cold turkey withdrawal from paroxetine...

dear sirs or madams,

after 6/7 years taking a drug that my doctor said was non-addictive i have successfully stopped using it. it's been 11 days since my last daily dose of 40mgs (2 tablets of 20mgs). i hope my experience will help others. please feel free to email me if want to.

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saturday, i take my last dose.

sunday, mild panic.

monday, mild to moderate panic.

tuesday, increasing moderate to severe panic, nausea and a mild feeling of desperation, hand/leg tremor and "whooshing" sounds every-time i turn my head. also noise, any noise seems to annoy me. i decide to stay in bed (eating nothing all day).

tuesday night, i have a "red hot" sweat and cannot sleep, the nausea is getting worse, the "whooshing" is also very bad now, i get very very agitated as the tremors get worse and spread to most of the body and i wander round the flat trying to do "things", not exactly sure what "things", but anything seems to help. by 5am and i'm totally *******, oddly i decide to have a bath. this i find calms me down enough to sleep, but only for about 2 hours.

wednesday morning, the shaking has now become so violent that i am unable to get dressed, but i'm so scared and so desperate for sleep that i actually walk naked to the nearest chemist and buy some sleeping pills, nobody in the shop bats an eye-lid. i somehow manage to return "safely" home and after taking a tablet, go straight back to bed.

i slept until friday morning, when i awoke i felt completely different. since then i have had only very minor "whooshing" sounds/nausea and panic. some days are good and some are bad, but mostly good.

apart from the very unpleasant withdrawal symptoms i suffered over the last two weeks or so i definitely feel much better not taking the prescription antidepressants.

kind regards to all,

colcol.

if i am half the man my father was, i am a man indeed...

Hi Colcol

Just one quick question, did the doctor advise you to stop taking the medication suddenly or was this your choice?

Nicola

Hi ,

Non addictive is genrally interpreted as YOU not feeling the need/craving to take a tablet ie Valium, nicotine, heroin, alcohol rather than the body needing to rebalance slowly as it definately does with many substances.

Well done for getting through it.. !





Meg

Watch your thoughts, they become your words...
Watch your words, they become your actions... Watch your actions, they become your habits... Watch your habits, they become your character... Watch your character, it becomes your destiny...

nicola,

the doctor decided to stop the prescription suddenly.

colcol.

if i am half the man my father was, i am a man indeed...

meg,

i agree with you on the term "addictive", but i still however needed my daily "fix" of the drugs.

it apparently takes between 2 and 4 weeks for all of the unpleasant symptoms of the withdrawal to slowly subside and eventually stop completely. if this is true, then it means i have just over 2 weeks more of unpredictable daily "****" to cope with.

but, however sick i feel and however bad it gets for me over the coming days and weeks, it can never be as bad as tuesday night and wednesday morning of last week.

i'm very hopeful anyway,

regards.

colcol.

if i am half the man my father was, i am a man indeed...