For the past 4 years now I have been experiencing brain zaps and hot flushes, dizziness and at time cognitive problems. This has been an every day thing these past 4 years. I assume I am in ssri poopout. Would tapering onto Prozac fix these issues?

21 minutes ago, Irishtom said:

Would tapering onto Prozac fix these issues?

Simple answer no...bridging with prozac was it's own issues... dealing with withdrawal from paroxetine for years plus added side effects from prozac. Please read Erell's story on SA. She bridged and it looks 3.5 years for her to stabilize.

The psychiatrist tried to bridge me to prozac and within days I had severe WD and new facial tics .

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/19373-the-risks-of-the-prozac-bridge/

Edited April 16Apr 16 by LostinCanada

12 minutes ago, LostinCanada said:

Simple answer no...bridging with prozac was it's own issues... dealing with withdrawal from paroxetine for years plus added side effects from prozac. Please read Erell's story on SA. She bridged and it looks 3.5 years for her to stabilize.

The psychiatrist tried to bridge me to prozac and within days I had severe WD and new facial tics .

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/19373-the-risks-of-the-prozac-bridge/

I am just at my ends of what im going to do thrn to be honest. I am taking the medication every single day and still getting WD symptoms. Like what am I supposed to do here.

Edited April 16Apr 16 by Irishtom

Your body was happy when you dropped your dose. If you are in poop-out, this will only last so long, till you drop again. I will quote Brassmonkey 's reply to me about poop-out:

"Long holds during poopout are not a good thing. All they do is throw the body back into the poopout condition instead of letting the taper get the upper hand.

Tapering through poopout is a test of will. The person tapering will not see meaningful results for a very long time, but they have to just blindly keep tapering at a moderate rate. With the Brassmonkey slide, the extra two weeks is intended to relive the symptom stacking. It would be possible to extend the hold a week or two, which may help even out the symptom load. But poopout is a symptom heavy condition with heavy swings of its own. Similar to a CT, but not nearly as extreme because you are feeding the drug at a planned rate, which will help keep the symptoms in check.

When tapering out of poopout you are balancing three things. The direct action of the drug. The actions of your body trying to regain stasis and override the actions of the drug. And reducing the amount of drug available for your body to function.

It is a true form of physical addiction in that your body requires the drug to maintain the alterations the drug has caused and keep functioning, but not an actual addiction because there are no intense cravings for the drug. Your body is rejecting the presence of the drug and is trying to return to its natural no drug way of working. That causes the poopout/WD symptoms.

Tapering out of poopout is trying to help the body regain its natural state by withdrawing the drug while maintaining enough of the drug to fool the body into functioning in its drug modified state. Once the balance shifts in favor of the natural body the WD symptoms will start to resolve and the person will start to feel better. The bad thing is this can take a very long time. For me it was two and a half years before I felt any improvement and then another year before I was seeing real progress. I have had similar time frames reported by other members.

Long answer for a short question, I hope it helps.

As I mentioned, tapering out of poopout is a blind faith process. You have to have faith in your body wanting to heal and that the process will eventually work. Having to endure WD symptoms for an extended period is a real challenge, but the only way out of poopout is through and down. After CT it is probably the hardest way to get off of these drugs."

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/28498-lostincanada-need-help-and-direction-to-taper-off-paroxetine/page/33/#findComment-762957

29 minutes ago, LostinCanada said:

Your body was happy when you dropped your dose. If you are in poop-out, this will only last so long, till you drop again. I will quote Brassmonkey 's reply to me about poop-out:

"Long holds during poopout are not a good thing. All they do is throw the body back into the poopout condition instead of letting the taper get the upper hand.

Tapering through poopout is a test of will. The person tapering will not see meaningful results for a very long time, but they have to just blindly keep tapering at a moderate rate. With the Brassmonkey slide, the extra two weeks is intended to relive the symptom stacking. It would be possible to extend the hold a week or two, which may help even out the symptom load. But poopout is a symptom heavy condition with heavy swings of its own. Similar to a CT, but not nearly as extreme because you are feeding the drug at a planned rate, which will help keep the symptoms in check.

When tapering out of poopout you are balancing three things. The direct action of the drug. The actions of your body trying to regain stasis and override the actions of the drug. And reducing the amount of drug available for your body to function.

It is a true form of physical addiction in that your body requires the drug to maintain the alterations the drug has caused and keep functioning, but not an actual addiction because there are no intense cravings for the drug. Your body is rejecting the presence of the drug and is trying to return to its natural no drug way of working. That causes the poopout/WD symptoms.

Tapering out of poopout is trying to help the body regain its natural state by withdrawing the drug while maintaining enough of the drug to fool the body into functioning in its drug modified state. Once the balance shifts in favor of the natural body the WD symptoms will start to resolve and the person will start to feel better. The bad thing is this can take a very long time. For me it was two and a half years before I felt any improvement and then another year before I was seeing real progress. I have had similar time frames reported by other members.

Long answer for a short question, I hope it helps.

As I mentioned, tapering out of poopout is a blind faith process. You have to have faith in your body wanting to heal and that the process will eventually work. Having to endure WD symptoms for an extended period is a real challenge, but the only way out of poopout is through and down. After CT it is probably the hardest way to get off of these drugs."

https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/28498-lostincanada-need-help-and-direction-to-taper-off-paroxetine/page/33/#findComment-762957

I feel like this 4 years now.

1 minute ago, Irishtom said:

feel like this 4 years now.

Sounds like poop-out.

When you dropped from 30 mg to 25 mg, you said you felt great. Correct? Then you went to 20 mg and got some withdrawal, if I remember correctly so you updosed. You have been at 25 mg almost 4 months which is considered a long hold in poop-out. Have you considered dropping. As Brassmonkey mentioned, if in poop-out, it is important to keep moving forward by tapering.

You could try a 5% drop to 23.75 mg and see how you feel.

3 hours ago, LostinCanada said:

Sounds like poop-out.

When you dropped from 30 mg to 25 mg, you said you felt great. Correct? Then you went to 20 mg and got some withdrawal, if I remember correctly so you updosed. You have been at 25 mg almost 4 months which is considered a long hold in poop-out. Have you considered dropping. As Brassmonkey mentioned, if in poop-out, it is important to keep moving forward by tapering.

You could try a 5% drop to 23.75 mg and see how you feel.

When I said I felt great, I guess I just meant that I wasn't having any stronger withdrawal effects then I normally so. Yeah I am stable at 25mg. But still have my regular withdrawal symptoms that I havehad since 2022. When I dropped from 25 to 20 withdrawals got very intense. Thats why I went back to 25. I am only kidding myself dropping down more when I've had withdrawal symptoms every single day since 2022. From every thing I have read about what I am experiencing, it always said I need to get onto another ssri ie prozac. I feel like my brain just doesnt respond to paroxetine anymore.

I am mentally and physically wore out feeling like this every single day.

Edited April 17Apr 17 by Irishtom

22 minutes ago, Irishtom said:

I am mentally and physically wore out feeling like this every single day.

It’s so unfair for all of us being in this horrible situation.

24 minutes ago, Irishtom said:

From every thing I have read about what I am experiencing, it always said I need to get onto another ssri ie prozac.

I know mainstream psychiatry and big Pharma promote this thinking.

It is always your choice how to proceed based on your research.

❤️🙏

11 hours ago, Irishtom said:

When I dropped from 25 to 20 withdrawals got very intense.

That is a larger cut than normally recommended.

It's possible that there's a slower tapering method, perhaps a microtapering one, that will result in not so much of a ramping up of intolerable symptoms but which is moving you forwards towards being on a lower dose, and hopefully less symptoms overall in time.

Micro Tapering - Tapering - The Antidepressant Harm and Recovery Forum

Haven't been active here the past while, still sitting at 25mg. Only thing I can say is the tiredness I feel daily is beyond anything I have ever experienced before. I go to bed exhausted, I wake up exhausted. Have had all the usual blood tests done and all were normal. Literally feel exhausted 24 hours a day no matter how much sleep I get.

It feels like I cant get into a deep enough sleep for my body to benefit from it.

16 hours ago, Irishtom said:

Haven't been active here the past while, still sitting at 25mg. Only thing I can say is the tiredness I feel daily is beyond anything I have ever experienced before. I go to bed exhausted, I wake up exhausted. Have had all the usual blood tests done and all were normal. Literally feel exhausted 24 hours a day no matter how much sleep I get.

That has been one of my main withdrawal symptoms throughout. It's good you had tests done to rule things about, but I would say it's likely to do with reducing the dose.

No need to go too deeply into it now, but when it is appropriate to taper further, you might do better with much smaller cuts.

14 hours ago, Irishtom said:

It feels like I cant get into a deep enough sleep for my body to benefit from it.

This is so common, I have this quite a bit, sorry you do too. These drugs really mess with sleep architecture.

5 hours ago, Chippy said:

This is so common, I have this quite a bit, sorry you do too. These drugs really mess with sleep architecture.

Like you know when you wake up in the morning and you feel fully refreshed, well I wake up and still feel absolutely exhausted. Sitting down for 5 minutes and im nodding off.

Just now, Irishtom said:

Like you know when you wake up in the morning and you feel fully refreshed, well I wake up and still feel absolutely exhausted. Sitting down for 5 minutes and im nodding off.

Yup! I don’t tend to nod off I tend to feel very sleep deprived when this happens to me. We are all different though.

3 hours ago, Chippy said:

Yup! I don’t tend to nod off I tend to feel very sleep deprived when this happens to me. We are all different though.

Have you found anything that works to help with it?

4 minutes ago, Irishtom said:

Have you found anything that works to help with it?

I’ve not. Just standard coping skills to not make it worse getting anxious or stressed about it. I think that is very important. Too easy to be stressed about sleep issues. If I feel bad, like i do today I accept that tomorrow may well be better or at least I’ll feel more rested.

I have pretty good sleep hygiene. So bed early and same time each night. Cool room. Eye mask. Ear plugs. I think it all helps but I have no control over it. I sleep the same most nights pattern wise. Sometimes it works and I feel refreshed and sometimes I don’t. 🤷‍♂️

I've found that going to bed earlier helps a bit.

It doesn't get rid of it, but my sleep quality nosedives further and I feel even worse the next day if I don't go to bed when I start feeling tired in the evening.

How are you doing @Irishtom ? 🙏❤️