Hi all, pleased to be here on a new site. I’m also on the Facebook group. 
 

Based on my signature drug/taper history, could anyone advise if I should keep holding or increase my dose? 

 

Symptoms: Stress intolerance, struggle to leave the house and can’t drive my children to school, nocturnal breathlessness and sometimes panic, stress induced breathlessness & tachycardia, crippling fatigue at times and PEM, monophobia, health anxiety, agoraphobia. I need to be able to function and I’ve been suffering for 6 months now. 
 

All my blood tests are great, ECG fine. General health otherwise okay aside from Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Up until I had anaemia a few years ago and this diagnosis, taper, I was previously active and sporty. 

Welcome to the forum!

 

This is a volunteer-run, community forum aimed at helping those who are tapering and/or experiencing difficulties with psychiatric medications and withdrawl syndrome. We are not medical professionals and cannot offer medical advice. We simply offer support and opinions which you could use as talking points with a medical provider knowledgeable in withdrawing off psychiatric medications.

 

Please familiarise yourself with the forum rules and the disclaimer located here: Guidelines

 

Please make sure your signature is kept up to date with your drug history. This will allow members to see some basic information about your drug history and situation so that they may help you best. Information on how to do this is located in the FAQs section above, but here is a direct link: Update Signature

Once this is done, future posts made by you will have this signature turned on by default. For this reason please keep it clear but condensed as possible.

I'm so sorry to read about the tough time you've had recently you will find plenty of support here for sure.

 

In the mean time this is what I would do if I were you:

 

-Stay Hydrated 

 

-Eat a good clean whole food diet, avoiding processed foods and sugars.

 

-Stay away from caffeine, alcohol and antihistamines and any other psychoactive substances.

 

Supplements are to be avoided initially, as they often irritate our nervous systems. Try to get your nutrition through food.

 

Down the line, you may wish to introduce Fish Oil and Magnesium. Those who can tolerate them have found them calming to the nervous system. Be careful try one at a time and start low and see how you get on should you choose to try them.

 

A daily walk is very important as much as you can manage, if you can manage it. Gets you your fresh air and Vitamin D does wonders for your mind!

 

It's a little difficult to advise, did you begin experiencing the symptoms in your signature 6 months ago, in September?

 

Did you experience any symptoms after dropping from 50mg to 25mg? Any from dropping from 25mg to 12.5mg before getting a lot worse 4 months after that?

 

You are very welcome here and I hope you find the site supportive.

Hi Luke! 
 

Thank you very much and your work on the new site. 
 

Interesting you say about avoiding antihistamines, I had read these could be good during withdrawal somewhere and I take them now and again for histamine issues. 
 

Dropping from 50-25mg I found myself getting panic attacks when I was lost in the car or in a busy museum in London. 
Come 7 months in after being on 12.5mg a few months, fatigue and a lack of stamina set in. I would get crashes after taking my kids to the beach for an hour. 

Come 9 months in, in September, I was getting severe tachycardia leaving the house, no anxiety, just a severely responsive nervous system - went on beta blockers. 

October Mum got ill, Nov she died. 
November I then in full blown nervous system breakdown, I’d wake up shaking for 4-6 hours. I couldn’t even move due to heart racing. Frequent panic attacks, agoraphobia set in. I went back up to 25mg Sertraline. 

Now April, housebound, intolerance to any stress, noise, I get very overwhelmed leaving the house i.e for doctors appointments (emotional). Difficulty looking after my kids. 

Considering now going up to 31.25mg? 

 

Hey @Turtledove85

 

Welcome to the forum. It is good to hear from you but not good you are having a tough time fo things atm.

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

Interesting you say about avoiding antihistamines, I had read these could be good during withdrawal somewhere and I take them now and again for histamine issues. 

Yes we don't recommend them as we have seen so many have problems when trying to take them to help with sleep in WD and so on.

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

Dropping from 50-25mg I found myself getting panic attacks when I was lost in the car or in a busy museum in London. 

Yes unfortunately this was a massive drop in dose. We only suggest dropping no more than 10% of your previous dose per month. This was a 50% cut. This would have been put you into WD, hence your reaction

 

Tapering Information

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

Come 7 months in after being on 12.5mg a few months, fatigue and a lack of stamina set in. I would get crashes after taking my kids to the beach for an hour. 

Again this would was a further 50% cut whilst destablised causing you further issues.

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

October Mum got ill, Nov she died. 

Im so very sorry to hear this. Obviously this additional stress whilst being in WD would have, im sure, your symptoms much worse and WD harder to deal with.

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

November I then in full blown nervous system breakdown, I’d wake up shaking for 4-6 hours. I couldn’t even move due to heart racing. Frequent panic attacks, agoraphobia set in. I went back up to 25mg Sertraline. 

It is not uncommon for WD to worsen some months out, then add in the grief and this would account for this here. I am so sorry. Updosing this much wouldn't have been a good idea. How did you feel after, did it help at all? Did you feel worse?

 

1 hour ago, Turtledove85 said:

Now April, housebound, intolerance to any stress, noise, I get very overwhelmed leaving the house i.e for doctors appointments (emotional). Difficulty looking after my kids. 

Considering now going up to 31.25mg? 

I wouldn't recommend this. It would be far to big a jump for your system. Id be interested to hear how you feel now, as I said compared, to before you increased from 12.5-25mg

 

Can you track your symptoms a bit. Can you see if there is a pattern? Do they imporve or worsen at certain points in the day?

 

Chippy

Hi Chippy, thank you for your comments. 
 

I don’t feel as bad as I did, in terms of physical symptoms. My HR has settled down, I only take 2.5mg propranolol a day now and hope soon to stop this. 
When I wake, there’s only a small adrenaline surge and no shakes now but between 5am-10am I’m extremely sensitive to stimulus (getting children dressed, hurried along, making breakfast) completely overwhelmed with a big internal stress response. 

Something I had done for 9 years with a strong coffee! (I haven’t been able to drink that for a while now). 
So my partner or someone we know has to take them to school. 
By 11am my nervous system has settled, it’s calmer I can handle more but after lunch I crash with fatigue, need a lay down. 
Some days I can manage a short walk. 

The anxiety isn’t as prominent but I feel the black dog coming. By evening I can feel almost normal! 
I really really need to be able to get them ready and drive them the 12 min journey to school at 8am. 
 

Do you think I should still hold at 25mg? Even though it’s been 5 months since going back up. 

My inner critic says I will never cope unless I go up. 

Edited April 2Apr 2 by Turtledove85
Additional info

2 hours ago, Turtledove85 said:

Do you think I should still hold at 25mg? Even though it’s been 5 months since going back up.

It’s fantastic you can recognise so much progress here. Feeling better after the cortisol burns off and then feeling better still in the evening is common. 
 

I think given more time things will settle further. Up dosing from here could be risky and might not help. 
 

It is very likely that a lot of what you are experiencing is more an injury you see from all the big dose swings. Increasing your dose wouldn’t help this. Time is the healer here. 

 

It is possible your brain is still not caught up with the 25mg yet and if that is the case it is possible an updose would help. 
 

If you want to try you could go up a little.  Id increase no more than 10% of your current dose to see if it makes any difference. If it makes you significantly worse go back to your old dose. If it only worsens you a little give it 4 days to settle down. 
You’d wait 7-14 days before considering the effect of the increase and if you wanted to increase more. 
 

It is totally up to you and we support you what ever you decide. 
 

Let us know what you decide and check in here with your progress 😊

@Turtledove85 I’m not sure how you have been making your doses up like 12.5mg for example?

 

If you have been using a pill cutter that wouldn’t not have been accurate enough. You would have needed to have weighed the pill to get an accurate and then consistent dose each time. 
 

I assume now you are on one whole 25mg pill?

 

Some information on making up doses here. We can help if you are unsure. 

There are recommendations for scales in there too. 

 

Preparing Doses for Tapering - Weighing & DIY Liquids

10 hours ago, Turtledove85 said:

Hi Luke! 
 

Thank you very much and your work on the new site.

 

@Chippy has also done a huge amount of work on it.

  

10 hours ago, Turtledove85 said:

Interesting you say about avoiding antihistamines, I had read these could be good during withdrawal somewhere and I take them now and again for histamine issues. 

 

Various types of antihistamines can act in various ways on histamine receptors, some closer in action to psychiatric drugs than others.

 

Some have experienced significant setbacks with them, or further ADRs, and others not so much, however the longer term impact of them being used for short term symptomatic relief to interact with a histamine system that's already dysregulated or malfunctioning is simply just unknown to us. On the basis that they can be risky for some, and the implications of taking them in withdrawal being unclear, we do not recommend them and neither have other peer support communities like SA. Perhaps others do, but none that exist for severe symptoms that I'm aware of.

 

I have seen them being discussed and recommended in SSRI withdrawal generally, but this has usually not been in spaces focused on protracted or severe withdrawal.

 

 

As for updosing, as you've held for a long time, you could try it, but if you do decide to do this, I'd urge you to exercise caution and take it slowly and start small as @Chippy suggested.