@Nemina I am still tapering (currently at cca 0,15mg of Zoloft) and I am tapering despite the symptoms. If I wait for the symptoms to stop - how do I know when will that be? I know for some people it takes years to fully recover. Waiting years to continue tapering is out of the question for me. It makes no sense... I don't think there is "one size fits all" in all of this. There are recommendations, for sure, but also I think we should proceed according to individual needs and capabilities. Do it with caution but not excessive caution. If the symptoms are unbearable, then yes, hold or slow down. I feel I can handle my symptoms for now, and I am determined to taper off completely. Whenever I start feeling I need a break, I do a longer hold.

4 hours ago, Nemina said:

I have a question. I have heard, that you should not go on tapering as long as you have withdrawal symptoms. @Chippy just wrote about this to Skamen for example. But what I don’t understand: how do people ever keep tapering if you cannot drop while experiencing withdrawal symptoms? I’m holding for more than three months now. Shall I really keep holding until I I’m not experiencing any withdrawal symptoms anymore? I am having windows and waves usually about three days long. Windows are not longer. And in the window, I have a lot of withdrawal symptoms, like back pain, nausea, headache, sadness and fatigue.  Those are constant. I consider them still as windows, because I do not feel the existential dread and the anxiety. If those two lessen down, to me it’s a window.

I am better than I was a year ago, I think, but not better than I was six months ago. so do you guys really wait until you have no more withdrawal symptoms or clean windows before you do your next drop? I think this is a very general question that many people have and it would be interesting to hear the perspectives of different people.

Hey

 

Its a good question.

 

For me it is about trying to understand your situation and listening to your body.

 

You can have symptoms for alot of reasons.

 

If you have symptoms due to an med injury because of a fast taper/cold turkey/ADR then these will persist even if your taper from a different drug is going well.

 

I think the trick is to work out what are WD symptoms from the drug you currently tapering.

You can tell this if the timing of the drop coincides with onset of the symptoms. Then I would hold or even updose after a week to settle these symptoms down before continuing more slowly. If they ease once you hold there is more evidence they are WD symptoms. My concern about continuing your taper whilst experiencing WD symptoms from the drug you are taking is it will make your nervous system more irritated.

Basically I think sometimes we are injured from our drug history AND get wd symptoms from lowering doses.

Does that make sense?

1 hour ago, Marina said:

@Nemina I am still tapering (currently at cca 0,15mg of Zoloft) and I am tapering despite the symptoms. If I wait for the symptoms to stop - how do I know when will that be? I know for some people it takes years to fully recover. Waiting years to continue tapering is out of the question for me. It makes no sense... I don't think there is "one size fits all" in all of this. There are recommendations, for sure, but also I think we should proceed according to individual needs and capabilities. Do it with caution but not excessive caution. If the symptoms are unbearable, then yes, hold or slow down. I feel I can handle my symptoms for now, and I am determined to taper off completely. Whenever I start feeling I need a break, I do a longer hold.

I think there are some who are stuggling just being on the drugs. This might well be they are now having a reaction to the drugs or perhaps have always had a reaction to the drug. The advice here might well be to get off more quickly although removing the drug quickly isn't ideal nor is suffering from an ADR.

 

It's an individual thing. Everyone does need to get to know their own body and drug history and try to understand what has happened, using the thoughts and ideas of others to help aid them in this process. Overall I think it is very hard to unravel what has happened to us.

 

To add. Our nervous systems can get so badly beaten up by a whole series of events that working out where we are at can be a challenge. But I also think that being careful not to add to the harm by tapering sympathetically to your symptoms may help reduce further distress to an already distressed nervous system. Getting off the drugs is the goal but getting off too quickly we know can likely cause more harm. Its a compromise all of this.

 

To extra add! 🙂 I don't think you necessarily need to be free from WD symptoms when you drop. Best case the new symptoms from the drop go once you hold or updose. Learning to rate the symptoms can help. The Mark Horowitz scale is if your symtoms are low like 1-3 then maybe you can cope and proceed. 

 

Note: Mark Horowitz and others use a 1-10. 1 being mild 10 being the worse. Others have an inverse scale. B and I are one of them! Just to make all this more complicated.

@Chippy

Yes, I think I am one of those people - I started my taper because I realized it was harming me/causing health problems. That is why I am torn between speeding and slowing down in my taper.

1 minute ago, Marina said:

@Chippy

Yes, I think I am one of those people - I started my taper because I realized it was harming me/causing health problems. That is why I am torn between speeding and slowing down in my taper.

Yeah I think this is a fair concern Marina I do. You just have to find that balance between the symptoms you are experiencing more constantly and the increased symptoms you get when you drop. I think you're doing a good job of this. Once you are 0 then your body can have some time to heal without any drugs in your system and then the real healing can happen.

@Chippy I started gradually reducing my dose towards 0,1mg since yesterday and I noticed some increased tinnitus a few times a day. We'll see how it goes...

Can't wait to jump off but it will probably take a few more months.

1 minute ago, Marina said:

@Chippy I started gradually reducing my dose towards 0,1mg since yesterday and I noticed some increased tinnitus a few times a day. We'll see how it goes...

Can't wait to jump off but it will probably take a few more months.

I bet you can't. This is the other factor as well. The symptoms being bearable. So you can live whilst you get off.

23 hours ago, Marina said:

Can't wait to jump off but it will probably take a few more months.

 

I understand your frustration, but a few months is very much worth avoiding causing yourself severe harm, which can then swallow up many years of your life. You'll find plenty of examples of that on SA and here.

 

You're doing the right thing.

To be honest, I didn’t visit SA very much because it felt like they were very hardline about the taper needing to be symptom-free, and needing to go super super low before jumping off. (It wasn’t really an option for me to take 6 years to get off, due to lack of support from my doctor for this approach.) Every time I updated my thread on my taper, I’d have people telling me very bluntly that I needed to do it differently, "properly" - the implication being that I was doomed to awful suffering if I didn’t - and it made me very anxious.

 

I found other perspectives out there - both Angie Peacock and Anders Sorensen accept that there can be some withdrawal during a taper. In fact in Anders's book he makes it clear that a taper usually involves continually dealing with withdrawal symptoms, and it’s a hard slog. It’s more about keeping it manageable rather than avoiding symptoms altogether. Angie is always so positive about everything healing eventually.

 

I did some long holds trying to reach "stability". Some symptoms came and went quickly, others came on gradually and stuck around. I think probably there are different mechanisms behind the different symptoms that we don’t understand enough. I feel even in Anders's book, the tapering process is packaged up a bit too neatly, in an idealised form where the dose is reduced, symptoms emerge within days, resolve within weeks, and repeat until done. It is more complex than that in reality, at least for some of us.

 

There is also the question of whether it’s worth the potential downsides of keeping the drug in your system for many extra years. This was a question I had, because my "treatment" only lasted 10 months. To be expected to spend 6 years tapering, without questioning whether there could be harms from that additional exposure to the drug, bothered me.

 

I am finding this new forum a breath of fresh air, it’s good to be able to talk honestly.

1 hour ago, sarahw said:

To be honest, I didn’t visit SA very much because it felt like they were very hardline about the taper needing to be symptom-free, and needing to go super super low before jumping off. (It wasn’t really an option for me to take 6 years to get off, due to lack of support from my doctor for this approach.) Every time I updated my thread on my taper, I’d have people telling me very bluntly that I needed to do it differently, "properly" - the implication being that I was doomed to awful suffering if I didn’t - and it made me very anxious.

Im sorry you felt this way about SA. Im sure it wasn't intended. It's always been my understanding it's ok to have manageable symptoms when tapering. The advice to be slow is sensible but will vary from drug to drug. Escitalopram for example has a huge effect on the brain at low doses so getting off carefully at the end is very important. It is however possible to go much quicker in the beginning of your taper from the same drug as 5mg drops have a relatively small effect on the brain. This would help speed the process up.

 

1 hour ago, sarahw said:

I found other perspectives out there - both Angie Peacock and Anders Sorensen accept that there can be some withdrawal during a taper. In fact in Anders's book he makes it clear that a taper usually involves continually dealing with withdrawal symptoms, and it’s a hard slog. It’s more about keeping it manageable rather than avoiding symptoms altogether. Angie is always so positive about everything healing eventually.

 

Yes I think this point of view is common and I agree it's not just about having 0 symptoms. Be good if you could but perhaps low level symptoms are fine listen to your body is key. 

Also to note I think that we are all so different and drug histories differ. I truly think that the symptoms you are trying to avoid during a taper are the ones produced by the drop in dose. Often, in my opinion, folk have other symptoms present before attempting a drop caused by previous drug harms not by the taper itself. 

 

1 hour ago, sarahw said:

I think probably there are different mechanisms behind the different symptoms that we don’t understand enough. I feel even in Anders's book, the tapering process is packaged up a bit too neatly, in an idealised form where the dose is reduced, symptoms emerge within days, resolve within weeks, and repeat until done. It is more complex than that in reality, at least for some of us.

 

Definitely. All this is not well understood as you know. I think alot of the guides have to be generic as the individual nuance is too complex and varied to be able to detail. You can certainly package a taper up in a nice neat step by step guide but the reality of getting off multiple drugs whilst suffering symptoms from the harms being on them has caused is a different story. Ultimately everyone has to do what they think is best for them and use the advice and input of others to help inform their own decision making.

 

1 hour ago, sarahw said:

There is also the question of whether it’s worth the potential downsides of keeping the drug in your system for many extra years. This was a question I had, because my "treatment" only lasted 10 months. To be expected to spend 6 years tapering, without questioning whether there could be harms from that additional exposure to the drug, bothered me.

 

This is a concern alot of people have. Ive seen people not on the drug long attempt to get off more quickly. Say 25% at a time perhaps 2/4 weeks between. They are fine to a point and then they struggle alot. Here its just about being flexible. Perhaps it's reasonable to attempt this given the short duration of use and then adjust once symptoms kick in and then taper more slowly. Everything is a compromise. You don't want to be on the drug for longer then you need but coming off to quickly will likely cause far more damage then being on the drug for the time it takes to taper.

 

Again its worth noting here that with access to proper taper schedules rather than simply following the 10% rule you can make more informed decisions about a taper and potentially reduce the time taken to get off the drug.

 

Im glad you feel you can talk openly that's good to hear. 🙂 

 

We all are constantly learning about all of this. The more input the better. 🙂

 

Chippy

Yes, I think there’s sometimes a compromise between, on one hand, the risks of tapering too fast, and on the other, the risks of further adaptation and other harms from keeping the drug in our system. The trouble is, of course, both of those risks can be very hard to quantify.

 

I’m sure it varies between individuals as to whether experiencing some withdrawal during a taper can be ok, or whether it creates too high a risk of being hit with more severe withdrawal at some point (that can’t be resolved by updosing). I guess if someone has experienced severe withdrawal or kindling before, they should definitely err on the side of caution. And I would think if someone was on their drug(s) for many years, it would make sense that the extra years of exposure to the drug while tapering might be less significant, compared with the risks of going too fast. For someone who was only on it a relatively short time, and no history of severe injury, it’s less clear cut to me. One could argue that the risk of severe withdrawal is actually increased by prolonging their time on the drug unnecessarily. But who knows.

 

There’s also a question around whether going slower always reduces withdrawal, for anyone and everyone. For myself, having done both an (ignorant) 8-month taper and a (more informed) 3-year taper, I expected the slower taper would be much easier, but strangely it wasn’t really. Which is maybe partly why I often question if it’s withdrawal at all, or something else wrong with me…

4 hours ago, sarahw said:

Yes, I think there’s sometimes a compromise between, on one hand, the risks of tapering too fast, and on the other, the risks of further adaptation and other harms from keeping the drug in our system. The trouble is, of course, both of those risks can be very hard to quantify.

 

I’m sure it varies between individuals as to whether experiencing some withdrawal during a taper can be ok, or whether it creates too high a risk of being hit with more severe withdrawal at some point (that can’t be resolved by updosing). I guess if someone has experienced severe withdrawal or kindling before, they should definitely err on the side of caution. And I would think if someone was on their drug(s) for many years, it would make sense that the extra years of exposure to the drug while tapering might be less significant, compared with the risks of going too fast. For someone who was only on it a relatively short time, and no history of severe injury, it’s less clear cut to me. One could argue that the risk of severe withdrawal is actually increased by prolonging their time on the drug unnecessarily. But who knows.

 

There’s also a question around whether going slower always reduces withdrawal, for anyone and everyone. For myself, having done both an (ignorant) 8-month taper and a (more informed) 3-year taper, I expected the slower taper would be much easier, but strangely it wasn’t really. Which is maybe partly why I often question if it’s withdrawal at all, or something else wrong with me…

I don't think there's anything wrong with you @sarahw. Drug discontinuation/withdrawal is a complex process — meaning there is a range of experiences (some don't even need to taper to deeply draining withdrawals and protracted withdrawals) and so many "unknowns" along the way. Things like the number of drugs you're on, how long the exposure to the drugs, foodstuffs and allergies, hormonal issues, social supports, individual physiology, epigenetics, emotions … the list goes on and on and the risks are real.

 

Given how articulately you write it's unlikely there is anything "wrong" with you. It's only human to seek answers for what we're going through. 🤗

8 hours ago, sarahw said:

Yes, I think there’s sometimes a compromise between, on one hand, the risks of tapering too fast, and on the other, the risks of further adaptation and other harms from keeping the drug in our system. The trouble is, of course, both of those risks can be very hard to quantify.

 

I’m sure it varies between individuals as to whether experiencing some withdrawal during a taper can be ok, or whether it creates too high a risk of being hit with more severe withdrawal at some point (that can’t be resolved by updosing). I guess if someone has experienced severe withdrawal or kindling before, they should definitely err on the side of caution. And I would think if someone was on their drug(s) for many years, it would make sense that the extra years of exposure to the drug while tapering might be less significant, compared with the risks of going too fast. For someone who was only on it a relatively short time, and no history of severe injury, it’s less clear cut to me. One could argue that the risk of severe withdrawal is actually increased by prolonging their time on the drug unnecessarily. But who knows.

 

There’s also a question around whether going slower always reduces withdrawal, for anyone and everyone. For myself, having done both an (ignorant) 8-month taper and a (more informed) 3-year taper, I expected the slower taper would be much easier, but strangely it wasn’t really. Which is maybe partly why I often question if it’s withdrawal at all, or something else wrong with me…

I agree with all of this. 
 

I think there is so much not known. I think very strongly many of us aren’t in ‘WD’ but experiencing an injury which takes time to heal. Just my opinion this but I think wd symptoms fluctuate. There are alot of us with very stubborn symptoms that never fully go during windows. To me this is pwd injury and somehow different to wd. Wd is the brain missing the drug from having become dependent on it. Wd being the time it takes for the brain to recalibrate to a new balance. For me I saw this process play out in the first 8 months. What im experiencing now is more drawn out. The result of cns brushing or irritation not wd. In my opinion. Either way Sarah we’ve been harmed. Believe it because it’s true!

 

The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines have 3 taper plans per drug with criteria for plan selection. The faster plan would be an option for those people you mention above who are at low risk as they were not on the drug long. 

 

Thank you so much for being so verbal about your views. I never want you or anyone to think they can’t speak their mind. We’ve got to be careful to be not spreading untruths (which you certainly are not! btw!) but a healthy discussion is important. Your lived experience adds to the knowledge and strength of the collective community. 
 

Chippy

11 hours ago, sarahw said:

Yes, I think there’s sometimes a compromise between, on one hand, the risks of tapering too fast, and on the other, the risks of further adaptation and other harms from keeping the drug in our system. The trouble is, of course, both of those risks can be very hard to quantify.

 

I agree with this.

Thanks everyone for the great exchange! So helpful. 🤩

so far I decided to keep holding. I feel very unstable being more than three months into holding. It is month 15 of my taper. I have seen that @Raymond has posted about his journey, being on a similar timeline as me and has commented on how the months were. I thought that this is very interesting and I will try myself:

Switch from sertralin to escilatopram and big taper step (mistake) in November 24. Terrible November, very bad December.

month 3 better, but still very bad, first windows. Month 4 unto 9 bad, windows and waves, still lots of anxiety, pain, dread, fatigue, nausea but many better days. Some improvement . Month 10 best month so far. 11,12 worse again, symptoms ramping up. Holding on 0,34 mg since month 12 (October 25) and feeling worse till now (symptoms intensified and new symptoms like a sound in my head and dizziness), [end of January 2026] month15 , very unstable, short waves and short dirty windows. Generally I feel better in the evening. 

@Catbirds story still gives me hope, she also did at first not get better during holding and had then a breakthrough after 3,5 months. So I am waiting for stability or a breakthrough before I go on.

 

sending you love and prayers!

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Nemina said:

Thanks everyone for the great exchange! So helpful. 🤩

so far I decided to keep holding. I feel very unstable being more than three months into holding. It is month 15 of my taper. I have seen that @Raymond has posted about his journey, being on a similar timeline as me and has commented on how the months were. I thought that this is very interesting and I will try myself:

Switch from sertralin to escilatopram and big taper step (mistake) in November 24. Terrible November, very bad December.

month 3 better, but still very bad, first windows. Month 4 unto 9 bad, windows and waves, still lots of anxiety, pain, dread, fatigue, nausea but many better days. Some improvement . Month 10 best month so far. 11,12 worse again, symptoms ramping up. Holding on 0,34 mg since month 12 (October 25) and feeling worse till now (symptoms intensified and new symptoms like a sound in my head and dizziness), [end of January 2026] month15 , very unstable, short waves and short dirty windows. Generally I feel better in the evening. 

@Catbirds story still gives me hope, she also did at first not get better during holding and had then a breakthrough after 3,5 months. So I am waiting for stability or a breakthrough before I go on.

 

sending you love and prayers!

 

 

 

@Nemina. It seems you are in the same journey as me.  What's interesting is that it's similar then me and many people experienced same pattern.

 

Since you are in a low dose, it's best to hold until many symptoms fades away and no more new symptoms showing up.  As much as I hate this medication, it's best to hold.   This is not a race.   You want to function more noticed before Tapering again.

 

See Chris Paige podcast from Dr. Josef interview.   Our goal right now it's to stabilize first and function more normal.  It took him three years and half after he reinstated to be more normal. 

 

After stabilize, the journey down will be better.

 

Your body and brain are still trying to catch up with your low dose.  

 

Its a good sign that you get better in the afternoons.   I also feel better in the afternoons.  I also experience more sleep in month 13 than any of my first year.  I have two days in a row that I wake up 530am but felt sleep again until 8am.   This is a first in this long journey.

 

Also, many stories I read, people got better windows after 18 months of the journey...

 

You doing great, just hold and remember that this is not a race.  Your main goal is to stabilize first....

As @Raymond said, changes at low doses are thought to be more severe in terms of their effects, due to receptor occupancy still being high at low doses.

 

Hopefully you'll stabilise and feel ready to continue down the line.

Yes, I think with 0,34 mg escilatopram I am still at 8,5 % occupancy…

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01285-w/figures/1

 

 

Here is a chart. Note: I would never taper that fast. I do much smaller steps.

 

Edited January 25Jan 25 by Nemina

Another day in withdrawal (in month 15 on 0.34 mg): woke up a couple times at night and in the morning from a nightmare. In the night at one point, my knee suddenly hurt so crazy that I couldn’t even endure the blanket lying on it. But fell back into sleep, thankfully.Woke up feeling tense, back hurts terribly, head is heavy, a strange high-pitched ringing in my ears. Need almost a hour to collect the strength to leave my bed. Get dressed feeling like a very old woman who can move her limbs only very slowly. Show up one hour late at work (luckily home office). Need a lot of strength to concentrate and I’m not very productive today. On the phone, I sound engaged and  lively, feeling like an imposter, but I am thankful that I can function and people don’t realize what’s going on.

now I enjoy my lunch break, laying down after eating with a hot water bottle. No coffee, of course, no milk, but some sugar. I doubt that I will find the strength today to go for a walk in the afternoon. I still have work to do and feel overwhelmed so easily.

Usually, I feel better in the evenings, so not all is lost for today. 

57 minutes ago, Nemina said:

Another day in withdrawal (in month 15 on 0.34 mg): woke up a couple times at night and in the morning from a nightmare. In the night at one point, my knee suddenly hurt so crazy that I couldn’t even endure the blanket lying on it. But fell back into sleep, thankfully.Woke up feeling tense, back hurts terribly, head is heavy, a strange high-pitched ringing in my ears. Need almost a hour to collect the strength to leave my bed. Get dressed feeling like a very old woman who can move her limbs only very slowly. Show up one hour late at work (luckily home office). Need a lot of strength to concentrate and I’m not very productive today. On the phone, I sound engaged and  lively, feeling like an imposter, but I am thankful that I can function and people don’t realize what’s going on.

now I enjoy my lunch break, laying down after eating with a hot water bottle. No coffee, of course, no milk, but some sugar. I doubt that I will find the strength today to go for a walk in the afternoon. I still have work to do and feel overwhelmed so easily.

Usually, I feel better in the evenings, so not all is lost for today. 

Sending you hugs. I know this suffering and frustration only too well.

I have a question to the community :

skamen wrote , that ChatGPT has said:

“so small dose can have a paradoxal effect causing more adrenaline rushes and upping the morning terror.”

 

does anybody here know anything about that? I feel that my holding gets worse overtime. It’s now 3 1/2 months almost on 0.34 mg. I am wondering if I should resume tapering to come down from this substance and then finally let my CNS repair itself without triggering it constantly with small doses . I’m so frustrated today.

 

Edit: @skamen  told me just now : “I read a brass monkey post in AD where he speaks on holding in poopout (it is my situation). In accounting to him, we don't have to hold so much if in this situation. We need to allow to the CNS a space without the drug which hurted us.”

 

I have been in poop out for about 10 times during the 10 years that I took the ADs. I always reacted with crossing over to another one and it always worked. I would not do that again, I think. So what shall I do now? Maybe I am now in poop out? My last crossover was October 2024 before I started tapering.Help very much appreciated.

 

 

(by the way: I was finally able to stop the Ambien/ Zolpidem (after more than 10 years and then a low taper). This is wonderful, I know, but I still don’t feel like celebrating. I know it is a great progress. (Even though nights are not refreshing still, but who wants to complain ?) To me it seems that my brain is so upset with losing the antidepressant that I could sneak behind his back while he was throwing a tantrum and steal the sleeping pill without him realizing…

no, to be serious I don’t know why. My hunch is:  I am so groggy at night that I fall asleep with or  without sleeping pill. Then I sleep badly. But this was my chance to get rid of it. )

11 minutes ago, Nemina said:

 

I have a question to the community :

skamen wrote , that ChatGPT has said:

“so small dose can have a paradoxal effect causing more adrenaline rushes and upping the morning terror.”

 

does anybody here know anything about that? I feel that my holding gets worse overtime. It’s now 3 1/2 months almost on 3,4 mg. I am wondering if I should resume tapering to come down from this substance and then finally let my CNS repair itself without triggering it constantly with small doses . I’m so frustrated today.

 

Edit: @skamen  told me just now : “I read a brass monkey post in AD where he speaks on holding in poopout (it is my situation). In accounting to him, we don't have to hold so much if in this situation. We need to allow to the CNS a space without the drug which hurted us.”

 

I have been in poop out for about 10 times during the 10 years that I took the ADs. I always reacted with crossing over to another one and it always worked. I would not do that again, I think. So what shall I do now? Maybe I am now in poop out? My last crossover was October 2024 before I started tapering.Help very much appreciated.

 

 

(by the way: I was finally able to stop the Ambien/ Zolpidem (after more than 10 years and then a low taper). This is wonderful, I know, but I still don’t feel like celebrating. I know it is a great progress. (Even though nights are not refreshing still, but who wants to complain ?) To me it seems that my brain is so upset with losing the antidepressant that I could sneak behind his back while he was throwing a tantrum and steal the sleeping pill without him realizing…

no, to be serious I don’t know why. My hunch is:  I am so groggy at night that I fall asleep with or  without sleeping pill. Then I sleep badly. But this was my chance to get rid of it. )

Hey Nemina

 

So are you saying you are worried that your body has become tolerant of your current dose and you are getting WD symptoms as a result? (poop out)

 

Chippy

Yes. By the way, I made a mistake.: it’s 0.34 mg not 3.4 mg so a really tiny dose. 
so symptoms can be Tolerance/poop out  or they can come from the withdrawal. Or both .

 feel stuck. I have asked Jane, because the Ad forum is still open. she says if it’s poop out holding won’t help me….

@Catbirdmay I ask you what you think?

 

 

Edited January 28Jan 28 by Nemina

5 hours ago, Nemina said:

Yes. By the way, I made a mistake.: it’s 0.34 mg not 3.4 mg so a really tiny dose. 
so symptoms can be Tolerance/poop out  or they can come from the withdrawal. Or both .

 feel stuck. I have asked Jane, because the Ad forum is still open. she says if it’s poop out holding won’t help me….

@Catbirdmay I ask you what you think?

 

 

Thanks Nemina

 

I’ve updated in your post above for you your current dose to save confusion. 
 

I agree when a Jane obviously if it’s a complete poop out then, no being on the drug in my opinion won’t help. 
 

The difficulty is identifying this. Some need a long hold. When is long enough?

Id keep a diary on here with dose times and symptom notes. See if there is a pattern. Interdose wd is perhaps a precursor to poop out? And maybe poop out isn’t absolute. If this is the case you might see signs of it in your diary over a few days. 
 

I’ve little no experience of this and how to deal with it. I can understand you wanting to continue with your taper and get to 0 so you can concentrate on recovery if this is what has happened. Just making sure you are sure this is the case as much as you can. 

Ive had a read of the posts Jane placed on SA for you.

 

It seems tolerance is experienced as finding your drug 'stops working'.

 

This is a tricky one to identify isnt it. Because what do the drugs actually do for you? I guess thats one thing to ask yourself? Very nuanced personal question to answer that. For me on Sertraline I got emotional numbing (which I found useful) a metallic taste in my mouth and some sexual side effects. So if they started to go or lessen that would be a sign or tolerance.

If I started to get depressed whilst tapering that would be a WD effect not tolerance. Just an example from my experience. 

 

To confuse things, as you reduce your dose of an AD, I would think it possible to get a reduced sense of 'original effect' because of the lower dose.

Could this be misinterperted as tolerance half way through a taper?

 

I can see from Brass Monkeys post that holding whilst in tolerance isn't a good thing.

And that the only way to deal with it is to taper moderately as best as your body will let you, managing the WD symptoms whilst chasing a lower dose and 'get ahead' of the problem.

From there hopefully the taper will be a bit easier. But not certain. Not an easy ride by the sounds of it.

 

Im still unsure how you might identify tolerance other than being able to recognise the drugs original effects have gone or are lessened I guess.

 

It's obviously possible to have tolerance and WD symptoms at the same time. 

 

Tricky stuff