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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
 Posted - 06/20/2007 : 15:02:16
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There is a good book about weaning off of antidepressants, written by a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen. The title is "The Antidepressant Solution." He is not against antidepressants, but he points out that many people are given these meds by family doctors who don't really know that much about the meds and don't give people accurate advice about their use and how to stop taking them.
The key strategy is to taper carefully. For some people, when you get down to a small dose, then you need to slow the taper--for example, if you've been reducing your dose by 10 mg. per week, you may need to slow the reduction down to 5 mg. per week as you get close to the end. It can take 6 weeks or longer--sometimes much longer in a person who is hypersensitive to the changes--to get off a med. Some people take months to successfully taper without withdrawal symptoms.
One of the most common misconceptions among family doctors, according to the book, is that withdrawal symptoms and "rebound" depressive symptoms indicate that you still need the medication. Of course, the author recommends doing the tapering under medical supervision, but some doctors are just uninformed about what to expect when a patient goes off the med.
I have found that my brain has learned to mimic withdrawal symptoms and sometimes uses them in a TMS fashion. It's highly annoying to me to have these come-and-go symptoms that feel just like medication withdrawal! Sometimes it's a real fight to get my brain to stop doing it.
I also really like Floorten's comments about tapering off by spreading out the time between doses and about not allowing depression to become part of your identity. Thanks for posting that, Greg!
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Melina D.
Canada
2 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 19:01:29
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| Thanks for the information, guys. I'm sure I'll be referring to it the next time I taper off these drugs, as I'm determined to do. |
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Need Support to Get Off Antidepressants
