Coming off medication. Any advice?

[hk1993x]

Hi all, me again.

I'm on 400mg lithium and 20mg fluoxetine for apparently treatment resistant depression. But I feel its more anxiety!! 😫 I have a diagnosis of anxiety depression and OCD.

The mornings are the hardest with anxiety and I feel that if I didn't have the anxiety, it wouldn't feed into the OCD and depression?

Right now on these meds, I don't feel myself. I feel numb and stupid? Like any positive feelings have been dampened down also.

My psychiatrist is on an extended annual leave just now but I've called the surgery to ask for a call back or an appointment.

I've decided to stop all meds. It's been 8 years of trial and error, meds, ECT you name it and I'm tired. I want to get back to who I was before all this started if that's even possible.

Has anyone had success or tips etc when coming off all medications?

I don’t think you should attempt to come off your medication without the advice of a psychiatrist. You could end up feeling a lot worse than you do at the moment if it isn’t tapered off appropriately.

Also, it would be worth sticking with it for a while longer because you have only been on the Lithium for a couple of weeks so it probably hasn’t taken full effect yet.

Every time I stopped my meds on my own - I ended up being so unwell and being sectioned again.

please please please speak to your dr and do this with their help.

it took years to get my meds right and now my lithium level is stable I am living again not existing,

I know how frustrating and exhausting it is having mh issues and trying to find the right meds - but don’t change meds without medical support.

lithium for me is a game changer but it took a long time to get the right dose / combo etc .
other thing I would suggest is find a good private therapist. Don’t wait for non existent nhs services to materialise. Invest in yourself - I know it’s expensive - but it is so worth it.

Great advice

After having severe treatment resistant pnd I ended up on quite a concoction - lamotrigine, lithium, mirtazapine and quetiapine.
Over 18 months I have been reducing the meds slowly. Lamotrigine was the first to go, it was the last medication I was put on and the one I had the least faith that it was doing anything.
Following that I wanted to remove the lithium. I was giving me panic attacks in the middle of the night and would wake up feeling like I was drowning. When I was first put on it my mood was so low and the lithium made the difference between me being at home and not in hospital so whilst this want ideal it was better than not being on the lithium. When my mood became more stable whether it was worth started to shift. I also wanted to try to conceive a second child and I couldn't do so on my lithium dose. I am very sensitive to antidepressants so I didn't want to stay on the mirtazapine without being on lithium so I reduced and stopped the mirtazapine before reducing and stopping the lithium. It took 3 months to stop mirtazapine and 5 months to stop the lithium. I had to have an extra month on the lowest dose of lithium as I was getting some signs of hypomania and I need to make sure that wasn't getting worse before removing completely.

I have previously had dramatic changes in medication. During a previous depression I was on olanzapine and lamotrigine for severe depression. The olanzapine made me dizzy and had to lie down to avoid fainting 5-6 mornings a week. I had a single small dose of an antidepressants which sent me manic in 12h. It was decided that the combination of olanzapine and lamotrigine was not helping my depression and they weren't working as antimanics either so I couldn't take them with antidepressants. I was taken off both over 1-2 weeks and they were cross titrated with quetiapine (as they were reduced quetiapine was increased).

The most important thing is to do it with support and with a plan. My admission to hospital when I had the pnd came about after I stopped one of my antidepressants and was about to start removing my other medications too.

How are you getting on @hk1993x ?