totallly stuck....now what?!

[fancypants]

hi everyone,

ive been taking 10mg prozac for the past 2 days in hopes of getting back on something to wean more slowly but the prozac is making me feel very weird. like...last night i couldnt fall asleep until after 230 and i actually felt really happy...but in a way that felt "druggy" and scary to me.

(I stopped Cymbalta 7 weeks ago, cold turkey....and before that i was on lexapro 5 months and it stopped working). I can't go back on the Cymbalta to wean because it made me suicidal. The lexapro stopped working. no doctors beleive me so i can't get any help there....

so my question is would it be better to

1). stop taking the prozac and deal with the incredibly anxiety i was having before

2) take 5mg prozac

3) take something else....

i can't take any ativan/valium/klonopin type things because my system is SUPER sensitive to them and the one time i took them the rebound anxiety was so bad i almost ended up in the hospital.....

im leaning towards trying a couple days of 5mg of prozac to see what happens. my system is so messed up at this point even B vitamins give me an anxiety stomach ache

i know no one has the Answer for this...but i feel really stuck at this moment.....

[fancypants]

or maybe! ill just go back to that cold turkey and hope that my brain fixes itself......if the prozac isn't helping anyway....maybe there's no reason to get re-hooked ....

argh!

[MizzT]

hi there
i think the problems you are facing stem from the cold turkey. its the hard way to go. unfortunately....the ways back are not easy either. 2 days on prozac is not enough time to see if its going to "fix you"....because that is not how these drugs work. you have to take like 4 to 6 weeks on it to see if its doing anything at all.

You could go back on the cymbalta and wean off slowly too.

but at this point, you should try to do anything and everything in your power to calm yourself down. you are expecting things to be right...NOW!!! and that is not how the brain works and its not how these drugs work.

sit down. breathe deeply into your belly. do this for 30 minutes. 7 slow counts in....7 slow counts out. do nothing but sit comfortably and breathe. as you breathe...think....CALM....SLOW....EASY....RELAX. light a candle....stare at the flame while you breathe. do this for 30 - 60 min tonight before you relax for bed.

I use a technique called EFT. http://www.emofree
Its very easy and effective for many things and it might help calm you down.

right now....the only thing you should focus on is calming down. dont worry about the what ifs....dont worry about the brain damage.....or how or when to wean or when the meds will work. JUST work towards calming the body down.

if you arent taking magnesium and fish oil...you might give it a try. the only thing that will help at this point (probably) is TIME. and lots of it.

[fancypants]

thanks mizz b. in the last few days ive pretty much stopped the magnesium and the fish oil because ive been having such stomach problems...but maybe ill try again.

i can't go back on cymbalta because, despite how bad this is, that made me depressed in a way that was truly truly terrifying....


stupid time! hasn't anyone found a way to speed it up yet! )

[scotty]

Fancy, Bev is right. You have placed expectations on these drugs that they cannot meet. Two days on Prozac is nothing. You are fixating on your body right now so that every twitch, pain, fuzzy is magnified a million times. I don't have any advice on what to do here except that drug jumping is just screwing you up more. Go for a walk, sing out loud, do anything to distract yourself from your own thoughts. You are looking for a miracle response from Prozac and it's not going to happen. The "fix" is in you, not in a bottle of pills, which I think you realize now.

[scotty]

Fancy, what was happening that you started Prozac in the first place back in 98?

[fancypants]

.....id just started college and all through my childhood i was really depressed and anxious (starting from when i was a tiny little kid)....my parents were against this type of medication (my dads sister was prescribed tons of stuff and it really messed her up), but i was quite sure it would help me. so wehn i got to college and had access to the health center there i went and got a prescription. it actually did help me for about a year....in some ways. i was much happier but i ended up gaining lots of weight and other side effects were so bad that i eventually just stopped cold turkey. i was really dizzy and nauseated for a month and i felt like i had bad pms (i would go from laughing to sobbing in the space of a minute) ..... it was annoying...but NOTHING like this has been......

and just to finish the story )

i went on lexapro this time around because i had some awfully traumatic stuff happen in 2004 and i was really exhausted from all of it and thought an antidepressant might help me deal with all of it

i restarted in march because i mistook withdrawal for reoccurance of symptoms.....withdrawing this time is coinciding with a painful breakup

suffice to say, im feeling like a mess

[MizzT]

Originally Posted by scotty

Fancy, what was happening that you started Prozac in the first place back in 98?

there ya go.....its the "butterfly effect". What started it all?? Start there.
think about it. (use EFT) tap as you think on it. the issue will start to resolve just with the tapping and focus on the problem.

Stupid time....well....http://www.gamehouse.com
i LOVE them! also...google. ebay. knitting, beading, reading. walking, talking, stalking....ok....maybe no stalking.
sit in the sun with a blanket over your knees on a bad day. and like i said...practice breathing. I used a "game" called Wild Divine to learn meditation. http://www.wilddivine.com
really...that has helped HUGELY!!!! the "brain damage" or sensation of it from this SUCKS!!!!!

i tell you all of this from your perspective. I went cold turkey. its taken a long time im afraid to tell you. but its doable. and what you learn in it is incredible. but first things first. learn to relax and calm. in the long run...without meds....THAT is what you will have to conquer. remember that right now...the "sensations" of WD....are chemical...and not insanity. too much adrenalin. consider a natural adrenal support.

and magnesium and nutrients will help you....but slowly. the Gut is bad because of the serotonin shifts....not the magnesium. LOADS of water. LOADS of fiber to push stuff thru. NO violent TV or NEWS!! Nothing that stimulates the body/brain AT ALL!!!! go into recluse mode and meditate.....and the body will start to shift.

[scotty]

So you've gone cold turkey every time you've stopped an antidepressant? Yikes, no wonder your brain is out of control! Therapy is called for here. Using an antidepressant for a "situational" depression is asking for trouble. There is NO pill that will make a "situation" better. Dealing with that situation and moving forward is part of the growing process. Find a therapist that you click with, stop the drug merry go round and discover who YOU are and why you react to situations the way that you do. Learning the coping tools is a big part of this. Coping isn't taking a pill to handle every bad situation. Sorry, being blunt here, but you need to solve the problems, not cover them to be dealt with another day... in withdrawal! You need to feel the pain of a breakup to move on from it.

[MizzT]

Originally Posted by scotty

discover who YOU are and why you react to situations the way that you do Learning the coping tools is a big part of this.

thats it in a nutshell. that is what i am slowly learning too! and then learning to shift HOW you react to situations. life has its pitfalls.....we have to learn to cope....not learn to pop a pill....especially since the pills dont fix the bad break-up...the death....the loss of a pet etc etc.

therapy can be incredibly helpful. i personally believe that ADDing EFT to therapy...makes it all happen much faster without putting years of effort into simple talk therapy. i do EFT and NMT ALL the time...daily! but its ALWAYS combined with a form of talk therapy...whether with my husband...or my doctor.....or even just myself.

all this healing is a matter of learning. dont be down on yourself because you were naive or unknowing....just learn...and move forward.

[fancypants]

i guess that is really the only choice i have now anyway. ive seen a bunch of different tehrapists at different times......most recently i saw one for a year, who in the end i dont think was so helpful....i saw another one for the next 4 months....and he was helpful in a certain way, but not quite the right match for me i dont think........ i have recently switched to another new therapist who does CBT and maybe that will make some sort of difference. ive learned an awful lot about myself.......but none of that knowledge seems to have helped me much...

[scotty]

Therapy doesn't "work" right away and being in withdrawal will make it harder. Don't look for the "OK i saw the therapist for a year and I'm not better" response. This is long term stuff.. it's not going away over night. Ryan saw a psychologist throughout withdrawal and didn't feel it helped much, BUT once paxil free and past the 1 year mark he recognized how much he actually got from those sessions.

[publius]

Fancy,

I just saw this, and let me drop a quick note right now. I'll be back tonight in more detail.

2 days is not long enough. It's barely had time to even get started. What you experienced last night is normal and par for the course with this crap. When I started the Zoloft, it took a while. I'm on week 4 now, and things are just started to settle down properly.

The first night I started it, I had one of the infamous SSRI "out of body" experience feelings, waking up in the middle of the night feeling weird. But I was used to this, having had it happen several times before and it was nothing compared to the panic attacks, and I didn't pay it any attention. It was like it was normally abnormal.

And yes, I had times when I was feeling abnormally happy and giddy, then would fall back into the hole, only to bounce back to the giddy period a day or so later.

This is how this crap works, and you and I are experiencing almost the same thing, here.

This is going to take time. There's a lot of inertia in the system and it takes time. The worst thing to do is be starting and stopping different meds every few days. That will only make things much worse.

Just relax, really relax. Let all this weird crap go. It's just mind games. It's not real. Relax, relax, relax.

-Richard

[elisa]

Fancy, you might also look at the possibility that these drugs can poop out after having been on them for some time... and as such no antidepressant will be able to create a quick fix situation for you.

I was on a decade of a drug merry-go-round and strongly believe that it delayed my recovery.

What is really helping me is going for weekly talk therapy. Have been going since may of 1998. No, it's not a quick fix, but keep in mind that in my case it was for life-long issues that weren't dealt dealt with. Additionally, my life in years is much longer than yours so a bit more experiences....

GO for talk therapy or any kind of non-drug treatment. The benefits last a lifetime.