Has anyone tried to withdraw from anti depressants, felt like depression came back but pushed through and it lifted?

[Fatnangry]

Sorry..bit specific.
Just looking for experiences. I know that withdrawal symptoms mimic depression but I don't know how long you hang on to decide if it's depression or its withdrawal and just stick it out?

(I am doing it v carefully and GP is aware)

Not in my case. I drop the dose a little every few years (not weeks or months), in the Spring. I get more depressed but, as it's summer, it's tolerable and I use it as a breathing space to work on living with depression, so I've got 'tools' to help me cope with the winter downswing.

I don't think I'll ever be off them altogether. I was taking the max safe dose of two prescriptions; now it's relatively high but in the middle range.

What you're describing is the textbook scenario - assuming your depression was situation dependent and the situation has improved, you should be able to bumble on through the readjustment, then find you feel better. Do use therapy to help you through! Online CBT courses are often very good at this.

Sorry, you asked how long? The usual answer is 6-12 weeks. Given the time of year, maybe look towards March. Good luck ⛅

I came off citalopram over the course of a year. The dizziness spells were awful. Eventually came off completely at the end of 2017. Then my libido came back with a vengeance and I started internet dating and met my now husband a few months later 🤣

I'm trying now to cut down at least the prozac (fluoxetine) that I have been on for over 20 years. The GPs advice was to cut down far far more quickly than I felt able to do & I'm shocked he thought I could get off them in a matter of weeks.

It's taken about 6 years to get down to just one a day (20 mg) and about 3 months to miss one on one day a week. I tried missing out two pills a week and have felt waves of despair that have been quite sudden & overwhelming. Eg I was relatively happily pottering in tesco in Dec and suddenly was crying & wishing I could just die.

The GP said I should go back up to the full dose, one every day, but I'm not going back to square one with this. I've got this far & I'll stay on 5 pills a week (rather than 7) for the next 3 months or so & see how it goes.

Sorry, this is a long answer. But the gist of what I'm trying to say is: yes, the depression or similar has come back & shocked me how bad it's been but it hasn't lasted long each time & I have buggered on through it & will continue to do so.

Comorospearl would you mind if u private message you? I'm in EXACTLY same situation

I came off venlafaxine last year. Although it says not to cut them up that's what I did. I eased myself off from 1 tab per day to half a day for two weeks. Then half every other day. Then every third day. Stopped completely after 5 weeks approx.

I came off a low dose of sertraline in May. Well started slowly then. By October my anxiety returned and November I was back on them and a bigger dose. I'm now back to the smaller dose. I think I'll always be on them now albeit this tiny dose (25mg).

I joined fb group called cymbalta hurts worse. There are probably similar pages for other SSRIs/ SNRIs. Eye opening. GPs do not understand these drugs and do not give safe advice for coming off them. The only safe way is to taper and be taper I mean, opening the capsules and counting the beads and reducing the dose by no more than 5% every few weeks. I started with 30mg of cymbalta, which has c110 beads per capsule. I'm now down to around 30 beads and I will reduce by 1 or 2 beads every couple of weeks, until I stabilise at that dose. These drugs are very difficult to come off. The withdrawals are horrific and long lasting and will make you think you are experiencing symptoms of mental health and so you end up back on the drug. I'm not a medic, or anti pharma etc just trying to get off this drug safely and this method appears to be the safest even it it will take me a couple of years to be free of it.

Please do. I'd be very glad to share this with someone & I have no idea how to PM you but hope it will be easy to be respond to yours x

Yes I totally agree. This is 4th time in 20 years I've tried to get off them. My gp is lovely but I think withdrawing after 20yrs is very different to withdrawing after 2 years. I'll Google search

Following this as I'm another one who has been on ADs for more than 20 yrs. Often on very low doses but never managed to get off completely despite very slow withdrawals.

I've paid privately to see a specialist GP later this week. This GP specialises in prescribing anti depressants and mental health. I hoping to get some advice from them. I'll report back.

I'm currently on 10mg of prozac every other day (on week 9 of doing this) and am really struggling with low mood and weepiness
(However am also menopausal, find Xmas horribly stressful and hate the dark cold winter so no idea what is what!)

I came off sertraline after 10 years. I tapered from March to June. It was horrendous, both physically and mentally, and the depression came back a month or two after I had stopped taking the pills which I naturally assumed was my normal depression.

however, I did push through simply because I was not at that point able to start a new course of drugs (I was lone parenting for a stretch and chose the devil I know over the unknown side effects of starting a new drug). the depression was deep and hard and lasted about a week, which is much shorter than my normal symptoms.

one day, I just felt better. I can only assume it was the drugs finally leaving my system.

on the other side, I am now no longer taking any medication and I honestly feel better than I did for the last year of SSRIs. I have support from a (private) therapist and am very open to taking medication again in the future. But for now this is the best I’ve been in a while.

i don’t know what to recommend because i don’t think what i did was safe. I followed the GPs advice on halving the dose every week and I think that was too steep. A more gentle taper would probably be wiser.

I guess my advice would be to plan lots of support in the weeks and months after you’ve come off the drugs because even when you’re not taking them they could still be working their way through your system, especially if you’ve been on them for a long time.

Thank you snowpake..this is really interesting. I think in the past thats what's happened. I've come off the tablets and then 2mths later the depression has kicked in and I've gone back on the tablets. I think now that maybe it was withdrawal.

It's so hard tho cos you need to function too!!

Check the half life of Prozac. Cymbalta has a half life of 12 hours which means alternating a dose every second day leaves you in a permanent state of withdrawal so the withdrawal effects are impossible.

Update:

I went to see a private specialist. Very interesting and validating. She said that coming off anti ds after long term use is VERY complex and much harder to negotiate. This validates how hard im finding it and reasurres me I'm not just being 'soft'.

Im on fluoxetine. 10mg on alternate days.
Specialist has advised this is too drastic. So plan for me (on fluoxetine) is to go back up a dose and take 10mg everyday then when I'm stabilised move to liquid fluoxetine and come down 1mg at a time.

This might be different for different drugs and not all drugs come in liquid form.

Hope this is useful feedback for someone

Onwards and upwards

That sounds really helpful and hopeful @Fatnangry - best of luck with it