Grin and bear it or up the dose?

[ICanDoThis]

Hi, I'm relatively new here and i just wanted to say to everybody here - What a great site!!!! I've found so much information and inspiration on this site and it's been an absolute eye-opener.
Without going too much into "my story"I'll try and give the bare bones and then my question.
10 years ago I was put on 20mg Paxil a day combined with therapy once a week for severe clinical depression. Only child of parents who divorced when I was 2 I had the classic "good child"characteristics combined with ultra-sensitivity. Always be nice, never start a fight even if you''re in the right, don't speak until spoken to, don't make waves. Of course sometime I had to find out who I was outside of the nice girl and when that happened at the age of 18 my mom freaked and I freaked too. I didn't know how to be me and didn't even have the nerve to try. What if people didn't like who I was. What if they didn't think I was nice. How horrible. So repressed emotions came bubbling up but I didn't know how to deal with them and landed in a months long depression that no one noticed because I didn't feel like it was important enough to tell anyone. So therapy and paxil. Worked like a charm! Only I was 18, away at college and forgot to take my pills sometimes. It started with zaps. Like an electric shock starting at my heart and radiating through my body. Nothing big and nothing I connected to the Paxil. After a while, after I'd been forgetting pills regullarly for months the shocks weren't funny anymore and were paired with dizziness, sick to my stomach, diarrea. I went to the college doctor and they hooked me up to a heart monitor. Something was wrong only they didn't know what and sent me to a heart specialist. He didn't know what was wrong but didn't see any real harm in it. My brain was apparently telling my heart to speed up at inappropriate moments and the things that felt like electric shocks WERE electric shocks to get my heart rate up. Nobody made any connection with the Paxil and I couldn't find anything on it on the internet eventhough after months of going through it, I realized what was going on. When I was 20 I moved to the Netherlands and was forced to quit Paxil relatively cold turkey because I convinced that no Dutch doctor who'd never met me before would just write a prescription. It was hell but I was over the worst inside of a few months. 2 years ago I felt the depression moving in. I'd dealt with my issues of being the nice girl so that wasn't it. Just environmental influences over which I had no control at the time. I went to my doctor, explained my past depressions and recieved a prescription. And now we're here. I'm only 4 days into this attempt to stop Paxil forever and it's going great actually. I'm faithfully keeping my journal here for the days when it doesn't go so well but I've taken a lot of advice here to heart and have gotten the vitamins the fish oil and am drinking exclusively water to help my system flush itself. Oh yeah, I just started with the oil gargle last night! Really tasty in the morning on an empty stomach. Yum.
So my question is this (Are some of you thinking to yourself,"Finally she's getting to the question?) I went from 20 to 10mg. I know that this is a big drop but I've done it this way in the past and am also not against raising the dosage again if that's needed. But what I was wondering is this: imagine that in a month or so I go from 10 to say 8mg and after a few days I start to have problems. Am I supposed to just stick with it and wait until it gets better or immediately go back up to 10, stick with that for a few weeks and then try 8 again. And if I try 8 again and I get sick do I have to then go back up to 10 again? I'm not sure what I should do and would really appreciate anyones advice. I want to do this as easily as possible of course but I don't want to get stuck at a certain dosage point. I'm not sure if I should just grin and bear it as long as I can funtion reasonably normal or if I should immediately up the dose. Thanks for any info and take care.

[scotty]

Weaning is a very individual experience. If you do a small drop, like 2mg, and have mild symptoms I would ride them out. If it's to much to bear then go back up and drop by 1mg at a time. Even with slow weaning you will have symptoms, but they should be a bit more short lived and milder.

[Greenslade]

Hi Iam currently on day 20 of going from 10 mgs to 5 mgs I feel I am stabalising now although it has been tough.There were times when I wanted to go back to 10mgs but I rode it through although my ibs has come back really bad.I suppose it depends on how bad your symptoms are. if you cant cope then maybe you have dropped to quick.I was really determined to see it through ,I guess everyone reacts differently it may not be too bad for you. You have to do it to find out.

Lots of luck to you.

[Kitsyl]

I've been decreasing 1mg every 4 to 6 weeks, so I'm afraid I can't comment on what you propose. In fact, now that I've got down to 8mgs I'm starting to decrease by 10% per month, as I'm having difficulties.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello and wish you luck!

Kit

[Betsy]

If you started on Paxil in 1996, I'd go back up to 3/4 of a tablet, plus half of the other quarter. I have been on it since 1998 and when I got to the 20 mg mark I had to reduce the mgs. by approx 2.5 mgs so as not to have extreme withdrawals. And I did that about once every 4 to 6 months. I tried to get onto the liquid paxil this last december and that was a disaster for me, might work for you and if it does work for you, taper just 10% of your current dose. That means only lower it 2 mgs. from the 20 you WERE on. So, your best bet would be to go back up to somewhere areoun that 18 mg mark. It's hard with tabs, I know. I just started a taper from 15 mgs down to a tiny bit less last week, can't really tell exactly how much because I am just cutting the pill, but I have to Do SOMETHING to lower the dose. Anyway, be careful after all this time it will take small incremental tapers to have less extreme withdrawals. It may still be hard, even at small dose reductions. Ask Scotty, moderator what she thinks....Good wishes to you!
Betsy

[ICanDoThis]

So I went to the doctor today. He was very supportive of coming off the paxil. He recommended staying on 10mg for about 3 weeks and then dropping to 5mg for three weeks and then just stopping. I already know that's not going to happen but whatever - I let him have his say. He was also all for doing a bunch of blood tests - vitamins, magnesium, hyperthyroid, etc. He doesn't think anything will come of it but was willing to do it to put my mind at ease. All in all a successful visit and just one more reason to be positive.

[Betsy]

I do that too, I listened to my pschy doc and then said to her, can I do this my way? Go slowly, she said, yeah, we can. I appreciated her supportive attitude. I missed mylast appt. though. gotta make another one. She has a 2 month thing she does to get people off. I think alot of these people just don't have the information, and since they may not have done it themselves, they don't have a clue what they are asking us to go through. I just cut my 15 mg dose by a tiny piece a week ago. So far so good. I'm gonna stay here for a couple of months. It's a pain, but much easier than the other pain! Just don't want to go there again if I don't have to. I have a friend who just CT off of the generic of paxil and she seems to be doing fine so far. She was only on it for a year, and some people can get away with that, but I am NOT one of them and I've been on it since 1998. I do feel this buzzing sensation, but I'm also at the last two or three days of anti-biotics. We'll see what happens this next week. We are going to our oldest daughter and her husband's college graduation this weekend. It'll be interesting to see how traveling goes. I htink it will be fun. Boy, different story from February when we went to visit them! Glad to be here instead of where I was in February!
Betsy

[feelin'_wiggy]

Hi ICDT! I enjoyed reading your introductory post. It pleases me when members give some insight about themselves. In answer to your question, individual experience vary and we all have different levels of tolerance. There will always be some discomfort when you taper. I had to tweak my schdule twice. For me, zaps were the cue. When they were coming almost non-stop for 24 hours a day, I knew I had overdone it. Otherwise, I just toughed it out. It sounds like you plan to do a slow taper, so you shouldn't have too much trouble. Good luck to you!

[ICanDoThis]

Zaps almost non-stop for 24 hours??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I think I'd up my dosage again at that point too. I think that's a good idea though Feelin'Wiggy - to have a "goal"after a taper. If I reach, for example, a point at which I'm living in the bathroom because I'm losing fluid at both ends (to put it politely) then my normal life is not possible and that's a sign that I've gone too fast. Okay. Thanks.

[ICanDoThis]

Oh Betsy Good luck on travelling this weekend! If you're already looking forward to it then you're halfway there!