I’ll try to include everything so bear with me

I was on lexapro and buspar for a year or two and got off about 7 months ago because I was tired of the emotional blunting.. well I tapered off myself by cutting in half and then cutting in half again over the course of maybe a week.. well over those 7 months my anxiety started to creep back up and intensify.. well recently it just got too bad so I was thinking about going back on my meds which I did.. it’s been 26 days since going back on lexapro (cold turkey’d buspar) since going back on I’ve had 5 ER visits thinking I was dying.. I’ve been bedridden, dealing with severe anxiety that was way worse than before the med, a never ending chest tightness, agoraphobia and health anxiety i didn’t have before the med, I can’t hardly shower because I freak out, I’ve lost 15 pounds because my eatings habits are bad, twitches when trying to rest, etc

I’m stuck between should I take the medicine as prescribed and eventually I’ll stabilize, or should I lower the dose which is contrary to what the doctor says to do in hopes my nervous system wont stay unstable… I’m lost man and it sucks

The doctor actually has realized I’m not having a good reaction so he wants to cross taper me to paxil (10mg paxil and 5mg lexapro) but I’ve just continued on the lexapro 10mg and things have maybe gotten a slight bit better, but I’d say I’m just exhausting the little resilience I have left in me, not that I’m actually better

What do you guys recommend I do? I’m only like 3-4 weeks back in, do I stay on the current dose, suffer, and hopefully stabilize… do I do what the doctor said to do instead?

I am in desperation

Edited August 17Aug 17 by SarahMc

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 withdrawal 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.

Please use the format outline here Preferred signature/drug history format

In particular, could you please edit your signature to more specifically reflect the dates you initially came off Lexapro and Buspar?

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

29 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

I was on lexapro and buspar for a year or two and got off about 7 months ago because I was tired of the emotional blunting.. well I tapered off myself by cutting in half and then cutting in half again over the course of maybe a week.. well over those 7 months my anxiety started to creep back up and intensify.. well recently it just got too bad so I was thinking about going back on my meds which I did..

You may know this already, but I suspect the anxiety you were feeling in the seven months after you stopped the buspar and lexapro was actually withdrawal. It's not uncommon for protracted withdrawal to become worse several months after stopping a drug too quickly. Unfortunately, once you're many months off a drug reinstatement can become very risky, as you've experienced.

32 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

it’s been 26 days since going back on lexapro (cold turkey’d buspar) since going back on I’ve had 5 ER visits thinking I was dying.. I’ve been bedridden, dealing with severe anxiety that was way worse than before the med, a never ending chest tightness, agoraphobia and health anxiety i didn’t have before the med, I can’t hardly shower because I freak out, I’ve lost 15 pounds because my eatings habits are bad, twitches when trying to rest, etc

I'm so sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately you reinstated the lexapro at much too high a dose, which is often incredibly hard on the nervous system. Your nervous system was already very sensitized as a result of coming off your meds too fast, and reinstating at 10 mg has caused additional harm.

34 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

I’m stuck between should I take the medicine as prescribed and eventually I’ll stabilize, or should I lower the dose which is contrary to what the doctor says to do in hopes my nervous system wont stay unstable… I’m lost man and it sucks

The doctor actually has realized I’m not having a good reaction so he wants to cross taper me to paxil (10mg paxil and 5mg lexapro) but I’ve just continued on the lexapro 10mg and things have maybe gotten a slight bit better, but I’d say I’m just exhausting the little resilience I have left in me, not that I’m actually better

What do you guys recommend I do? I’m only like 3-4 weeks back in, do I stay on the current dose, suffer, and hopefully stabilize… do I do what the doctor said to do instead?

Absolutely DO NOT add in paxil at this point, that would be incredibly risky. Your nervous system is much to sensitive to be adding in other drugs, you can't predict how you'll react and it could make things much worse. I was in a similar situation to you where I came off a drug too fast, didn't realize I was in withdrawal, and ended up cycling through several different drugs trying to find the "right" one. This did not help anything and just made me much worse.

My instinct is to say that you should stick at the 10 mg of Lexapro and wait to stabilize here, since your nervous system is incredibly sensitive right now and any change risks causing additional kindling. It may take a while to stabilize (think months rather than weeks), but your nervous system will calm down in time. Generally we don't advise tapering anything while unstable, because this often goes poorly. I'll tag our experienced admins @Chippy and @Luke here in case they have a different view given that you've only been reinstated for 26 days.

Again I'm sorry this happened to you. This journey is a tough one and requires a lot of courage and resilience, but we'll be here with you the whole way. You can recover.

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!

 

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

Thanks for your detailed reply.. Feels good knowing I have people behind me that recognize what’s going on and want to help me.. Gives me a lot more of a resilient mindset despite this inner restlessness I feel constantly trying to bring me down..

In regards to you saying I should maybe try to stabilize on 10mg lexapro, what if lexapro doesn’t work anymore for my unique brain chemistry… is that not how it works? I just don’t know which way to go to be honest so I’m trying to hear more thoughts.. I feel like I’m going to panic every time I take another pill because it’s in my head that it’s damaging me..

I’ll wait for the other two guys responses as well as your reply..

Thank you for your help. It really means a lot to know people are here to look out for me!

1 hour ago, Rekonum said:

In regards to you saying I should maybe try to stabilize on 10mg lexapro, what if lexapro doesn’t work anymore for my unique brain chemistry… is that not how it works? I just don’t know which way to go to be honest so I’m trying to hear more thoughts.. I feel like I’m going to panic every time I take another pill because it’s in my head that it’s damaging me..

This is not how it works, and ESPECIALLY not when you're suffering from withdrawal and/or a reinstatement injury. Right now your nervous system is having a really hard time adapting to the sudden changes that have been thrown at it. Adding more drugs into the mix just causes more confusion. Remember, this is not about treating a mental illness -- you are suffering from a nervous system injury and this is not something that can be treated by more drugs. The solution is time, patience, and stability.

1 hour ago, Rekonum said:

Thank you for your help. It really means a lot to know people are here to look out for me!

Anytime. Really glad you found us.

Hi @Rekonum Welcome to the forum. I am very sorry to hear how much you are suffering.

Could you rate your symptoms at the following points for us out of 10, 10 being the worse you could imagine and 1 being mild?

• Before reinstating

• After reinstating and going to the ER

• and now.....

What you do now is your choice.

You could hold this dose and wait to stablise.

I am a bit worried that your body is not happy with this high dose. Unfortunately you have been taking it for 26 days. We have seen some people RI Lexapro too high, be over activated by it, and then reduce the dose back to a more reasonable RI level (1mg for example) and then stablise quickly.

The challenge here is you have been at this dose for a longer period of time then I have seen before making that reduction. As it has not been months and months, and if you are still as bad as when you first RI, then I would be tempted to try reducing the dose perhaps to 1mg and see if it helps any then hold there and ride out the WD/wait for your brain to catch up. I can't know this is a good idea, but my gut tells me it might help.

It is VERY important to not jump doses around and make decisions and stick to them though, normally making big shifts in doses is NOT advisable.

Id like to see your reposnse to my question about symptom tracking above. Also have you experienced any waves and windows this last 26 days?

Welcome to the forum.

I'll let the others discuss doses with you, as they have been doing.

However I would like to emphasise that cross tapering to a random new drug is something that we have seen cause people a lot of harm once they are already reacting adversely to a psychiatric drug.

I think you're here because on some level you recognise that once a patient is harmed, most doctors are shooting in the dark when it comes to what do about it.

Our experience is that a lot of the time this can unwittingly compound the harm done. You might get away with trying a new drug, but the degree to which harm can be done by these drugs can get very extreme and this is a state that you really, really do not want to end up in.

My view is that the risk/reward of introducing new drugs doesn't stack up favourably at all.

5 hours ago, Chippy said:

I am a bit worried that your body is not happy with this high dose. Unfortunately you have been taking it for 26 days. We have seen some people RI Lexapro too high, be over activated by it, and then reduce the dose back to a more reasonable RI level (1mg for example) and then stablise quickly.

yeah I was thinking cause of his bad reaction and not long time, he might should try reducing in 10% RO reductions, cause he was off the drug for a considerably long time and obviously this dose is way too high.

In my opinion that should be a good way to go, but you need to make your doses if you want to go below 5mg (assuming you use a 10mg tablet).

50 minutes ago, Lighty said:

yeah I was thinking cause of his bad reaction and not long time, he might should try reducing in 10% RO reductions, cause he was off the drug for a considerably long time and obviously this dose is way too high.

In my opinion that should be a good way to go, but you need to make your doses if you want to go below 5mg (assuming you use a 10mg tablet).

I agree this is a third route. Go to 5mg first, then 2.5 if needed then 1 if needed. The advantage of going directly to 1 is minimizing changes and maximizing reducing drug interactions. From what I’ve seen anything over around 1.4mg of lex seems unnecessary in an ri and can be problematic for some. That makes sense when you look at the RO charts. As we know we can’t be sure of how someone will react.

I talk to a psychiatrist tomorrow.. I really don’t know what to do anymore.. Tired of feeling wired in my chest and body 24/7 though..

@Chippy @Lighty @Luke thank you for your responses and insight.. I find it funny I’ve only had an ER visit when on a medication rather than off..

My family seems to want me to keep taking 10mg and hope I stabilize.. I don’t think they believe I have a kindling.. they think it is just start up side effects

Hey @Rekonum Thanks for your reply. I know this is a very difficult time for you and you must be very scared. We all understand.

On 8/17/2026 at 7:26 PM, Rekonum said:

it’s been 26 days since going back on lexapro (cold turkey’d buspar) since going back on I’ve had 5 ER visits thinking I was dying.. I’ve been bedridden, dealing with severe anxiety that was way worse than before the med, a never ending chest tightness, agoraphobia and health anxiety i didn’t have before the med, I can’t hardly shower because I freak out, I’ve lost 15 pounds because my eatings habits are bad, twitches when trying to rest, etc

If the RI was so bad you needed to go to the ER I would suggest the dose is not working for you.

I would be very careful about listening to your psychiatrist they don't often know the correct thing to do unfortunately, family can be spell bound by the doctors and put pressure on folk to do the wrong thing. We see it a lot.

Start up symptoms in my opinion are what people who have never taken a AD before get, I think they are actually kindling happening, that a strong undamaged nervous system can cope with, I believe they are the start of the foundations being laid for harm down the line. Here with your nervous system as it is, I am certain this is not the case for you.

8 hours ago, Rekonum said:

I really don’t know what to do anymore.. Tired of feeling wired in my chest and body 24/7 though..

You may stablise eventally on this dose. I am however very worried this would be a bad move for you.

I would really like you to rate your symptoms out of 10 at the moment and let us know what that number would have been before RI and just after. It would help us a lot to know this. 1 Mild, 10 severe.

There are a few ways to approach how to reduce the dose, as we have eluded to already, if you decide to do this, let us know and we can give you a final plan that we think would be the best route for you, ultimately it is up to you to choose what you think is best.

Whatever you choose to do we will always be here for you regardless.

As I said, let us know your ratings so we can understand better and confirm the severity of your symptoms.

4 minutes ago, Chippy said:

I would be very careful about listening to your psychiatrist they don't often know the correct thing to do unfortunately,

So true, in my experience

6 minutes ago, Chippy said:

family can be spell bound by the doctors and put pressure on folk to do the wrong thing.

Well-meaning, but can be very unhelpful

I chose to listen to those with personal AD tapering experience, and it is working. I'm almost off, with minimal symptoms.

Rating your symptoms out of 10 will help those with personal experience help you, too.

I'm confident you will be well guided here.

@Chippy I’d say I can’t work or do much of anything right now, so 8-9/10 post reinstatement and 3-5 range pre-reinstatement… Don’t want to say 10/10 because I’d say that’s worst of worst

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

1 minute ago, Rekonum said:

@Chippy I’d say I can’t work or do much of anything right now, so 8-9/10… Don’t want to say 10/10 because I’d say that’s worst of worst

I’m sorry. That’s rough. What would you say before you ri? And in the week after?

@Chippy 10/10 about a week into, 8-9/10 now or I’m just being resilient, and 3-5/10 before reinstatement

And it’s okay I’ll live hopefully lol

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

5 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

@Chippy 10/10 about a week into, 8-9/10 now or I’m just being resilient, and 3-5/10 before reinstatement

And it’s okay I’ll live hopefully lol

Ok the ri has really caused the problems for sure.

Do you notice an increase in symptoms at all in the hour after you take your dose?

And yes you will!

@Chippy Maybe it does, but just feels awful almost 24/7..

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

2 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

@Chippy Maybe it does, but just feels awful almost 24/7..

Hmmm yeah this is what I mean. This dose isn’t working for you at all.

I would go and grab yourself some micro scales if you don’t have any already. You’ll need them should you choose to reduce the dose.

Have a read of our guide. There are some examples of models and information about how to reliably cut your tablets and get a consistent dose.

Preparing Doses for Tapering - Weighing & DIY Liquids

@Chippy I just had my first appointment with a psychiatrist.

They are dropping my lexapro to half for 2 weeks and wants me to let them know how I feel in mean time, they said if I feel better they may take me off completely sooner rather than waiting 2 weeks

They are prescribing me Propanolol to take in mornings and if that doesn’t work to take Klonopin as needed… wants me to turn my xanax prescription in; They arent fans of it.

Also ordering a genesight test to figure out what would be a better option long term.

Also I asked about if 10mg to 2.5mg is a smaller jump than 2.5 to 0 because I was thinking about them planning on taking me off fast if it’s effective… They didn’t really understand what I was asking so I assume they arent really on board with hyperbolic tapers.. Idek

They seem to be startled on what exactly to do with me because she was wondering is this just a coincidental progression of my anxiety, or a severe case of activation..

What do you guys think… Is following the psychiatrist’s plan for now seem like a good move?

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

4 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

They are dropping my lexapro to half for 2 weeks and wants me to let them know how I feel in mean time.

I’m ok with this personally. I think you could do with that dose down it’s obviously not helping things.

5 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

they said if I feel better they may take me off completely sooner rather than waiting 2 weeks

I think I would want to drop from 5mg more slowly. I am also not convinced you should stop lex completely. Ri wasn’t a bad idea the dose was too high.

7 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

They are prescribing me Propanolol to take in mornings and if that doesn’t work to take Klonopin as needed… wants me to turn my xanax prescription in; They arent fans of it.

I would strongly advice against taking other drugs, this is often like adding fuel to the fire.

7 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

Also ordering a genesight test to figure out what would be a better option long term.

I think your best bet is to reduce the dose and find a level that is better for the ri then hold that dose. Add no more drugs and wait to stabilise. From there you could taper carefully from the remaining drug. Again I’d add no more other drugs into this as tempted as you might feel.

10 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

Also I asked about if 10mg to 2.5mg is a smaller jump than 2.5 to 0 because I was thinking about them planning on taking me off fast if it’s effective… They didn’t really understand what I was asking so I assume they arent really on board with hyperbolic tapers.. Idek

It’s unlikely they understand about the hyperbolic curve.

10 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

They seem to be startled on what exactly to do with me because she was wondering is this just a coincidental progression of my anxiety, or a severe case of activation..

Yes unfortunately when things go wrong and more drugs don’t help they blame your mental condition. They can only see relapse most of the time.

@Rekonum I'll leave the tapering question to Chippy, but I want to emphasize that it is really risky to add other meds right now. They can make things worse when your nervous system is already destabilized and can also cause further dependence. A genesight test will not tell you anything (if it ever does) because you are dealing with a nervous system injury that drugs can't treat, not a "coincidental progression...of anxiety".

Focus on getting to a tolerable dose of the lexapro and stabilizing there, and do not add other meds to the mix.

What if I’m in distress.. do I take small doses of the klonopin just to help some? I have to be somewhat functional for work…

Is this drop in lexapro to 5mg going to be way easier/quicker to stabilize on for me?

I don’t think Propanolol is a good idea though considering I have had a poor reaction to nitroglycerin before where it dropped my BP to 75/25… plus I already have normal/low blood pressure and a lower resting heart rate

@Chippy @SarahMc

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

10 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

What if I’m in distress.. do I take small doses of the klonopin just to help some? I have to be somewhat functional for work…

I would personally not do this. I know it’s tempting but as we said it can make things worse rather than better. Your nervous system is harmed and you don’t want to make it worse.

11 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

Is this drop in lexapro to 5mg going to be way easier/quicker to stabilize on for me?

We can’t know how you’ll react. My hope is your body will appreciate the lower dose.

Below is a receptor occupancy chart for Lexapro. You can see droping from 10-5 is only a reduction of around 10% so this might not be enough. It’s why I’m not that interested in you going to 7.5mg I think it’s just delaying getting the dose down. Let’s see how you feel on 5mg. I suspect you might need to carefully keep reducing to find a sweet spot where your body is less angry with the dose. I have to stress I can’t know how you’ll react. I wish I could. Unlike the doctors we won’t make promises. We are just sharing the experience of the community and giving you our thoughts on your situation in a hope it helps you decide what you want to do.

In an ideal world you would have reduced to 1mg within a couple of days of ri too high. Or better still only ri 1mg.

So you see it’s a tricky thing to deal with here. We don’t want you tapering fast normally but in this situation I think the dose is causing you to be worse.

My hope is you can carefully work your way down to a dose you tolerate better and stabilise.

I quickly took this from chat gpt just to give you a rough idea of the ro at different doses. You can see how much heavy lifting 1mg actually does!

Grab those scales when you have minute online. Then you have them on route to you.

10 mg	~70%
7.5 mg	~65%
5 mg	~60%
2.5 mg	~45 to 50%
1 mg	~25% to 35%

Dang so the drop from 10mg to 5mg may still not even prevent the hyperactivity if it’s that severe 🥲 @Chippy

My parents think I’m full of shizzam for believing this about how SSRIs work rather than what psychiatrists/doctors say about it.. which sucks when you feel like **** and no one agrees with you about what’s really happening

If it doesnt work I’ll order this scale and try to reduce to 1… how long would you say i should stay on 5 for to see?

You don’t have to give true medical advice, but I want your guys honest opinion.. I value it

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Rekonum

43 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

My parents think I’m full of shizzam for believing this about how SSRIs work rather than what psychiatrists/doctors say about it.. which sucks when you feel like **** and no one agrees with you about what’s really happening

I'd highly recommend not talking to your parents or friends about this. They will never understand, which in a way is a blessing, how shitty this is.

Absolutely do not add any new drugs. If you pick any up, flush them down the toliet so you are not tempted at all.

I'd follow Chippy's advice. I did a reinstatement like you and had insane symptoms like you, but a lot of the symptoms went away after I took the dose away. However, my mind was very unstable going from 5mg to nothing, even within a day. So going to 1mg might help you in the side-effect department.

Edited August 19Aug 19 by Kahran

50 minutes ago, Rekonum said:

My parents think I’m full of shizzam for believing this about how SSRIs work rather than what psychiatrists/doctors say about it.. which sucks when you feel like **** and no one agrees with you about what’s really happening

I'll let Chippy comment on the tapering timeline, but I just wanted to say that many folks dealing with withdrawal/psych drug injuries struggle with family and friends who don't believe them. I'm still working on my own parents (finally convinced them to order Anatomy of an Epidemic, so that's a promising step!). In the end, I would say you have to follow your own intuition about what's going on in your body. I ignored mine for far too long and followed the doctors' advice and it only led me to further harm.