I have a question

[Piperpoo]

I have a friend who's a chemist for a pharma company and we were having a discussion on paxil wd. She learned of paxil wd from me, her research is in the pain dept and she had never heard of wd from paxil. She says and believes that paxil influences serotonine levels, and that when you stop taking paxil it immediately, within days, gets out of your body. What is left, which could be the cause of the wd according to her, is the effects of your body trying to readapt to the serotonine levels being regulated by the paxil. But she cannot believe it lasts as long as a year. She does want to research it though, and is very open minded and can obviously see what I am going through.

Now, I could be repeating this all wrong and I am no scientist, I have trouble understanding half this stuff, but I thought paxil took about a year to get out of the body, depending on people, and that's why there was wd. Anyone have any opinions or explanations? Possibly with as little big words as possible? Concentration is especially hard these days...

Thanks!

[rdjanis]

Piperpoo, there has been some studies done, there was a post on it in the past couple weeks. A doctor performing an autopsy found seritonin still in the body two years after the woman stopped taking it. If anyone else can provide the think great, if not I will search for it later and post it for you.

[Piperpoo]

But serotonin is already in the body? Did he find paxil? Cause her argument is that paxil is not in the body that long. Serotonine has to regulate itself back to normal...Does that make sense? It would be cool to see the link though, thank you.

[rdjanis]

Sorry, posting quickly LOL.... paxil was still in the body two years later.... I can't for the life of me remember the thread, Laurie dug it up for someone a short time ago, I am hoping she will kick in here later.... if not, I will find it.

[scotty]

Piper, I have to agree with your friend to a certain extent. While the actual paxil "may" be out of the system, it's the alterations that the paxil made that cause the worst part of withdrawal... that doesn't mean that paxil isn't the cause of the problem. To give paxil a free ride on the withdrawal is naive of any scientist doing this work. Without the paxil the "alterations" wouldn't have occurred. This is pharmas big claim to fame... if our drug is out of your systme then it's not our drug causing the problem. WRONG!!! The chemical alterations are a DIRECT result of paxil use.

[rdjanis]

So well put Laurie!!

[Charlie]

I think it is wrong to say that Paxil is out of your body in a few days. It may be out of your bloodstream but because SSRI's collect in your brain stem and at a rate of up to 300 times the level that was in your blood I don't think anyone really knows how long they can hang around where they aren't wanted. I think it depends on your liver function and your overall rate of metabolism. so if you have a less than desireable liver and your thyroid is slow they could be there for a while. I also think that whatever the body trying to recover is part of the withdrawal effect. I however have absolutely no medical background so I am probably completely wrong.

[genevieve]

I am not sure if paxil is still in the body but I have studied in neurobiology and I can tell you that the regulation of a cell (receptors, metabolism, etc) can be affected for a really long period of time. Remember paxil is not serotonin. Paxil CHANGES the reuptake mechanism of the cell. The most interesting thing we have today is studies on rats who have taken SSRI and have notable alterations in their brain long after the drug use.