Will begin by thanking all responsible for this forum. I have been viewing threads over the last few weeks - made a few bookmarks - to help me along my way. I hope I can also make something of a positive impact myself.
So... I was first on Cit 10 years ago for PTSD, and levelled out after about a year, but remained on a reduced dose of 10mg ever since. Start of July, I decided to ween myself off. Doctor said 2 weeks on half dose, and then stop, which I don't think was a good idea.
At this very point, I had a misdiagnosis of going deaf in my left ear - a week later I find it was impacted wax, but this sent my anxious right back on track. I then had a severe onset of hives - face, arms, feet. Looked hideous. Felt awful in public. Doctor gave me anti-histamines - quite a high dose. Two days on, I woke with a pulse of 180bpm which nearly landed me in hospital (was a reaction to the meds). Days after, I started what I now know to be the usual anxiety "lump in the throat". Difficultly swallowing - you all know! But of course, by this time, I had hypochondria-fed anxiety.
Returned to the doc who put me on Sertraline (10mg) along with steroids for my throat. That week was just awful. By the weekend, I was suicidal and went to to a&e. They got a doctor to see me who told me to immediately stop the steroids as my throat was fine, and to go back to Cit, and couldn't believe the doc suggested another med.
I also had something of a relationship - very significant one - go sour at the same time. I don't think I will ever forget this part.
Anyway. Long story short - my story thus far;
• Weeks 1/2 - Usual side effects, felt very bad, but did my best to get thru.
• Week 3 - Glimmer of light as evenings became better. Mornings were still the enemy.
• Week 4 - Afternoons becoming more manageable, but a could of "blips"
• Week 5 - Had 5 days where I was 80% better... all day! Weekend say a blip again.
• Week 6 - Another 5 day felt around 90% and thought I was seeing the end
• Week 7 - Weekend and slowly since, feel like I am back to square one and a HUGE confidence hit. But is much more depression than anxiety - which was the initial issue.
Any thoughts at this point would be very gratefully received. I feel that I have a bad batch of pills all of a sudden. The progress has been so promising. There wasn't even a "trigger" last weekend that I know of.
Three sleepless nights. Resisting compounding my body with Valium and sleeping pills, but damn this is hard. So very hard.
Off to work soon, and not feeling in the least confident.
My warmest blessings to you all.