Tried to stop antidepressants

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I foolishly tried to stop taking my antidepressant Paxil and thought again I could somehow do it without tapering. I stoped taking it three days ago and yesterday started developed panic attacks. I took a GABA gummie and a Magnesium supplement thinking it would help alleviate some of it. It didn't do alot. I woke up this morning with this sick feeling. I felt feverish even though I didn't have a fever. I ended up restarting my antidepressant today and became even sicker. My head felt hot like it was running a fever. My stomach began to be tied in knots and had bad nausea. I almost wonder if I got COVID or the Flu but am thinking it's the withdrawal.

I think I need to get some help because I really don't want to be on antidepressants anymore but keep trying to find a way off. I don't know what to do. Whenever I talked to a Primary Care nurse practioner she advised me that you can just take Paxil "every other day" to taper which I don't think you can do with an antidepressant as it's meant to be taken daily. I need to be tapered off properly but know it has to be done slowly in my case. I am on a low dose of medication right now (25mg extended release). I seem to be very sensitve though to antidepressant withdrawal. It's horrible. I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worse enemy with this. Please let my story above also be a cautionary one of what not to do.

Good luck.

I've been anti depressant free for 3 years now. It is possible, but it needs patience with the withdrawal symptoms.

I haven't used Paxil before myself. If memory serves, that is one of the worse ones. I did try and come off Venlafaxine though (unsuccessfully) which also has very bad withdrawal effects. It may be worth seeing if you can change to something else like Fluoxetine first as that (and others) aren't as bad.

Thank you! That's awesome you've been free for three years! Did you have a lot of trouble with withdrawal if you don't mind me asking? Using Fluoxetine as a bridge to get off Paxil is a good idea with the long half-life it has! I might try to go that route. Venlafaxine is also very bad I heard with withdrawal. I wish there was an easier way to get off these medications.

With Venlafaxine, I only had a limited supply (incompetent doctors' surgery), so it was very difficult to make a few tablets last a long time. I got so desperate that I just found a new doctor instead who gave me Citalopram.

Coming off the citalopram was a lot easier as I had two boxes (56 tablets) spare, which was plenty to last some time. If memory serves, I started taking one every other day, then half every other day, then half every few days. That is probably not ideal as you will still get withdrawal symptoms, but taking a tablet will alleviate it. But unless you can get a doctor to prescribe something different like either fluoxetine, or something in liquid form or different dose tablets, you'll just have to make do.

Withdrawal symptoms I had were tiredness, very strong emotions, a cough/fever (probably what you would describe as "flu like symptoms") and the weird 'brain zaps' you may have read about on the internet. Not pleasant, but also not dangerous. I was more or less over it after about 6 months.

To be honest it was not as bad as what some people on the internet describe, but it was still very unpleasant.

I had to make do as I didn't have access to a doctor. If you do, it is worth telling them about any symptoms, and asking for their help with withdrawal.

Probably best to do it gradually, a little a time.

My first antidepressant was amitriptyline, but I found it uncomfortable and it kept me awake the first time. I stopped before I got used to it.
Next...years later, was fluoxetine, with which i did the same thing.
After Mum died I was put on venlafaxine, which I persevered with until I realised it was making me suicidally fixated, and it scared me enough to cold turkey.
This resulted in syncope and erectile dysfunction for a few months.
When I started pain clinic they gave me low dose amitriptyline for pain and sleep, but over the years they preferentially bumped that rather than my opioids until I was on a psychiatric dose.
I developed a truckload of physical symptoms in the last 2 years before I started tapering, plus the suicidal fixation again. It wasn't until I begged the short term psych treatment team to change my antidepressant to something that didn't mess with my serotonin balance, and the psych decided to increase my amitriptyline dose, that I realised amitriptyline was the CAUSE of my suicidal ideation.
I immediately dropped back a few bumps and most of my symptoms started disappearing.
With a little research in the US NLM I stumbled across "insidious onset serotonin toxicity"
and presented my GP with my self diagnosis.
I spent 6 months tapering and found amitriptyline withdrawal was substantially worse than oxycodone withdrawal. During this period I had a variety of rebound effects, and some effects that were exacerbated. After completing the taper there were a different set of bound/rebound symptoms. When these started to settle I developed new symptoms...tongue thrusting, speech difficulties, crico-pharyngeal spasm, neck rigidity, loss of dynamic balance and frequent general cramping in muscles that have never cramped before.
With another delve in the library I found amitriptyline was known to sometimes induce tardive dyskinesia (or in my case, tardive dystonia).
Great... This is a permanent condition that only responds to treatment 10-20% of the time, and rarely for discontinuation induced dyskinesia.
Apparently restarting amitriptyline won't help.
My GP can't start meds for it before I've seen a neurologist, and the public waiting list is so long I haven't made it onto the list yet. My nearest hospital neurology clinic palmed me immediately to speech pathology, so it seems I'm expected to relearn how to talk before ascertaining if meds will do anything.

My advice to everyone (even knowing how atypically I respond to many pharmaceuticals) is to avoid antidepressants of any variety if possible.
Find a support group, get some new friends, get laid, because even if an antidepressant works it may only be temporary and there may be SERIOUS discontinuation results.

My wife got off a similar med last year around the time we realized she had AS and didn't need a med for a different condition. The withdraw was TOUGH. She didn't sleep correctly for a few weeks, had some weird mood swings, and then had to, in her words, figure out how to find "real happiness" instead of "fake happiness".

It will be a year next Friday since she took her last pill. She didn't taper like she should have, which made things tough (initially she started tapering but then went for a crash landing). I don't really blame her as the side effects were horrific.

I'm a teacher and have had some students come off these types of meds. Most of them have some focus problems not long after they get off, so be aware that it may happen. (This also happened to my wife, but she seems generally better these days; the only issue is getting her going sometimes but even that I think is improving).

Bottom line is that you CAN get off them, but be prepared to face a few challenges and try to make the taper gradual.

AIUI medical advice on ceasing antidepressants has always been to taper off the dosage gradually and carefully to help minimise the withdrawal affects.
Even then there may be unwanted effects - my withdrawal from Nardil some years ago was extremely unpleasant, resulting in general panicky hyper-alert feelings and random electric shock sensations ('brain zaps'). It took months to be free of it.

More recently I was given Venlafaxine and later, Citalopram - each with their own withdrawal effects which was particularly annoying as they didn't do much for me.

I am currently on Quetiapine (aka Seroquel) and Sertraline (aka Zoloft) and fully aware that neither must suddenly be stopped. I wouldn't actually want to do that because this combination is working very well.

So yeah, if there are alternatives available to you that don't involve medication those are probably preferable - but if on medication, and it's working out Ok, it's definitely not advisable to stop without appropriate monitoring by your doctor.
Personally I've never been worried by any "oooh, medication baaad" feeling - if it's pill-sized and it works, go for it.

As for the expected side-effects through usage, the information enclosed with medication tends to be a laundry list of everything from a little dizziness to limbs dropping off - it's often so all-encompassing as to be laughable and seems to be largely a butt-covering exercise.

Slow and steady wins the race

I just found the Royal College of Psychiatrists (here in England) has an excellent web page about stopping anti depressants. It includes examples about the symptoms, how to taper, and even breaking up extended release capsules. Its well worth a read:

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health ... epressants

^ Useful information - thanks!