How to taper off Brintellix?

[js1803]

I've been on 5 mg for about 10 days. I couldn't tolerate the side effects, so the the nurse left me a message to taper off, but didn't explain how.

Would anyone know how to taper off? I'd like to start tapering today instead of waiting till Monday to find out.

Thank you.

[Pipkin]

I'd speak to your nurse again and ask this. It's a new drug you're taking and I don't think many here have the experience to offer guidance.

What I would say is that 10 days isn't long so the taper should be short and relatively straightforward. It should be a matter of reducing the dose by a percentage each day for a week or so but, as I said, you'll need some professional advice to confirm this.

Good luck

Pip

[MyNameIsTerry]

According to Drugs.com:

Discontinuing Treatment

Although BRINTELLIX can be abruptly discontinued, in placebo-controlled trials patients experienced transient adverse reactions such as headache and muscle tension following abrupt discontinuation of BRINTELLIX 15 mg/day or 20 mg/day. To avoid these adverse reactions, it is recommended that the dose be decreased to 10 mg/day for one week before full discontinuation of BRINTELLIX 15 mg/day or 20 mg/day [see Adverse Reactions (6)].

It also talks about how you start on 10mg and progress to 20mg. So, I'm guessing you may be either sensitive to side effects or you were only going on a low dose. The nurse really should have told you how, that's just unacceptable, but given the advice on tapering there it might make sense to do that with a half dose of your 5mg BUT really they need to explain it. Slower tapers are possible with pill splitting, if your pill is ok for that.

You've not been on long so quick tapers are usually the norm and you haven't been on quite long enough for that dose to reach it's steady-state as that's about 2 weeks.

It's a long half life drug so hopefully it will mean lesser withdrawal.

[js1803]

Thank you for the reply. I decided to just take it a little while longer. I actually had a better day yesterday on it, so going to see what happens over the next couple days.