Hello Everyone!

I am new on this forum, just trying to find my way around. I was previously a member of SA and received quite a lot of help from there over a number of years. I would like to include a link for my thread there at SA but not really sure how to do it. I’m not very savvy navigating these sites. I’ll do the best I can.

I have a long history taking psych drugs, dating back to the 1990’s. I’ve been on and off numerous medications, most recently successfully tapering off of Seroquel and Klonopin around 2013, and then continuing to taper Celexa and Wellbutrin slowly over several years. That taper was unexpectedly interrupted last October when I found myself in a medical crisis and long-term hospitalization. My dose of Celexa was 5 mg and the Wellbutrin was approximately 26 mg.

At the time, everyone including my doctor felt I was fine off the drugs, that there would not be any problem having stopped them so suddenly. I should have known better with all my past experience, but honestly, I was not thinking very clearly about these things, just trying to survive the crisis of the moment. Anyway, long story short, about six months later I began to experience, intense, anxiety, and depression. No one including me, made the connection between that occurance and my sudden discontinuation six months prior. I started a low dose of Zoloft, 12.5 mg, and once again should’ve known better. It’s been downhill ever since. After about two weeks, I knew that the Zoloft was all wrong and attempted a too fast taper following my doctor’s advice. Then I really had problems.

I am currently at 9.8 mg of Zoloft and am having what seem to be intense withdrawal symptoms. Intense anxiety/agitation, dizziness, brain fog, can’t think straight, feeling detached and disconnected kind of like I’m in the twilight zone. Really incapacitated some days. Symptoms come and go in a kind of windows and waves pattern. I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is protracted withdrawal from having discontinued the Celexa and Wellbutrin so abruptly, or if this is more of an acute withdrawal situation from having begun tapering the Zoloft.

I’ve lost my bearings, and am not sure if I should continue tapering (1% reductions every 5-6 days) or if I should be holding for a while and just trying to give my body a chance to stabilize.Hoping someone here might be able to offer some guidance or insight.

Thanks so much!

My thread on SA; https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/17615-auntiebea-tapering-celexa-and-wellbutrin/#comment-346377.

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

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

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

I am new on this forum, just trying to find my way around. I was previously a member of SA and received quite a lot of help from there over a number of years. I would like to include a link for my thread there at SA but not really sure how to do it. I’m not very savvy navigating these sites. I’ll do the best I can.

Happy to have you over from SA. I believe you were AuntieBea on SA too, is that right? I found your thread here: https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/17615-auntiebea-tapering-celexa-and-wellbutrin/#comment-346377. I'll ask @Chippy to put the link in your signature so folks have easy access to it moving forward.

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

At the time, everyone including my doctor felt I was fine off the drugs, that there would not be any problem having stopped them so suddenly. I should have known better with all my past experience, but honestly, I was not thinking very clearly about these things, just trying to survive the crisis of the moment. Anyway, long story short, about six months later I began to experience, intense, anxiety, and depression. No one including me, made the connection between that occurance and my sudden discontinuation six months prior.

I'm so sorry your doctor took you off the drugs, especially at a time when you were so vulnerable. As I'm sure you know now, the anxiety and depression that you began to experience six months later was very likely delayed withdrawal. It's not uncommon for folks to cold turkey psych drugs and have several months without symptoms before protracted withdrawal sets in.

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

I started a low dose of Zoloft, 12.5 mg, and once again should’ve known better. It’s been downhill ever since.

Sounds like you've been having an adverse reaction to the Zoloft, likely because your nervous system is hypersensitized from your previous cold turkey.

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

After about two weeks, I knew that the Zoloft was all wrong and attempted a too fast taper following my doctor’s advice. Then I really had problems.

I am currently at 9.8 mg of Zoloft and am having what seem to be intense withdrawal symptoms. Intense anxiety/agitation, dizziness, brain fog, can’t think straight, feeling detached and disconnected kind of like I’m in the twilight zone. Really incapacitated some days. Symptoms come and go in a kind of windows and waves pattern. I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is protracted withdrawal from having discontinued the Celexa and Wellbutrin so abruptly, or if this is more of an acute withdrawal situation from having begun tapering the Zoloft.

I'm sorry the taper has been hard even though you were only on the Zoloft for two weeks. Generally we would say that if you haven't been on the drug for long and you're reacting badly to it you should come off pretty quickly. But from what you're saying the symptoms have worsened significantly since you started your taper.

Can you rate your symptoms out of 10 (10 being severe) both before you started your taper (while you were on the full 12.5 mg) and after you reached 9.8 mg? This will help us figure out whether it might be better to hold for a bit, or at least slow the taper down, or if it's more important to try to get off the Zoloft at a quicker pace.

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.

@SarahMc Thank you so much Sarah for responding to my post. Your assessment of my situation feels absolutely correct. It’s what my gut feeling has been, but I haven’t been able to find validation for that anywhere else. The medical crisis I experienced was traumatic in itself and involved many drug exposures along the way, and many people feel that this in itself may have contributed to this flareup of symptoms. Also, most people can’t wrap their heads around the possibility that as many as six months later, protracted withdrawal could begin. But from the research that I have done it seems to me that it’s entirely possible and you have confirmed that.

My nervous system is highly reactive. It’s been that way for years because of my long history of multiple medications and so many on and offs, including cold turkeys. And now more than ever.

It seems that there are two things going on then… protracted withdrawal from the abrupt discontinuation of Celexa and Wellbutrin and either acute withdrawal from the Zoloft taper or an adverse reaction to the Zoloft itself. That sounds like a challenge to me but I guess an eventual taper off the Zoloft and lots of and lots of time is probably the best strategy for approaching both of them. The question being when should I start the taper. So I will try to answer your questions. Believe it or not it’s hard to remember what I was experiencing then, before the taper at 12.5mg as compared to now at 9.8mg. I would say that things have gotten worse with the taper… maybe symptoms were at 6 or 7 before and now they are at 9 or 10. I do understand that it’s helpful to make this distinction in order to figure out next best steps. Hoping you can help with that.

Thank you for tracking down my thread on SA and adding the link to my thread here. Also, I realize my drug signature is not really done correctly. So I will correct that when I can. Meanwhile, thanks again for your thoughtful response to my situation. I am so grateful. It’s so easy to feel alone and overwhelmed with all of this.

Welcome to the forum.

Just to clarify, when you experience symptoms coming and going in a windows and waves pattern, what are the windows like?

Hey @AuntieBea welcome to the forum. I am sorry to read you are having a hard time. Could you update your signature to make your drug history clearer for us please? I have put the link to your Sa thread in your intro post for you :)

Unfortunately you were experiencing WD from stopping Wellbutrin and Celexa ubruptly from what I can see, adding in another antidepressant like Sertraline can't solve this and often makes things worse.

By the sounds of things reducing the dose has worsened things for you now that you have built up tolerance to Zoloft, I would like to see your updated signature to make sure I understand your timeline correctly but I don't think continuing with your taper with symptom severity as high as it is makes any sense at the moment. I think having a nice hold now and letting things get down to a baseline level that you can use to help guide and navigate you off the drug would be best.

Glad you found us and joined x

14 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

So I will try to answer your questions. Believe it or not it’s hard to remember what I was experiencing then, before the taper at 12.5mg as compared to now at 9.8mg. I would say that things have gotten worse with the taper… maybe symptoms were at 6 or 7 before and now they are at 9 or 10. I do understand that it’s helpful to make this distinction in order to figure out next best steps. Hoping you can help with that.

I understand that, this can all feel like such a frantic mess when these symptoms show up. But I appreciate you looking back and trying to recollect what things were like before starting your taper. Given how bad your symptoms are right now, I agree with Chippy that the best thing to do is pause your taper for a little while and let things simmer down a bit. Keep in touch with us on here and we can help guide you about when to restart. I'm sorry you're having such a rough time.

14 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

Thank you for tracking down my thread on SA and adding the link to my thread here. Also, I realize my drug signature is not really done correctly. So I will correct that when I can. Meanwhile, thanks again for your thoughtful response to my situation. I am so grateful. It’s so easy to feel alone and overwhelmed with all of this.

No rush, just update your signature when you're feeling up to it. Happy to have you here, we all understand what you're going through and we're here to support you.

@Chippy Hello Chippy,

Thanks you so much for responding to my post.

I will update my signature ASAP… I knew it wasn’t done correctly when I posted it but wasn’t thinking very clearly, so it was the best I could do. Also, thanks for putting the link to my SA thread into my intro post.

I appreciate your suggestion that I hold my dose of Zoloft until I stabilize. It’s hard for me to imagine what stabilization would actually look like…I’m guessing it does not mean being entirely symptom free but rather with symptoms that are manageable and maybe somewhat consistent…? Anyway, I will be holding the dose for now at 9.8mg.

Yes, adding the Zoloft to the mix has made things so much worse. And I knew better, but still let myself be talked into it by my doctor. So an already bad situation was made worse. It wasn’t clear to me at the time that what I was experiencing was related to the earlier abrupt discontinuation.

Thanks again for your help and for making me feel welcome here!

@SarahMc Hello Sarah,

I appreciate hearing from both you and Chippy and for your suggestion that I hold my current dose for a while until I can stabilize a bit. Not exactly sure what stabilization looks like, but I’m guessing there is some degree of consistency and also manageability of the symptoms. I will stay in touch and hopefully you can guide me with this a bit. So, as of yesterday I am holding my Zoloft dose at 9.8 mg. I will stay in touch and let you know how things go.

Thanks for your support and for making me feel so welcome.

I do have a question about navigating the site here… is my intro post the place where I continue to communicate with anyone who might be in touch or respond to one of my posts? And then I’m guessing I can do the same as far as connecting with other members on the site? Just trying to find my way around…

hoping you can give me a few pointers.

Thanks again Sarah!

@Luke Hello Luke,

Thanks for welcoming me here and for your question.

I’ll describe my experience of windows as best I can. They usually take me by surprise in the sense that out of the blue I become aware that I don’t have that usual dizzy foggy woozy feeling going on in my head. That feeling that I’m disconnected and can’t think straight just sort of lifts and I say to myself, oh my gosh I actually feel sort of normal. Same with anxiety… it just sort of lifts or dissipates the same way a dense fog in the environment does.

It’s like this thing has me in its grip during a wave that makes it hard to think or even to function at all, it’s an experience of dissociation and disconnect that envelops me that then randomly will lift once in a while for a period of time. That’s what I experience as a window. It literally feels like someone has opened the window and fresh air and sunshine are streaming in. For a while. I also notice that during a window I’m able to lie down and actually rest. My body is not pulsing and throbbing and agitating the way it does during a wave. I don’t feel restless, but can actually feel some degree of rest and peace.

Hope this is understandable and answers your question in a helpful way.

All the best to you Luke!

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

Not exactly sure what stabilization looks like, but I’m guessing there is some degree of consistency and also manageability of the symptoms. I will stay in touch and hopefully you can guide me with this a bit. So, as of yesterday I am holding my Zoloft dose at 9.8 mg. I will stay in touch and let you know how things go.

Thanks @AuntieBea. Usually we think of stability as a period of time when your symptoms are consistently between a 1-3/10 in severity. I'm not entirely sure if that will be possible for you since you reacted badly to the Zoloft to begin with, but at a minimum I think we'd like to see your symptoms go back down to the level you experienced when you first started the drug. Chippy has more experience than me with these things so he will be able to give you better guidance.

2 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

I do have a question about navigating the site here… is my intro post the place where I continue to communicate with anyone who might be in touch or respond to one of my posts? And then I’m guessing I can do the same as far as connecting with other members on the site? Just trying to find my way around…

hoping you can give me a few pointers.

Absolutely, your intro post is where you'll continue to update us on your own journey, and where you can communicate with anyone who has responded to your posts. If you want to reach out to other members, you can leave a comment on their thread or use the private messaging function. I hope that helps!

@SarahMc

Thank you so much. Yes, that’s helpful guidance for monitoring stabilization going forward. Also, seems like things are set up quite similarly to SA, so that is familiar for me.

I’m so grateful to have found this forum…just letting you know! I’ve been going around a little bit, reading different members stories and the responses from so many caring, loving people. I was bereft when I learned that SA had shut down… not sure how I even found you all here, but I am so so grateful!!

3 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

I’m so grateful to have found this forum…just letting you know! I’ve been going around a little bit, reading different members stories and the responses from so many caring, loving people. I was bereft when I learned that SA had shut down… not sure how I even found you all here, but I am so so grateful!!

I'm so glad you found us 💜. We have the wonderful @Chippy and @Luke to thank for setting up this space for us. Not sure where I'd be without it to be honest!

@AuntieBea, @SarahMc has already answered you about intro threads, but for clarity we do have a post about them in the section explaining this, that might be helpful for you:

New Member? - Read this first - Introductions & Ongoing Recoveries - The Antidepressant Harm and Recovery Forum

I would say that on the basis that you're having windows where symptoms are significantly less severe, it is worth holding where you are for a bit to see if you do stabilise, as @Chippy suggested.

As you alluded to, this might not look like being symptom free, but what we'd be hoping for is that over time the windows become clearer or longer, or potentially a new baseline that you settle to.

I'd say at least try holding for a little while, a couple of weeks, and then let's see what's going on then.

17 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

Thanks you so much for responding to my post.

My pleasure

17 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

I will update my signature ASAP… I knew it wasn’t done correctly when I posted it but wasn’t thinking very clearly, so it was the best I could do. Also, thanks for putting the link to my SA thread into my intro post.

No rush just when you feel able

17 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

appreciate your suggestion that I hold my dose of Zoloft until I stabilize. It’s hard for me to imagine what stabilization would actually look like…I’m guessing it does not mean being entirely symptom free but rather with symptoms that are manageable and maybe somewhat consistent…? Anyway, I will be holding the dose for now at 9.8mg.

Ok, I think this is best, as Sarah has said, we suggest rating your symptoms out of 10, 10 being very bad and 1 mild, if you can be consistently 1-3/10 we would call that stable and your WD normal/basline.

17 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

Yes, adding the Zoloft to the mix has made things so much worse. And I knew better, but still let myself be talked into it by my doctor. So an already bad situation was made worse. It wasn’t clear to me at the time that what I was experiencing was related to the earlier abrupt discontinuation.

I know, unfortunately once the cns is bruised are more vulnerable to these things. These drugs are never the answer tbh.

17 hours ago, AuntieBea said:

Thanks again for your help and for making me feel welcome here!

My absolute pleasure, you are very welcome here. x