Withdrawals-Urgent help/Advice needed

[ShazzaUk]

Hi everyone i suffer from general anxiety and had been on 10mg of escitalopram for about a year and a half. I ran out of my tablets last Monday and forgot to collect my prescription. After forgetting my dose for three days i decided to try and come off the tablets as i had been feeling really well.

I have been getting some withdrawal symptoms, mostly the dizzy head feeling but today i feel really bad. Dizzy, panicky and really anxious.

I cannot get in to see my Dr till Wednesday as that is when she is next in. I think i need to get back on the tablets but after 7 days without do you think it will be ok to just start taking them again.

Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks
ShazzaUK

[xBettyBoopx]

Hi Shazza

It's never a good thing to come off medication straight away, but seeing as you already have 7 days ago, you might be over the worst. I don't really have any advice, you're seeing your doc on Wednesday, so see what he says. Coming off that sort of medication slowly can be very hard at the best of times, but as you have already done it for 7 days, the doc might put you back on a smaller dose. I always think that if ppl forget they're medication then it's a sign to start coming off of them anyway.

I think you've done very well.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Take care.

Els

[alias_kev]

Most of the stuff I've seen talks about coming off these (and many other pills) very slowly. You were on a low dose which is good. I think the only lower dose would be half a pill a day at 5mg. It might be that this would have been a better stage for you for a few weeks or more.

The thing to remember is that all these things mess with our brain chemistry. Thats pretty magic stuff which is not fully understood. ((Its hard to examine a brain and keep them alive!!!. ))

When stopping these your brain will be short of seratonin which is involved in all the good stuff like happyness/calm/satiation. The drug used to make you have lots and now you have to go it alone. It kind of like taking off a split or cast and trying to run around the garden. You would move worse and slower than you did with the cast - and its the same for you poor brain.

I unknowingly missed a pill by accident the other day and had fairly a wild ride and I'm only on 10mg twice a day. Its poor you have to wait so long for your GP though. Had you been on a higher does it would have been freaky.

I'm not personally convinced forgetting meds indicates one is ready to come off - both anxiety and a lot of its medications can make us more forgetful and complacent so its easy to let things slide and just forget to get a prescription.