I require urgent help please. Over the past 18 months I have had several medication changes due to going off 150mg Effexor cold turkey in July 2017. I didn't know how to do it any other way at the time and I told no-one what I was doing, not even my doctor. it just wasn't working any more. I had been off Effexor for about 3 months and thought I had got through the worst of it although still had some withdrawal affects going on but I was functioning okay and sleeping. I thought I'd call my doctor and let him know what I did and that is where I went wrong. He told me to reinstate Effexor immediately at 75mg from memory, which I did because I felt like I had done something terribly wrong. Upon reinstatement my whole body went into shock and I couldn't move. It was shocking. My doctor told me to go into hospital and that he'd help fix it. By the time I left hospital I think I was on the minimum effective dose of Zoloft. After leaving hospital I found that the Zoloft was overstimulating and I didn't sleep for a week. I had to take 25mg of seroquel for sleep. Zoloft wasn't the right antidepressant for me. Without tapering off Zoloft, my doctor would try me on several different antidepressants over the next 6 weeks, including prozac, mirtazapine, brintalex, valdoxen, lexapro. I had adverse side affects to all of these medications and can't remember what dose he started me on. I believe now that my brain/body couldn't tolerate medication anymore. I needed to go back to hospital and I needed to find another doctor. I found another doctor and I think in February 2018 from memory, and I apologise that my memory is very vague due to my recent round of ECT. I think I started taking 20mg of Prozac, which did have it's challenges. I underwent a round of ECT, in April 2018 and left hosptial feeling better on 20mg of Prozac and Olanzapine - I can't remember this dose - maybe 5mg because 10mg was too much and I couldn't function on that amount. I agreed to take the Olanzapine only for 3 months to get myself back to work an back to life. When my doctor took me off the olanzapine I think she did it too quickly and the withdrawal was intense. It was so intense that I tried to commit suicide. Next step, back to hospital when my doctor suggested that I should go back onto Effexor as it had worked for me in the past. I was desperate, I didn't feel comfortable about it, but she's the doctor and knows best right? The current situation is that I came off Effexor 150mg (the original dose was 225mg), under the guidance of my psychiatrist in November 2018. She tapered me off the medication over 2 weeks. The reason I needed to come off Effexor was due to the fact that I just wasn't able to function whilst taking it, I actually felt worse. The hell that followed was horrendous and I did try and reinstate a low dose of Effexor although it just made matters worse. She had be do a course of TMS treatment and then my doctor suggested ECT . I agreed because I thought it was supposed to help with the withdrawal, although in hindsight I think she was trying to treat depression, when I told her I wasn't depressed and that I was experiencing was withdrawal. The ECT was a really bad idea. After the 9th ECT treatment I felt as though I was losing my mind, I felt like my brain was on fire. This sensation lasted quite a number of days and the only thing that helped was 5mg of valium as a PRN, which I took for about 6 days. I am now in such a state. I don't know where to turn. I can't sleep and I can't turn to my doctor for help because she has totally screwed me over. Please help me, I am so desperate. I am currently taking the following vitamins and supplements. Fish Oil 2000mg 4 x day N-acetylcysteine 1000mg 2 x per day Vitamin D 1 x day Vitamin C 1 x day Nux Vomica IM (when nauseous) Magnesium amino acid chalate - 1 scoop 2 x per day Naturopath remedies - Wellbeing mix 3 x day, soothing drops 3 x day, sleep support 2 x per day, Sleep and Rejuva Sleep Forte 4 x day, compounded melatonin 5mg for sleep.
I I was given zyprexa, lamictal, and remeron for chronic insomnia roughly 2 years ago. I stayed on these drugs for 1 1/2 years and after building up a tolerance still wasn't sleeping 1 to 2 nights per week. My psychiatrust diagnosed me w GAD and severe insomnia. He gave me lamictal during the day as he said he wanted to keep me alert as I have a stressful, high profile job. It actually made me anxious. When the meds started becoming even less effective and I developed horrible side effects (which I believe were caused by zyprexa, extreme weight gain, high blood sugar, dysphasia, tremors, etc.), my psychiatrist told me to quit them cold turkey and that I wouldn't experience any side effects. He gave me klonopin which I'm now addicted to and doesn't help me to sleep more than 2 hours if I sleep at all. I wish I had never listened to him. Since stopping these drugs I only sleep 0-2 hours per night (confirmed by 2 sleep studies), my cortisol levels are 5 times higher than an average person, I have developed GERD and irritable bowel, and because of my complete and utter exhaustion have injured myself by falling down the stairs several times due to dizziness and the inability to focus. I have been working like this for 5 months and can no longer live this way. My quality of life is zero, I'm constantly exhausted and a bundle of nerves (even w klonopin and natural supplements). I've tried meditation, CBT-I (has this been effective for anyone?), natural vitamins and supplements, have been to numerous doctors including sleep specialists, psychiatrists, general practitioners, neurologist, therapist, nutritionist and an acupuncturist. No one has been able to help me. If anything, I seem to be getting worse. Could someone please offer some guidance? I don't know where to turn. I can't keep living, functioning and working on 0-2 hours sleep and with cortisol levels that are through the roof. Thanks so much for your help!
I'm currently 5 months off fluroxetine (25mg daily for 10 years) and sleeping 2 hours a night if I'm lucky.. tried so many different supplements and sleep aids.. nothing works. My anxiety is at a constant high level and feel like if I could just get some hours sleep it might improve.. any tips?
Setu: Doxepin taper, withdrawing. Supplements?
I have been on 100 mg Doxepin more or less for 18 years treating insomnia. It has suppressed my adrenals enough that it could be contributing to Adrenal Fatigue but even on a sllllloooooowww taper (currently at 90 mg over course of 3 months), my system goes ballistic and I cannot sleep unless I increase my dose or am so zonked from not sleeping well that I get a good night in. Has anyone taken supplements or other medication to help with the taper? supplements I have tried but have had digestive of excitatory side effects: Seriphos (cortisol manager), L Theanine, 5 HTP, Melatonin, Magnesium, Hemp Sourced CBD oil). Melatonin was good but brought on depression. Most of these would have done the trick save for my tummy so perhaps this list will help someone else!
Moved from: alldaisy-zyprexa-withdrawal-severe-insomnia-and-lack-of-appetite Hi All, It is unfortunate to see that it is taking years to see a difference in your sleep pattern. I am in the same predicament - insomnia, broken sleep, and I no longer get that sleepy/tired feeling.. I now sleep for 0 -3 hours each night after quitting Zyprexa (I was put on it in January this year and I was tapered off it March). It takes me almost two hours to fall asleep and when I do, my sleep is broken - whereby I am awaken multiple times during that short sleep cycle each night. Please, as for all of you who have experienced insomnia due to Zyprexa withdrawal, how long did it take for your body to get back a normal sleep function? Did the ability for you to feel sleepy (sleepy-tired feeling/heavy eyes) return? I thought it would get better after a short while but I have been wrong.
Hi everyone, I have severe insomnia problem for more than a month. I was prescribed Zyprexa on March 29, 2018 and I took it only for less than 3 weeks. I stopped taking Zyprexa cold turkey and I switched to Risperidone 1mg. Now, I have severe insomnia. I cannot fall asleep and I just lied in bed from night to morning. My insomnia been going on for more than a 1 month. My questions for you. How many days, months, or years did it took you to sleep normal again after you withdraw or stop cold turkey from Zyprexa? Did you have to take another drug after stopping the Zyprexa to help you sleep? I'm desperate for advice and help. I really appreciate your input. Thank you.
So I "celebrate" one year of being clear of SSRIs this week. It has been one helluva ride. (my signature shows I had earlier experience with years of protracted WD. All those years no one told me it was withdrawal. But that's another story.) I never knew about protracted withdrawal or slow taper, so I stopped Lexapro CT last February and rode out the first two months of some "standard" WD symptoms - the ones that doctors acknowledge exist. I had brain storms, brain zaps, fatigue. By May the initial WD symptoms were subsiding, so I thought I was out of the woods. Then in July I got hit with a weird insomnia wave. It arrived with a scary sensation one night when I laid down. It felt like all the connections in my brain were disappearing one by one. It lasted for about three seconds. (I never felt anything like that before. I was very frightened. It was only then that I found these forums and discovered that SSRIs were the culprit. Thanks to all of YOU, I know what is causing my current symptoms.) The weird brain sensations were followed by a few weeks of terrible insomnia. Upon drifting off to sleep, my brain would yank itself back to wakefulness. Over and over, for hours. Known as hypnogogic/hypnotic "jerks". Horrible. The insomnia wave lasted for about three months. By the end of the wave, in October, my brain had restored itself to sound, restorative sleep. I now sleep better than I have for all five years I was on Lexapro. Hooray! That is major progress, a GREAT thing. So November was a GREAT month. So many great days. I thought I was out of the woods. But by December, I was getting ear ringing when laying down to sleep. Not bad during the day. Never had ear ringing before. But the ear ringing got worse, now it is 24/7. Some days worse than others. If I am busy in a noisy environment, it doesn't bother me, but moments of quiet and rest are plagued with this background ear ringing. Laying down to sleep my head is screaming. Wake up to the same. It is not typical tinnitus. It is head ringing. The ear ringing is just a manifestation of something that is going on in my brain. Hopefully it is a recovery process, and will subside over the next few months. Fingers crossed. When the ringing is bad, my head feels under pressure, and my ears feel clogged, they pop. When I wake up, and lay there listening to the ringing, I may get one brain zap. Here I am, one year off of SSRIs, and I still get the occasional brain zap. Very rare, thank goodness. But it is there, a calling card - this is all SSRI WD related. YES, doctors, brain zaps happen one year later. Sorry, your WD guidelines are WRONG. Others here have also testified that they get brain zaps a year or so after being off these drugs. I told my prescribing doctor about it. She said "maybe you need to be on Lexapro". LOL !!! Yeah, like a heroin addict needs to be on heroin because the withdrawals are so bad. These doctors are so clueless. How tragic for all of us. And all that will tread this path. Yes, I am tempted to go back on Lexapro to try to quiet my brain. NO, I have never even come close to popping a Lexapro pill back in my mouth. The drug DID pull me out of chronic dysthymia (long term, low grade depression) when I first took it. But the side effects and now WD effects are so horrific. I would NEVER have taken this drug if I knew what would happen. Taking Prozac and Lexapro destroyed the quality of my life over the last twelve years. If I could do ONE THING over in my life, it would be to NEVER have taken SSRIs. So here I am, one year clean. I am very hopeful for better days. I have good reason to hope; this head ringing is dynamic,the nature of it changes day by day. My brain is dealing with it in its own way. Years ago, my three-year long brain fog from Prozac WD went away. My years of WD fatigue went away. The sensitivity to light went away. The sweating went away. My insomnia went away, and now I sleep better than ever. So hopefully this head ringing will go away too. I have had it for two months now. They call it "Protracted SSRI Withdrawal Syndrome" and we are the survivors. Thank you all for being here - YOU have been my main source of comfort. It is YOU who have showed me what I am going through. Modern medicine has dropped the ball on this one. Big time!
Hello everyone, hope you are all hanging in there! Welcome to my story. I have included the basics within my signature and will expand where needed. I have only recently found this site, it seems it's going to be somewhere I'll be spending a lot of my time in the near future. Benzodiazepines I've dealt with the nightmares of Benzo withdrawal many times, panic attacks, heart palpitations and the endless list of ailments that come with it. My history of Benzo's began two years ago and I've tried many times to withdraw and remain withdrawn. I recently went my longest time ever (70 days) and was feeling better and better every week. I knew protracted withdrawal symptoms were bound to come in waves, but I kept telling myself I was over the worst. Then began the breakdown.... Mirtazapine My only other medication was good ole Mirtazapine (Remeron). I have also been on that for the same length of time but dosages, where somewhat, consistent when compared to my benzo usage. I had been on various dosages of Mirtazapine, over the two years I think I was always wanting to come of it but knew it was definitely having a positive effect on my sleep. I just had the mindset of not wanting to be dependent on any meds, due to my experience with benzo's. The Breakdown - INSOMNIAC I was 70 days clear from benzos, I felt immensely proud and positive about the future. Sometime during these 70 days, I began to lower my dose of Mirtazapine (30mg) to 22.5mg and then two/three weeks later I went down to 15mg. The week I was on 15mg I was just not feeling right, felt like flu-like symptoms, but mostly a heavy chest and overall lethargic feeling. I remember that I woke up a couple hours before my alarm one morning, something I've never done in the past. So I said to myself, "I'm going to go back up to 30mg and I bet this felling goes away". I took 30mg and the next day the symptoms had cleared up a lot, but then came that nightime...I couldn't fall asleep. I'd took 30mg for the second nigh but was not falling asleep. This had never happened before. As the hours went by, I became more panicked and more tired, which is disastrous when in benzo recovery. My heart was flopping every 15 seconds, so I took 6mg Diazepam and calmed. I still couldn't sleep though. Went to the doctors, void of sleep, and they gave me 7.5mg of Zopiclone. It put me to sleep for about 3 hours only. I visited the doctors non-stop over 5 days due to the insomnia and was prescribed Amiltriptiline (10mg), Hydroxyzine (25mg), Zopiclone (7.5mg), Propranolol (10mg) and Diazepam (10mg) - all in the space of a week. At one point I went three days without sleep and was exhausted and delirious. The doctors said to me, "if you can't sleep then take all the meds you've been prescribed". NONE OF THOSE MEDS MADE A DIFFERENCE. Zopiclone worked early on for a few hours sleep but during my three days awake, I was taking them all at different intervals and would remain wide awake. I am currently on 30mg Mirtazapine a night and 10mg Diazepam but I literally feel like I am not asleep. Ten hours will go by and I feel like I've been conscious the whole time, My girlfriend said I was snoring at one point though. I mentioned my reduction of Mirtazapine leading up to episode and he has put me up to 45mg, a dosage I was rarely on during my use of Mirtazapine. I've done a lot of internet searching and have diagnosed my self with a thousand different things. During this time I found out about all the horror stories on withdrawing from Mirtazapine. I realise now that I should not have been withdrawing from Mirtazapine until benzo's were long in the past, but I still feel like I don't know the cause. I've been asking questions like: -Could this be anything not related to Diazepam withdrawal or Mirtazapine withdrawal? -Could Mirtzapine have stopped working? -Was the insomnia a protracted withdrawal from Benzo's? - i thought less of this one after realizing that reinstating Benzo's never helped with the sleep at all. They've simply kept my anxiety symptoms at bay. It has been two weeks since I got back on 30mg of Mirtazapine and sleep is still the same. I worry the most because without sleep, I will be in a constant panic mode and stopping Benzo's this time would seem impossible. Sleep was the one thing that got me through the withdrawal of Benzo's. Thanks for anyone who read the above, seems like a lot of really genuine and helpful people on this board. I REALLY appreciate any thoughts and input.
I quit Lexapro and 3 weeks later i simply stopped sleeping. It has been 4 months now and I have insomnia every day unless i take benzos. I have tried trazodone, zolpidem, CBTI and lithium. nothing works and i am getting more and more suicidal. i litterally have to stay on benzos otherwise i will be consumed by obcessive thoughts of death. I cannot go on like this any longer. Has anyone ever had this experience? will it ever stop?