Stoppping with Medication on your own

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Disclaimer: i do not want to persuade anyone here to do what i've did. Altough it helped me, it may not help you and may even make thinks worse.

In the past 8 years, i was on 3 different drugs:

-Fluoxetine (against depressions, also known under the commercial name Prozac)
-Risperidone (against psychotic episodes (!) which i never had, also known under the commercial name Risperdal)
-Akineton (against side-effects of Risperidone)

As i was fed up the way all those institutions treated me, i stopped with them. I only did the Prozac in steps (20mg -> 15mg -> 10mg -> 5mg -> nothing). All by myself. It turned out to be very relieving and i felt much better. And the people around me saw almost only positive effects, just like me. I got to live again. Something those psychiatrists never expected. Especially for a ``hopeless'' case...

Does anyone else here stopped with medication by him/herself? What were the results? Positive? Negative? Something inbetween? I would really like to know...

I stopped Seroquel (quetiapine), Lithium, Wellbutrin, and something else all at the same time. While I did not do it on my own, I might as well have: I got no assistance at all from doctors beyond telling me how slowly to taper it.

It was bad, even with supervision. I had a lot of withdrawal effects and everyone kept acting like they were signs of how I would normally be, because they honestly believed there's no withdrawal. Like excruciating pain, sensory distortions, cognitive problems, and a lot of unmasked movement problems. I started stimming again, which was frowned upon, but I'd been mostly too sedated to stim. It took me over a year to get all my cognitive abilities back to a reasonable approximation of what they've been ever since, but they got there.

Prior to that, I'd gone off things on my own several times, but not by tapering. And what had happened was always that when people found out (and I wasn't socially skilled enough to be secretive), I'd either:

1. Get locked up.
2. Get injected.
3. Get pills stuffed down my throat (someone would stick a pill in my mouth, throw water in, and force my mouth shut).
4. Get tied down.
5. Get threatened in various ways (if you don't take this we'll abandon you to the state, if you don't take this we'll dump you on the streets, if you don't take this we'll kill you, etc).
6. Some combination of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (depending on where I was already).

So I didn't get a lot of chance to know what it felt like. I'm lucky my doctor decided it was a good idea to take me off everything, because I was under the kind of control where if he hadn't, I would've stayed on them one way or the other.

I stopped on my own and most times the results were negative, it'd take longer for me to get back into meds as my depression would get much worse after each time. It's not really wise to stop medications without a drs supervision any time.

Unfortunately i know a load of people (who _aren't_ doctors) that know more about recovering from medication then every doctor seems to know. Doctors always say: it's wise to do this and that, and it's not wise to do this and that. Wow. That really helps me :| It's just what we call ``farmer wisdom'' here in Holland: Better take a nice long walk 3 times a day then stay on medication, stay like a weak greenhouse plant. And that's just one example of the rule: Be informed well, but take your own decision.

And that's the only thing i did.

It seems like i'm the only one here who takes matters into his own hands instead of doing things like nth ``expert'' lectures you. And the only one who has accomplished success with it.

That's a fairly broad statement to make given the replies you got.

I'm not only talking about this thread. Almost everywhere where others seem to have problems i don't.

But that's a discussion for http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... 8850#38850
And that's only to keep it clean in this thread, not to get more replies on my post there!

I don't think so. For instance, I escaped the psych system on my own despite extreme protests from the professionals around me, I tend to challenge "experts" at every opportunity, and consider myself fairly successful. But you didn't ask about that, you asked specifically about drugs.

It really takes more than a few days to figure out what people on a forum have and have not done.

Also remember if you stop meds on your own and you end up negative side effects and all and end up needing medical attention, that doesn't look quite well with a doctor especially meds that are addictive and can cause withdrawl issues and all.

Exactly. That's where the other thread is for.



There is a difference between ``seems to have'' and ``has''. In other words: what i read until now conforms to that description. How can i know what people reveal in the future (except some obvious things :P )?

I have been on numerous amounts of medications, especially antipsychotics while I had the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.

I also stopped my medications. The last time, I was on 1000mg of Seroquel, 40mg of Geodon, and 75mg (I think) of PaxilCR. Well, the Paxil I didn' take religously enough to give me bad withdrawal symptoms. I should have stopped it slowly, even though I didn't. NEVER STOP MEDS COLD TURKEY. That can be the most dangerous thing to do.

Next, I took myself off the Geodon. That wasn't too bad. Then I took myself off the Seroquel. THIS was horrible. I had a good month or so of incredible night-sweats and some nightmares. It was agony. But I didn't want to be on them anymore because they made me sleep so much.

After I had gone off the meds, about maybe two months later I told my caseworker that I did so and she seemed very surprised. She asked me how I was doing, and I said that I was feeling fine. Over the next couple of months she told me over and over that she couldn't believe how well I was doing without any medications and came to the conclusion that I hadn't needed them at all.

I took myself off of most of these slowly. I must say, I am in the habit of taking myself off of meds once I realize I do not need them any longer. I rarely consult the pdoc. But, I also know the correct way in which the pdoc would instruct me. And I also know that I might have to go back on the med once off it in case I was wrong in my assessment of "not needing" it. For the most part, I haven't had to go back on any meds. I think it is best to know one's body and mind. BUT TO NEVER QUIT MEDS COLD TURKEY. One always needs to research the SAFE and PROPER way to get off a particular med. And also look into the med combinations if there is a different way to go off a med if taken with something else.

I am not recommending to go off one's meds. But if one is determined, one needs to do it SAFELY and do the proper research on how to do it. I know with Paxil and stopping suddenly, there have been a few people who have died (I cannot quote where this came from; it is hearsay from my mother who was a psychotherapist and read it in her own research).

Prozac causes withdrawal issues. I've experienced them. Sometimes a small depression, but i did go on with life, i worked, i made fun, and my boyfriend and other friends and just a nice walk 3 times a day in the country got me out of it in a few days every time. And those occasions only made me stronger. Along with the will to live.

Let me guess. Those people also believed that women could not think at the same level that men can, and people that claimed to be gay were actually diseased?



I totally agree.



My Prozac also caused me to sleep way too much. They even tried to convice me of the ``need'' for sleeping medicine.



That's exactly how they reacted here. And what did they do? They didn't say ``sorry'' at all. They were just silent with an embarassed look. Never an apology. When i asked a second opinion the other social worker said that ``it would be unprofessional'' to apologize. Bastards.



Well, the dose of the Risperidone and the Akineton was not that high, so i decided to stop with them immediatly. The Prozac in 4 steps, from my original amount of 20 mg.



Exactly. I have been talking to psychatrists so long that i knew what to do. Ofcourse combined with my own thoughts about the matter.



Yes, that's why i stopped the Risperidone and Akineton at the same time, as they were related.



Again, i can't help to agree :)

I've stopped taking my meds before.. I thought I didn't need them. I was wrong. I went in a downhill spiral.

I think you should talk to a doctor before even considering it.

I think if you don't already have the information you should talk to a knowledgable person before considering it, but that knowledgable person might not be a doctor. In my case it was a doctor because I didn't really (in part because of the meds themselves) have the mental faculties to figure it out, and because I was in a situation where any not-med-taking would've been noticed. I would have rather done it either alone or under the "supervision" of some of the psych survivors I've known who've done it themselves, because they wouldn't be pressuring me to get back onto it at every sign of unpleasantness.

But I am so much better off without the meds I was on, and with today choosing whether to take a drug or not on my own terms and not on a doctor's, that I don't think a doctor always knows best. For me there were several months of utter hell, a year of lesser hell, and then I re-adjusted to not being on them and was way better off.

Today if I want to take a medication (for anything) I read all about it first and make sure that it's something I want to be taking. I have caught mistakes my doctors couldn't predict, such as my extreme reactions to neuroleptics and beta-blockers (I was once given a neuroleptic that's so mild that it wasn't listed as a neuroleptic in the pocket guide, and had a strong reaction, and I was the one who eventually noticed, not the doctor; another time it was a drug that increased my asthma greatly at a dose lower than it normally does that to people, so the doctor hadn't warned me and I woke up with only half a lungs full of air). Both those examples I just gave were for aspects of migraines, not anything psychiatric but the doctors still didn't realize what they'd do to me.

A lot of psychiatrists I've noticed will say that you absolutely have to stay on a drug, and that the withdrawal is something like "re-emerging illness" when it's actually often just withdrawal. I don't really care if others want to take drugs (psychiatric or otherwise, legal or illegal) but I do know that if I had to do it over again I wouldn't risk asking a psychiatrist and putting myself under suspicion of a "non-compliant patient". When I was labeled non-compliant in the past, all hell broke loose in ways that would not have happened if I'd been able to stop without them knowing.

Fortunatly here in Holland, it takes _a lot_ before you are labeled non-compliant. My doctors (except for my general doctor, who lives 12 meters away :D ) just didn't see fit and would not help me. If i stopped, it would be my own responsibility, unless my mother did not agree. Well, my mother thought is was a case of my own, so i stopped. Nothing could have stopped me except if i injured myself or others, which was not the case. And still then the worst thing they could do is put me in an isolated cell to calm down, and when that caused trouble they could inject me with temporary (20 minutes or so) active drugs. But stuffing pills down my throat or threatening they would abandon me to the government? Aboslutely not. That's out of law here. Guess we're lucky here.

More recently, I was also on Paxil again. This I had actually asked for and agreed that I needed it because at the time things were going horribly for me; depression was very bad as were my anxieties. So I was prescribed Paxil, 20mg.

I took it for about five months. Towards the end of those five months, I was feeling better, and not just because the Paxil was helping but because my life had improved considerably (I tend to get situational depression and not Major Depression which can often even be unrelated to the situation, sometimes). So, I felt at that point, prompted by some of the unwanted side effects, that it was time to go off the Paxil. First, I consulted my pdoc, asking not to be taken off of the med, but instead the nature of just regular non-SSRI anti-anxiety meds. I found out that these, for the most part, were fairly unpleasant and also came with an addictive quality to them. I then went home and read more about each anti-anxiety med in a psych med book that my mother gave me from when she retired from her practice. I realized that I did not want to be on anti-anxiety meds either (the anxiety had certainly lessened but it is by no means ever gone). But I knew that I no longer needed the SSRI because I was no longer depressed. I know myself well enough to know the moods of my depression and what can kick on episode off.

So, I very slowly took myself off the Paxil: full pill one day, half pill the next, for about two weeks; then half pills each day for two weeks; then half pills every other day; and finally none.

I informed my pdoc later and said I was no longer on the Paxil. He said basically "Alright, but I think you'll find you will probably need to go back on it."

The next month and the month after that, he asked how I was doing. My depression has been fine. It was fun kinda watching him eat his own words, and looking very surprised. I did decide, in the end, to ask him for some Ativan on an as-needed basis which I could take once in awhile if the anxiety became overwhelming, this way I would not become addicted. I have yet to take any since life is fairly calm right now. But I have them there just in case, right in my little ol' medicine cabinet.