Graduated reduction under the supervision of a medical provider. I went off a medication without supervision, once, and it was a disaster.
I ended up going to a regular SSRI and working with a compounding pharmacy to taper very slowly. Talk to your doctor!
I still get spasms when sleepy or tired after almost 10 years.
You should be titrating with the guidance of your doctor. This is a medical question you should be asking a medical professional
Taper, taper, taper. And fuck the guidelines because everyone is different.
Once you are the point of splitting pills, get a digital scale to measure out what you need. Make sure a 20mg capsule has 20 mg of powder, because if it has more, you likely have some filler in there and you don't know if you're getting medicine or filler.
If you really are getting fussy about the dose, you can distill the medicine in water and then get a measured dropper to measure your dose. So if you put 50 mg into 500 ml of water, then you have 1 mg in every 10 ml of water.
Go as fast as you tolerate it, but it might be really slow. Think in terms of months or years.
And work with a doctor if you can, but, honestly, a lot of them are straight up incompetent when it comes to tapering, and since you need to have something to taper off of it's also a strategy to keep a higher dose scrip than you need to build up your store.
Taper and get help with a doc sure, but tampering with meds isn't risk free. Depends on the taper and the drugs. For example, delayed release functions are physical and stop working when the pill is crushed. With the above guidance, you could accidentally end up with too much in the morning and too little in the evening.
Also each med has a specific pharmacokinets profile that identifies how long the drug lasts before your body can eliminate it. This will guide you on how long a taper might need to be.
Do it with a doctor's help. If doctors aren't available, ask a pharmacist for guidance on next steps.
Yes, thank you for completing the information. Time release is certainly a factor in pill splitting.
How would you use the half-life of a drug in your system in your taper schedule? I just continued the same daily course of treatment, but for longer acting drugs, I'd experiment with spacing out the doses before I starting pill splitting.
My experience tapering under supervision was entirely negative. First, they said the drugs weren't working, yet they refused to take me off of them. It is only when I said I was already in the process of tapering that they agreed. Then they gave me a rapid taper (one month), which was WAY outside anything I'd seen online. Then they FORBADE me from splitting the pills or diluting them, even though I wasn't able to sleep after going off the smallest dose. (My comment about the filler was because that was one reason she gave for forbidding pill splitting; even presented with the evidence that a 20mg capsule measured 20mg of mass, she still refused). Instead of allowing pill-splitting they offered me--I am not making this up--more drugs to help me sleep, drugs that I would have to taper off of!
So, ultimately, I tapered on my own using meds from a higher scrip I requested when i falsely admitted that I wanted to give the meds another try. I honestly don't understand our absolute reliance on medical professionals who only know about us what we tell them.
You mentioned pharmacists, which make me think you're in Europe? [Edit: I see you're Canadian, aka, soon-to-be-minted Honorary European] Here in the US, pharmacists are underutilized by law; I did talk to them about compounding to get a smaller dose, but the cost was absolutely nuts.
You just have to wait until they go away. Couple of weeks is what I was told and close to what I experienced.
I think I might cry every day if this lasts that long
I also went through this. I also just toughed it out and radically accepted and expected them to happen tbh, and I didn't taper off either, I just got off them immediately which is inadvisable but I have a thing where i'd rather have big pain fast than small pain slow. I got them multiple times every minute or so for (I think) between 2 and two weeks.
Be very kind to yourself, give yourself some grace and treat yourself. you're going through a lot and you deserve to be given TLC while you're going through it <3
Sending you strength!
It absolutely sucks but try to remember that the zaps are harmless and will go away eventually. And while it could last a few weeks, it could be as little as a few days.
In addition I‘d say treat yourself very well. My brainzaps usually went away in 3-4 days and on those days I was treating myself with a lot of ice cream
Do they hurt? SSRI withdrawal gave me like static on one eyebrow but it didn’t hurt
They don't hurt per se. I think it's different per person, but I feel it in my ears first, like I'm flexing them and making them rumble, then I get the sound of static and then my eyes feel like they involuntarily look left and right. I also kinda feel a little bit of a tingle across the top of my head or my brain - so I do get the zap of them as well. This all happens within maybe half a second or less, but it's multiple times a minute.
Not truly life altering, but the combination of ear rumbles and eye movements are making me hella dizzy all day
I found this site helpful when getting off of Effexor. I’ve linked an old round ip thread on supplements that help with withdrawal symptoms.
I did find that Omega 3’s and magnesium helped a little. But ultimately, you iust have to ride it out. Sorry you’re getting such severe symptoms. Hope you feel better soon.
I still get them (very) occasionally. It’s been about 15 years.
Just gotta plow through. I wish they hadn’t prescribed it as a first line.
I was on Lexapro 25mg for about a year and a half or so and just recently tapered off of it. My bf had warned me about using SSRIs and didn't realize the hard part about it was getting off of it. I'm currently on my 2nd week of experiencing brain zaps and it hasn't exactly lessened in severity. I did notice that my brain zaps are circadian in that it's at its peak during the night for me. It helped for me to stay bedridden as much as possible and minimize movements. I've also heard that stress and high caffeine levels make it worse and I notice it in me as well, so I'd probably try to avoid those.
Good luck on your journey and hopefully it gets easier soon.
10ish years ago I was on an absurd amount Paxil (80 mg) and had to stop cold-turkey when I got laid off and lost insurance. I got them for 3 months before they finally went away. At first I couldn't even sleep because they'd keep me up. Firing off every 15-20 mins. I'm really sorry that I don't have great advice to make it more bearable, but I can say it does get better with time.
Oh my god, you poor thing
Swap to long half life SNRI and taper down
I'll probably be on my SNRI (strattera) for the rest of my life so sadly I am of no help to your brain zappies 💔
My ex would try and hide in the dark when she got brain zaps but otherwise didn't seem to have much else that helped sadly.
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