How long...?

[devilwithangelwings]

Hi all, what a very helpful and informative site this is!

I have been on clomipramine for several years due to showing signs of anxiety/OCD as a teenager triggered by a life changing event. I didn't realise that this could (should, IMO!) have been a temporary measure and I would now like to come off it. My doctor has been giving me repeat prescriptions with no questions asked ever since, no reviews or anything and I should have really come off it ages ago as I do feel I can cope without it now, and have been able to for a long time. To be honest I often forget to take it or renew prescription and the only ill effect I have experienced is a bit of dizziness, even after several days.

Having had a scout around it seems the advice is to withdraw slowly over a period of about 4 weeks. Can anyone add to that or give their own experience?

My other question is that I am due a medical for work shortly and I would prefer for the clomipramine not to show up on the urine test so how long would it take to leave my system once I have stopped taking it, so that it doesn't show up in urine results?

Many thanks in advance

[JaneC]

Hello Devil to NMP. Not a lot of clomip users about so you may not get many replies. However, I was on it for seven years and would definitely recommend taking it slowly. I dropped by 10mg at a time, with about a week between decreases, but if you are on a higher dose than I was you might want to try say 20mg at a time (especially if you've been not to bad with discontinuation symptoms in the past). Your body will tell you how to proceed, if you feel rubbish slow things down.

Will work definitely test for ADs? I'm not sure exactly how long it takes clomip to get out of your system but it has a shorter half-life than many other ADs so it will go pretty quickly. It's half-life s about 35 hours, if somebody else can calculate what that means?

Good luck and I'm always around if you have more qs xx

[devilwithangelwings]

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

The test is for drugs/alcohol but I thought my urine may show up if I have high levels of certain chemicals? As I know that clomipramine does have side effects which they may say could effect my ability to do my job, even though I have never experienced such side effects myself. So I just don't want to have to mention it really!

[deepreason]

I have pm'd you a couple of links that may help with the drug test question. They are not reputable sites like this one (a very different approach to medication) so treat with all due caution.

[devilwithangelwings]

Thanks very much, deepreason.

I've already seen that it should take about a week once I stop taking it completely to be out of my system which sounds about right from what I calculated. I am not on any other drugs but am just concerned that they may use fact I have clomipramine in my system to say that my reactions may be impaired, for example, as safety is a very important aspect of my work you see. Wish I'd stopped taking the blimin things years ago now!

Thanks again!

[devilwithangelwings]

Just a quick update to say I have been off Clomipramine completely for nearly 2 months now (started tapering it down on the day of posting this thread). Have really not had any problems at all. Was a bit more emotional than usual at first, and a bit of dizziness (which I had when I began taking it) but nothing that has affected my day to day life and now I feel absolutely fine. I have my medical next week so the stuff should be well and truly out of my system now