lowering my dose due to night sweats & vivid dreams

[MrAndy]

You can do it ,my advice would be to put absolutely no pressure on yourself to get off them quickly.Take it slow and steady,if you drop a dose don't put any timescale for the next drop this will cause anxiety.I am coming off olanzapine if it takes me a year or 1 month it doesn't really matter as long as I am off it one day.HOld each dose for at least 1 month then see how you feel you might not want to or be ready to drop again if not carry on with that dose until you feel strong again
The tortoise wins the withdrawal race

[pulisa]

Just take it a day at a time-there's no rush and you will be in control of your dose reduction. You want rid of these night sweats and I don't blame you. Those of us who know the "abyss" will always fear a return but the knowledge we have gained along this route (I'm not saying "journey") will give us power and insight which we didn't have before xx

---------- Post added at 20:04 ---------- Previous post was at 20:02 ----------

You can do it ,my advice would be to put absolutely no pressure on yourself to get off them quickly.Take it slow and steady,if you drop a dose don't put any timescale for the next drop this will cause anxiety.I am coming off olanzapine if it takes me a year or 1 month it doesn't really matter as long as I am off it one day.HOld each dose for at least 1 month then see how you feel you might not want to or be ready to drop again if not carry on with that dose until you feel strong again
The tortoise wins the withdrawal race

Sorry, Mr Andy-I took ages to post my effort and probably duplicated what you said.

[MrAndy]

There's method in our madness

[nicola1980]

Thankyou your all so brilliant, I've had a bit of an upset tummy tonight so not sure if it's nerves or a bit of withdrawal as I know the half life is very short on ven but I'm trying not to focus on it
how you getting on Mr Andy with the olanzapine taper? I lowered my dose a year ago to 2.5mg from 5mg and it was a struggle but I was determined to do it, it's not an easy med to withdraw from either XX

[MrAndy]

I dropped from 5mg to 2.5mg about a month ago,I've had rebound insomnia and bad headaches but that's about it.Sometime in the new year I will drop again,I'm in no rush and feel loads better on the lower dose besides the lack of sleep and headaches.I feel less lethargic in the day and my moods better

[nicola1980]

I also feel better on the 2.5mg and I've managed to loose the weight I put on with it and more and my appetite has lowered immensely, when on 5mg I would be raiding my cupboards with hunger at night, I intend to come off it completely too, I was intending on doing that before the ven but I couldn't take the sweats and dreams any longer so the olanzapine will have to wait a bit longer XX

[MrAndy]

I would stay on the olanzapine for now if I was you ,it's a good mood stabiliser and will help you come off the ven.Drug free I wonder what that's going to feel like

[SADnomore]

Hi, all ... Been awhile, new job and exhaustion limits my screen time these days. I do look in though, each week even when I don't have time to write.

I would like to say, (no offence to anyone), it seems to me that I read a great number of posts on NMP from people who struggle hard to be "drug free", only to realize months afterwards that they aren't coping well and need to get back on a medication. Then comes again the re-adjustment, the side effects, etc. Finding out that a drug that worked before is now useless, especially if there have been numerous withdrawals and restarts. ... I know that for me, and I suspect there are lots of us on here, depression and anxiety are compounded by seasonal affective disorder to some degree. Well, so long as I live so far from the equator, I can't imagine not being subject to worsening symptoms in winter.

I have to think that, for many people, the lack of serotonin or melatonin or whatever it is that makes life tough at times, physiological factors will come into play without some kind of intervention. Not necessarily drugs, maybe hormones, maybe daylight plus sleep hygiene and exercise. Sometimes though, hormones cannot be satisfactorily addressed. Exercise and daylight may be severely limited. And, as in my case, it may be certain situations (okay, and people) that make them unavoidably anxious. Unmanageably so. So, much of the time we can, or could, be fine without medication if it weren't for such factors over which we have little or no control.

But there they are. These are amongst the factors behind why the drugs were recommended in the first place. And if nothing changes, then nothing changes. So long as I am still closer to the North Pole than I am the US border, then daylight in winter is going to be all too short. The bitter cold will keep me indoors, and my energy and mood will suffer. ... Partly because of the difficulty of complete withdrawal, I was advised to stick with ven in a lower dose, over summer. I am surprised, myself, but once past the initial start-up, I have found it has become much easier to titrate up for winter, and down for summer. But it is true that we are all different, and some may feel a huge difference in small changes to dose.

Good luck to you Nicola hon, I have appreciated your support so much in past. (Same to you, Pulisa, Terry, MrAndy.) I remember the crazy dreams and sweating from ven. I feel blessed that these eventually passed for me. Come to think of it, I didn't associate them with a particular dose, but perhaps if you are able to, then you can stay just below it? I am back up to 150 mg now again and okay for now. I kind of hope that I don't have to go as high as last year (300) just to keep functioning. I didn't like the way I felt, flat and at the same time, propelled about. However, it was still better than the pain I was in before ven.

I really cherish how supportive this group is, and encouraging. I congratulate those who are functioning well without drugs. Of course that is optimal! At the same time, however, I think it is worth considering that struggling to maintain a low dose in winter, much less complete withdrawal, is just not feasible for some of us.

Marie xo

[nicola1980]

Well I had a complete breakdown last night, I had awful diarrhea and felt terrible so I went to bed but I started shaking and crying uncontrollably and felt totally out of it which scared me to death, I got up and my poor husband didn't know what to do, I was just sobbing and my whole body shaking, I was asking for my mum which I've not done in years and she's abroad on holiday, I can't believe dropping just 37.5mg can make me feel like this, it is more than the recommended 10% drop and I felt fine until 9pm then it hit me like a ton of bricks, I couldn't get off the loo and the fear I felt was immense, it was like I was out my body, I had to take 4mg of Diazapam to try and calm myself down, I eventually went back to bed and with the help of the Diaz I managed to drift off but was fitful all night and had bloody nightmares which is worse than the vivid dreams, I've been tossing and turning since 3 with a pounding headache and eventually got up but now I don't know what to do? My husband after seeing me last night thinks I should reinstate at least for the minute especially as I have a lot of pressure on with my son being recently diagnosed with ASD and I've got his birthday and Christmas to get through, I think what scared him was I was crying so much and just asking for my mum and that's what I was like when I was very poorly. I'm so confused and don't know what to do for the best, I want to lower but I need to function especially for my son, I worked it out that it hit me 15 hours after my missed dose. I've got such a bad headache this morning so just going to take some tablets and mull it over, I might try and ring my mum abroad soon for her opinion XX

---------- Post added at 05:59 ---------- Previous post was at 05:10 ----------

Sorry Marie I didn't mean to ignore your post, I just went off on a tangent, thankyou so much for replying and I hope that the 150mg is the dose that works for you but don't beat yourself up if you do need to increase especially over the winter months as I know you struggle then the most.
I've just spoke to my mum, fortunately she's an early raiser, she's told me to go back to my original dose asap and to make an appointment with my gp as she says with me being anaemic that can also cause night sweats and exhaustion, I refused iron tablets as I don't like the side effects of them on my tummy so my gp is closely monitoring it with 4 weekly blood tests but I have lost more weight which is also a sign of anaemia so I'm going to go and see him and see what he says, I'm due another blood test in December for it anyway but I think something needs to be done sooner. I feel like I've failed at the first hurdle but after last night I can't risk becoming ill again not for me but for my family my son especially XX

[MyNameIsTerry]

I'm sorry to hear this, Nicola. I think without going a few days it is hard to gauge the true impact as you need to know if it repeats but I appreciate how much hell it can be and I would be asking myself the same questions.

Your med is the XL one and it's half life isn't too much lower than Sertraline by the looks of it so I would hope this would make the withdrawal a bit smoother as the normal version would mean a very quick drop to the new dose. It looks like you were at 39 hours so given the parent compound is 15+6 hours for elimination you could have been somewhere between 25-50% of the dose adjustment based on a standard pharmacokinetic model.

If you believe that this is the withdrawal and that nothing else could have contributed then it makes sense to try a slower taper and see if it's a bit easier. I was hoping you wouldn't experience much of a change from a small dip but these adrenaline meds are complicated. I guess it's worth seeing what others who have come down from >150mg doses think to see if they felt some of this and if so, it must be the adrenaline element. Then a slower taper would be the best thing to try but it's difficult with these damn beads isn't it?!

I hate these beads! The drug companies should be made to produce lots of doses but sadly both they and the doctors don't seem to care about having a proper structure to allow us to taper on & off safely!

I hope you are feeling a bit better soon.

Marie - you know we are all around if you need us. You are always there for others so deserve the same back. I hope the increase goes as you want it too. I think you know a lot more now about how to manage your meds so will have more success with getting there quicker this year. If I need to be on meds for life, so be it, being ok is all I care about. Ideally I don't want to need them but as an asthma sufferer I have to take daily meds for life anyway and I view it no different.