book references I found in Google Books, chosen at random from a google search. Links in Google Books tend to be so long you probably will have to copy and paste to enter the full URLs. (If copying and pasting doesn't work, I'll then list the names you can scroll down to on the first page of a google search using the search terms:

paroxetine autoinhibition discontinuation

The links I chose at random (there are tons of them!) are: http://books.google.com/books?id=qJ8plntawDoC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA116&dq=paroxetine+%22autoinhibition+discontinuation&source=bl&o ts=k_DdHkWsJh&sig=SimBD0owmrc2PseJLy12Qa8JB4Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cq2sT-X7D-ariQL_nbH1Bg&ved=0CGAQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=paroxetine%20%22autoinhibition%20discontinuation&f=false (scroll down to bottom of page 115, then continue on page 116)

and

http://books.google.com/books?id=ubG51n2NgfwC&pg=PA471&lpg=PA471&dq=paroxetine+%22auto-inhibition+discontinuation&source=bl&ots=tm1G6kEctV&sig=2v2t4eCZq1lbHzsSWzVySZoJziM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4K qsT-TLEaf26AGw2KzOBA&ved=0CGQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=paroxetine%20%22autoinhibition%20discontinuation&f=fals e (You might have to click on the link for page 471 to view the full page, particularly the first paragraph in the second column.)

If those links are too long and you google with the three search terms (at the same time), scroll down and look for the two items titled as follows (and page numbers follow - on the first one you need to scroll up to the previous page 115 from p. 116 that appears).

The first link appears on google search as (followed by the page numbers in the book):

Outpatient Management of Depression - Google Books Result (Sheldon H. Preskorn) - p 115-116

The second link appears as:

Kaplan & Sadock's concise textbook of clinical psychiatry - p. 471

(again, followed by the page number in the book).

btw, though as I said, I'm no scientist lol, I have a feeling the autoinhibition kicks in at different doses in different people, based on my reading so many people's experiences on this site for many years. My theory is that people's differing genetics account for this and many other differences in response to the meds and to withdrawal.

But ultimately it really just leads to the importance of tapering very slowly, and especially at the lower doses.

(If anything I've written here is scientifically inaccurate, or if anyone has more knowledge of these things and can explain them better, please let us know. I managed to get a B, I think, in Chemistry for Nurses in college - and no, I did not go on to nursing school - without understanding a thing. Just read the textbooks and answered a lot of questions right on the tests lol. Then left college and went to Haight-Ashbury [in the 1960s] where I continued my education much more extensively. Sans drugs. (Not even weed there.) Then myriad other pretty phenomenal life experiences. But none of them science education. I know my limitations in that area! )

[Timinjapan]

Dear TTGW,

It makes sense to me that an individual's liver would be progressively faster and more effective at clearing lower doses of anything as it would have less work to do.

By the way, I understand that your own withdrawal from Paxil was rather steep at the lower end, and that ended in a ride to hell. So when you advise others to taper very slowly, you are speaking from personal experience.