Pushing a boulder up a hill

P was right, a few days after reducing my prozac, I go a bit hyper, then he knows I'm going to have a bit of a crash, I tell him that he blames me/the prozac for any little mood change as it suits him, but we had quite an in depth discussion about it in which he said that he has been a very close observer of me and knows me inside out, and he gets fed up when I accuse him of blaming a mood change on a prozac reduction.

It's Sunday now and I'm feeling a lot better now, I now have two weeks off my SCC job, still working odd days with P but I'll have a bit of time off with the boys.

Prozac reduction timeline

Therapeutic bike ride

I love the Suffolk countryside!


Prozac reduction timeline

The New Middle Ages Self Nonmedication

A friend sent me this article about withdrawal in the New York Times which I thought was beautifully well written.

Link to this article

May 6, 2007


The New Middle AgesSelf-Nonmedication By BRUCE STUTZ

Seven years ago, not long after my father died, with my editing job lost, my finances frail, my 26-year marriage failing, a child in college and a mortgage to pay, my brain seemed to lose its way. Sometimes it could barely think at all. Sometimes it tortured a single thought for hours. And sometimes, in desperation and without aim, it released a barrage of anger upon itself.
I could come up with a hundred descriptions of how I felt — as if the train I’d been riding had gone off track, as if the ground beneath me had given way and swallowed me up, as if I were in a black hole being compressed to nothingness — none of them very original, I suppose, because this was not, for a man just past 50, a very extraordinary midlife situation. But it was mine, and I saw no way out of it. Immobilized by indecision or agitated to the point of exhaustion, I could enumerate every stressful circumstance, but I was simply unable or unwilling to resolve any of them. Instead, I dithered miserably while I staved off creditors, struggled to write, sparred with marriage counselors and rued the emotional havoc I was wreaking on myself and everyone around me. Frustrated, I felt angered and at times utterly hopeless. I needed help.
At our first meeting, I told the psychiatrist that what I thought I needed was something to enable me to focus my thinking, something like the amphetamines I used to take in college to study. He demurred but said that an antidepressant might prove worthwhile and accomplish the same thing. He prescribed Prozac, but after only a few days on it, I began having nightmares that verged on the hallucinatory. So he suggested a switch to Effexor, and without much thought as to what this was or how it worked, I took the prescription and the handful of blister-packed capsules he offered (I had, when I was younger, tried many things given me by far lesser authorities) and agreed that we should meet regularly. The medication, he said, would begin working after a few weeks of gradually increasing dosage. I had no adverse reaction to it.
We met weekly and, like engineers examining a weakening structure, began to analyze each point of stress and how I might deal with it. This was not easy since, in the course of living, working and rearing children, I had developed many ways of specifically not dealing with many things — especially those that involved determining who I was and what I thought without reference to my being son, father, husband, lover or friend. I was not breaking new psychoanalytic ground here, but if one of the characteristics of depression —as it has been said of insanity — is thinking the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results, then I was depressed. I found little pleasure in anything; I couldn’t sleep. Each day seemed to drag on forever, and yet I never seemed to have enough time to accomplish even the simplest tasks.
After several weeks of sessions, my brain began to clear. Whether this was because of the drug or from just taking the time to consider my circumstances, I don’t know. Still, it took nearly three years of therapy before I began to lose my fear of thinking about things differently and accepting the fact that change held possibility along with uncertainty. But change was still hard — on everyone. My marriage did not make it through. I was living alone in a 17-by-6-foot below-ground studio in Brooklyn that my kids called “the Batcave,” still challenged by money and work. But the siege had lifted, the panic had vanished and I felt older, wiser and abler.
My last session with my psychiatrist lacked drama. I thanked him. We shook hands. He wished me luck. There was no mention of going off my antidepressant, and satisfied with the way things were going, I continued to take my 150 milligrams once a day. I still struggled with work and money, but I stayed focused. Over the next several months, I wrote a proposal for a book that would, in examining the nature of spring, consider the nature of change. In March of the following year I began my travels, heading north across the country for four months, following the increasing hours of daylight, seeking to reach spring’s climax and complete my spiritual renewal when I reached the Arctic at the summer solstice. But there, I also came to another realization: exhilarated by the 24 hours of Arctic daylight, hoping for a transformative escape from time, I had removed my watch. I was watching the timeless sight of caribou herds crossing the vast Arctic plain — and found myself worrying that I had no way of knowing when I should take my next dose of antidepressant.
In the past I experienced what happened if I didn’t take it on time. When I missed my morning dose, by 2 p.m. I would begin to space out. A prickliness in my neck would give way to a restless agitation that left me edging toward panic. All I would be able to think of was how far away I was from home, my pill, relief. Within 20 minutes of taking the pill, I would feel better. I would feel better just knowing I’d taken it.
But what I was experiencing 4,000 miles away from New York felt absurd. Why, more than two years after leaving therapy, feeling fine, able to work, write and face setbacks and frustrations without panic or depression, was I still taking an antidepressant? I decided that being in the middle of writing the book was no time to stop, and stayed on for another two years. But once the book was published, I began to wonder again whether I needed to keep taking this pill.
Since the time I had stopped seeing my psychiatrist, other doctors had, with no questions asked, written prescriptions. My G.P. was the prescriber of the moment.
“I was thinking of getting off Effexor,” I told him.
“Do you feel O.K. on it?” he asked.
I said I did.
“Then why go off it?”
Well, for one thing, this fear of forgetting my pills. And for another, I was beginning to suffer some undesirable sexual side effects.
“There are other drugs with fewer sexual side effects,” he offered. “And there’s always Viagra.”
Didn’t it seem strange to have to counteract the effects of one drug with another drug? Why not just get off the antidepressant?
“In my experience,” he said, “most people who go off eventually go back on.”
Somehow I couldn’t believe I had to take this pill for the rest of my life. I was feeling fine. At least I thought I was feeling fine. The image that came to mind was of Dumbo the elephant believing that what allowed him to fly was the feather the crows had given him. Only when he drops the feather does he realize that he truly has the gift of flight. Could I let go?
Friends had plenty of stories of trying to go off antidepressants. One said her medication made her lose interest in sex, so that soon after she began taking it she quit but felt guilty telling her therapist, who went on thinking she was on it. Another said she kept trying to get off because she couldn’t deal with the amount of weight she’d gained. But she kept returning to it. One said that within two weeks of quitting, she and her husband both found her unbearable, and she went back on.
All of them questioned my decision to go off. Didn’t I understand that depression was caused by a chemical imbalance? It was a disease, they insisted, like diabetes, and antidepressants were like insulin. But a diabetic knows what will happen if he goes off his insulin. I was in a psychopharmacological Catch-22: the only way to know whether my depression would return if I went off of my antidepressant was to go off my antidepressant and risk depression.
My friends and I are children of the modern drug age; we never knew a time before antibiotics or antipsychotics, so our working assumption is that every disease has its cure. Sooner or later, as in the movies, an Erlich, a Pasteur or a Salk, working late in the lab, has a eureka moment, and the magic bullet is found.
When it came to depression, serotonin was deemed that magic bullet. One of life’s most venerable chemicals — plants were making use of it long before humans evolved — serotonin is one of several chemicals, including norepinephrine and dopamine, called neurotransmitters, which nerve cells release into the tiny gaps among themselves and their neighbors to allow signals to pass among them. Once a message has been sent and received, the sending cell absorbs (“reuptakes” is the scientific term) the leftover neurotransmitter.
During the 1960s and 1970s, researchers recognized that some drugs that improved patients’ moods had the ability to inhibit the sending cell’s reuptake process, thereby leaving more neurotransmitter lingering in the synapses. Inductive reasoning led them to conclude that what must have caused these patients’ mood disorders in the first place was an insufficiency of these same chemical neurotransmitters. Restore the brain’s “chemical balance,” the thinking went, and depression could be alleviated. The antidepressant age was born.
Early antidepressants worked on a number of neurotransmitters. In 1987, Prozac became the first selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (S.S.R.I.) introduced in America, followed by Paxil and Zoloft. Effexor (generically, venlafaxine hydrochloride), the drug I was taking, focused on both serotonin and norepinephrine (and so is referred to as an S.N.R.I), inhibiting their reuptake, increasing the amounts in my synapses and thereby presumably enabling my brain to keep depression at bay.
It has long been known that the body’s chemistry responds to stress. Recent studies suggest that when stress becomes chronic, the persistence of the chemicals that respond to it may damage or reduce the number of serotonin receptors, inhibit the production of proteins that mobilize serotonin receptors and even shrink neurons in the hippocampus, the part of the brain involved most with memory. How the chemistry of chronic stress results in depression is uncertain. It’s also uncertain whether a deficiency of serotonin might lead to chronic stress. But the presumption is that antidepressants, by increasing serotonin, reduce the effects of chronic stress and thereby arrest depression.
Since I was no longer feeling depressed, the experiment I was about to embark upon would test whether without the drug to keep my serotonin up, my depression would return. A risky proposition, considering all I’d gone through to get well, but if I really was well, perhaps my serotonin levels might adjust on their own. Or perhaps I was well enough to live with a chemical imbalance, if that’s what I had.
Drug-company brochures and Web sites reported that the symptoms of going off antidepressants were usually mild and short-lived — a week or two. They all recommended tapering off, preferably by half-steps, in consultation with a doctor. I thought about calling my psychiatrist, but it had been four years, and I didn’t want to return to the place, physically or mentally, where I had gone through so much pain. I also knew my psychiatrist well enough to know that he didn’t take his job lightly and would have most likely asked me to come in. But I couldn’t afford more sessions.
While I was still undecided whether or when to begin, serendipity came into play. Instead of prescribing a month’s worth of 150-milligram capsules to be taken once a day, my doctor mistakenly prescribed 75-milligram capsules to be taken twice a day. I took it as an omen. This would make it easy for me to halve my dose. So I began.
I expected that for the first couple of days I would feel the muscle-twitching anxiety that came when I missed a dose, but it was not so bad, and I had hopes that I might taper off quickly. On the third day, however, I began to find it difficult to focus and was unable to sit at my desk for more than a half-hour at a time. I was agitated, restless and hyperaware of sounds. When I read, sentences seemed to run into one another on the page, and I realized that this was not just because of difficulty focusing my mind but also my eyes. By early evening on that day, I felt so jittery and anxious that I decided I needed more medication. Somewhere, I recalled, a couple of years earlier I stashed a blister pack of 37.5-milligram capsules, a sample my doctor had passed on to me. But where? Although I could have split open a 75-milligram capsule, in my anxious state I became bent on finding those 37.5’s. An hour or more later, after manically scavenging through everything in the apartment, I found them — six remaining in the blister pack. I took one and felt as if I could now go on. I felt relieved to have them. I would stay with my reduced dosage as long as I could, but they would be my backup if I found that I absolutely needed them.
Over the next several days they came in handy, especially at night, when I would wake up feeling dizzy, almost seasick, disoriented and in a heavy sweat, the pillow soaked. One night, awake and not eager to go back to lying restlessly in bed, I went online, typed in “Effexor withdrawal” and found bulletin boards full of pained, plaintive and sometimes angry posters who had quit taking their medication and were suffering a broad but surprisingly consistent range of symptoms: dry mouth, muscle twitching, sleeplessness, fatigue, dizziness, stomach cramps, nightmares, blurred vision, tinnitus, anxiety and, weirdest of all, what were referred to as “brain zaps” or “brain shivers.” While there were those who went off with few or no symptoms at all, others reported taking months to feel physically readjusted. In the face of those symptoms, many despaired, gave up and returned to the drugs.
By the end of the second week, I felt confident that I could continue on 75 milligrams a day. But then my symptoms became more physical: the chills at night and the cold sweats continued. I felt tingling in my shoulders and hands, spasms in my legs. These came and went, seemingly with no reason. And then one night as I lay back to go to sleep, I felt a quick spasm in my head as if an electrical current had suddenly been sent through a circuit somewhere inside my brain. Two more followed in quick succession. With each came a wave of nausea. I sat up. They seemed to disappear. They returned. I realized these were the brain zaps, and over the next few weeks they would come, with no distinguishable pattern, several times a day.
Coping with the ever-changing and seemingly capricious symptoms was beginning to exhaust me. I couldn’t stick to any sleep schedule. I couldn’t think clearly. I was becoming unfocused, agitated and unable to sit long enough to read or work. The stress of anxiety and sleeplessness that I’d almost forgotten seemed to be returning. And that scared me.
Was my depression returning, or could getting off this drug actually cause so many and various symptoms? I spoke with neuroscientists, research psychiatrists and practicing therapists. All of them knew of the difficulties some people had in getting off not only Effexor but other antidepressants as well. They also all agreed that most of these symptoms were caused by a deficiency of serotonin.
What was happening was this: When I started taking Effexor, the drug began inhibiting my brain cells’ process of reabsorbing “excess” serotonin — that is, the serotonin that had gone unused in sending signals across the synapses from one neuron to another. This was the purpose of taking the drug — to increase the amount of serotonin my cells had to work with and therefore, in theory, enable me to cope with my stress and depression. I say “in theory” because even 20 years since the introduction of drugs like these, every researcher with whom I spoke was cautious about presuming a direct relationship between increased serotonin levels in neural synapses and a decrease in depression. First, no one has ever measured the amount of serotonin in the synapses between anyone’s brain cells. No one knows what constitutes a low, high or even standard level. Second, for reasons unknown, only a little better than half the people treated with antidepressants respond to them. Third, studies have shown that placebos have only a slightly lesser rate of effectiveness than the drugs. Fourth, serotonin levels are affected by many things — exercise, light, sleep, diet and even time of day. And finally, serotonin has so much influence on chemistry and functions in so many places in the body and brain relating to mood, sleep, sexual desire, appetite and body temperature that to say that it acts in any one particular way is impossible.
Research suggests that as the effects of the drug set in, my cells became more receptive to serotonin and the brain compensated to ensure that there wasn’t a serotonin overflow. This function is important, because an excess of serotonin can not only cause severe psychological effects but can also, in rare cases, be fatal. During the first weeks of taking an antidepressant, then, until the drug’s ability to inhibit reuptake of serotonin matches the brain’s ability to withhold it, the brain apparently has less serotonin to work with than it had before. During this period patients can suffer a range of uncomfortable side effects, from sleeplessness to anxiety, that make many patients quit taking the drug before they ever reach an effective dose. It’s also the period during which some patients suffer such severe agitation that the chances that they will attempt suicide increase significantly enough that the F.D.A. requires what is known as a “black box” warning on the labels of S.S.R.I.’s for pediatric patients and is considering extending this warning to adults.
What I was doing now by decreasing my dose of Effexor was essentially reversing the process that I went through when I began taking it. As the amount of the drug in my system declined, my neurons once again began to take up the excess serotonin. But while the reuptake mechanism may respond quickly, the serotonin system can take weeks or months to readjust. In the meantime I was going to be short on serotonin and would have to suffer the effects. And because serotonin is so ubiquitous in the nervous system, the effects might be almost anything. They might even feel like depression. Or worse, they might even be depression.
None of these symptoms would come as news to most researchers. In 1996, nearly a decade after the introduction of Prozac, its manufacturer, Eli Lilly, sponsored a research symposium to address the increasing number of reports of patients who had difficult symptoms after going off their antidepressants. By then it had become clear that drug-company estimates that at most a few percent of those who took antidepressants would have a hard time getting off were far too low. Jerrold Rosenbaum and Maurizio Fava, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, found that among people getting off antidepressants, anywhere from 20 percent to 80 percent (depending on the drug) suffered what was being called antidepressant withdrawal (but which, after the symposium, was renamed “discontinuation syndrome”).
They also found that the withdrawal effects depend on a given antidepressant’s half-life — that is, the amount of time it takes for half the medication to be washed out of the body. Since this is a measure of the length of time the drug is effective, you will more quickly feel the effects of missing a dose of an antidepressant with a short half-life than of one with a long half-life. If you’re taking your full medication daily, this isn’t relevant. But when, say, you reduce the dosage of a short-half-life drug by half, that half is, by the nature of the drug, quickly halved again. In their studies, Rosenbaum and Fava found that Paxil and Zoloft, with half-lives of one day, proved more difficult to get off than Prozac, with a half-life of four to six days. Effexor, the drug I was on, has the shortest half-life of all: five or six hours. That explained why, if I forgot to take my medication in the morning, by afternoon I was facing a panic attack. It was also why, Rosenbaum and Fava told me, when a patient is having trouble getting off Effexor they might recommend switching to Prozac to ease the transition.
Still, the symptoms of discontinuation syndrome could be fierce. Fava, in a 2006 paper, cited “agitation, anxiety, akathesia, panic attacks, irritability, aggressiveness, worsening of mood, dysphoria, crying spells or mood lability, overactivity or hyperactivity, depersonalization, decreased concentration, slowed thinking, confusion and memory/concentration difficulties.”
So I decided to stick with 75 milligrams a day for a while to give my serotonin system time to catch up. But in my third week, I still felt constantly uncomfortable and often irritable. The brain zaps were sometimes blinding. No one seemed to know what caused them. I even went to an ear, nose and throat specialist to see if I was suffering from some sinus problem, but he found nothing. One day, trying to repair a cabinet drawer, I ruined the glide and, suddenly and blindly angered, began pounding my head with my fist. Worse was that my failure at something so trivial triggered more general, undefinable feelings of failure similar to those I suffered when I was depressed.
Ron Duman, a researcher at the Yale University School of Medicine in the psychiatry department, told me recently that there was no specific mechanism that would explain my symptoms, but that my system was trying to readapt.
“Your neurons,” he said, “are literally sensing the lack of serotonin.” That was the bad news. The good news: “That the brain is able to adapt to stress, to environmental impact or pharmacological stimuli and change over time is really a key concept of how the brain works.”
My choice then, as I saw it, was either to go back to taking the medication or find another way to try and raise my serotonin levels, or at least help the process along. Duman, an athletic-looking guy himself, told me that studies have shown that exercise can improve the serotonin system as much as antidepressants can. So I began a serotonin-boosting regimen — getting out and taking daily walks around Prospect Park, near my home in Brooklyn. No jogger, I completed the three-mile loop in 45 minutes to an hour. After a few days, I noticed that these walks relieved my restlessness. I began to sleep better.
Sleep, Efrain C. Azmitia of the biology department and the Center for Neural Science of New York University, told me, increases serotonin levels, too. Azmitia, who has conducted research on the serotonin system for four decades, said that light and good nutrition can also increase serotonin. Anything, in fact, that relieves severe stress, which, he has found, is disruptive to the serotonin system. It’s why therapy might work just as well as medication, why placebos may work. The stress is relieved, and the system recovers.
I was feeling so much better by the end of the fourth week that I decided to cut back on my dosage again. At the bottom of my computer bag I’d found more blister packs of 37.5-milligram capsules, part of my hidden caches of medication. The first day went fine. But that night I screamed so loudly in my sleep that it seemed to echo in the room long after I sat up awake. It was 4 a.m. I was having brain zaps. I decided to take another 37.5 milligrams but then to try to make it last me through the next day. It did.
Around this time, I began to feel sensations, smells and sounds more intensely. Had the drug, in keeping me focused, also lowered my response to life’s pleasures? When I asked Rosenbaum, the researcher at Mass General, about this, he insisted that there was no evidence that antidepressants have what he called “a dulling effect.” But others disagree. Joseph Glenmullen, a clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, says he has had many patients describe it. I know that I felt it.
One evening, sitting in the movie theater and watching “Little Miss Sunshine,” I suddenly found myself welling up with tears. I put my head back and closed my eyes, but the tears came. I wondered for a moment whether it was a sign of depression but realized that I never cried when I was depressed. I didn’t have the focus for it. Over the next weeks, when out walking or listening to music (Count Basie’s “Li’l Darlin’,” in particular), I found myself weeping for no reason at all.
What I was gradually beginning to feel was the difference between clicking on a book on Amazon.com and wandering through library shelves, allowing my gaze to wander from spine to spine. I imagined that when I allowed myself such pleasures, I was disarming stress and that my serotonin responded accordingly.
I was now down to 37.5 milligrams a day. It had been two full months since I began getting off Effexor. I decided to see if I could go without. I felt a bit panicked that morning but by noon was still fine. Perhaps, I thought, this was it. But the brain zaps increased throughout the day. Feeling disoriented that night, I took another 37.5 milligrams. I put off taking another dose for 24 hours and then decided to try to make it through the night. By morning I’d gone 36 hours. Should I try to keep going? But the blister pack held another capsule. Maybe just half of it, I thought. I opened the capsule, poured out the tiny white granules, took half into my palm and swallowed it with a glass of water. When I looked down at the counter with the open capsule, the remaining grains of medicine, and the trail of white power where I’d scraped the rest into my hand, I realized that it was time to move on.
In the months since going off, withdrawing, discontinuing, whatever you want to call it, I’ve been through life’s usual stresses (and some extraordinary ones), felt good, bad, sad, unhappy, glad, even hopeless and helpless. But I’ve yet to feel again the chronic, painful and perspectiveless despair that characterizes major depression and that first brought me to seek help.
Will I become depressed again? Rosenbaum told me that the answer to that question may depend on the severity of the earlier depression — a major depressive episode as opposed to feeling very down or stressed — and the length of time the symptoms lasted. Sometimes, he said, patients feel better but have residual symptoms. “If you have residual symptoms, you’re at risk for relapse. If you’ve had multiple severe episodes, if you’ve had chronic depression, you’re at risk for relapse.” Studies show that people who go through one bout with severe depression have a one-in-four chance of having another. Two bouts, and your chances double of having a third. Three bouts, and it’s nearly certain you’ll have another.
I wondered what my future held, since studies show that those who go through long-term therapy in conjunction with antidepressants have less of a chance of their depression returning than those who only take an antidepressant. “I believe that sometimes people can grow while on antidepressants and free up depression in a way that might buffer them to take advantage of psychosocial treatments they couldn’t have taken advantage of when they were depressed,” Rosenbaum told me recently. “But I’ve also seen people who have done hard work in cognitive therapy, but they just can’t sustain it when depression returns.”
What got me back on my feet? Was it the medicine, the therapy or both? Was it just the passage of time? I’m certain that there was much chemistry involved, since our capacities to think, feel and imagine all come out of the chemical makeups of our brains.
But did I need the drug to alter that chemistry? If my psychiatrist had told me, “I think you can do this without taking any drugs,” would I have done just as well? If I had been told how difficult it would be to get off the drug, would I have so readily started on it? Even the doctors and researchers who most believe in the effectiveness of antidepressants acknowledge that the “chemical balance” paradigm, the magic-bullet paradigm, makes things seem simpler than they actually are. For some, these drugs may be a lifesaving treatment. But for most of us troubled or even temporarily anguished by life’s difficulties, does our long-term reliance on these drugs become more of a convenience than a cure, allowing us to simply keep going in the midst of very difficult circumstances? And once we start taking them, how do we find the wherewithal to stop?
Ron Duman told me about one way that scientists try to test the effectiveness of a given antidepressant in the lab. Put a laboratory rat into a beaker of water and see how long it struggles to get out. When it stops, remove it from the beaker and treat it with the drug. Repeat the test. If it struggles for a significantly longer time than before, the drug is considered to have antidepressant potential.
Is this ability to keep us going altogether good? As Rosenbaum pointed out to me, people under stress can do great harm not only to themselves but also to those around them parents to their children, couples to each other. But when does reliance on a drug keep us from seeking ways to resolve the causes of stress? General practitioners, not mental-health specialists, write most of the prescriptions for antidepressants. For most doctors and psychiatrists, drugs, not therapy, have become the first line of defense. Only some 20 percent of people prescribed an antidepressant ever have even a single follow-up appointment.
Perhaps it was the difficult time I had getting off my antidepressant, but I never think about going back on. I’m enjoying this revitalized view of my emotional and physical worlds. Having finally dropped the feather that I believed allowed me to fly, I face life’s difficulties without much fear of falling back into depression. I have no illusions about having resolved every issue or that all that happened won’t continue to have repercussions on those who went through it with me. I don’t believe in “closure.” Life, like the brain, has too much interconnected circuitry. But it is also always changing.
“The brain has evolved to deal with sadness and grief, and having to deal with them may make the brain more flexible,” Azmitia told me.
Maybe dealing with life’s distresses has its own chemistry. I know I hated every second of it. I don’t know if the medication helped. But I do know that I’m very glad I’m off.


Bruce Stutz writes on science and the environment. His most recent book is “Chasing Spring: An American Journey Through a Changing Season.”

Feeling a bit dizzy and manic?

So I'm a week into my latest reduction and yesterday I felt really dizzy first thing in the morning for about an hour, and then today I am feeling really woolly headed. Peter says I get a bit manic for a couple of days as well and then calm down, not sure about that one because I don't peceive myself as being manic LOL



Prozac withdrawal timeline

I was so moved I had to copy and paste it!

P just publised a comment on my blog and I was so moved I just had to put it into a post or it would get totally lost.

PDH said...


I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you!



Depression in this country is not treated like any other illness, as many of its suffers do not always look like they are ill until the symptoms get so severe. Living with somebody who suffers from depression can be challenging particularly when that person is in a dark hole. I used to believe the doctors when they say that the Prozac is the only treatment that is effective against depression as it is a chemical imbalance in the brain. What the doctors failed to tell you is that Prozac itself has side-effects that mimic the depression itself. It is also the case that depression is caused by not only genetics but also from your environment. In your case it was caused by childbirth and a husband was working so hard that you often felt alone.



The reality is that depression is more prevalent today, due to the fact that our lives are so much more busy. I myself used to concentrate so hard on developing my career and earning money, rather than concentrating on what is really important, which is family and this is so true for so many other people in the UK and around the world. We may have less money than we used to have, as I decided four years ago to give up working in London but we have a much happier home life. I personally believe that you have to work out what is truly important in life both to you as an individual and of course as a family. Supporting each other is so important and often something that we all overlook.



I remember when you went on to Prozac after the birth of our son and it was obvious that you are suffering from a severe bout of depression but in hindsight I wish we had looked at some of the alternatives. The problem is that doctors are under pressure and handing out medication is often looked as a way of getting the patient out of the doctor’s office and no attempt is sometimes made in treating the actual condition by talking or counselling.



I remember that I was once convinced that depression could only be treated by Prozac or other types of medication in a similar family and when you are tempted to come off the medication I was always convinced that depression was returning. I now look back at those times and realise that I was wrong and it wasn't until we found that simple booklet that explained that withdrawing from Prozac can cause withdrawal symptoms like coming off hard drugs. The drug companies and the doctors obviously don't tell you this when you start to take medications as often you are desperate for a quick fix.



I wish I could put into words what it's like seeing an individual struggle for so many years against a condition and not know that the drug that she is taking is causing the problem when you chose to come off. We all have anxieties and bad moods the treatment that we all need is to talk instead of just relying on medication. I do understand medication does have its place for severe cases but I am shocked at how quick doctors are to hand out medication that can have such major effect on people's lives.



I myself once went to my doctor with symptoms of being tied and the doctor in question was ready to prescribe me antidepressant rather than check my sugar levels, which in my case was the root cause of the problem. Shocking I know but it is often the case that depression is misdiagnosed or sometimes just an excuse to get the patient out of the office.



from

PDH (husband)

proud of you x



25 July, 2011 16:48

Prozac reduction timeline

1.50mls (6mg)

I decided to go to 1.50mls today as I have been feeling really well, I toyed with the idea of pushing it to 1.45mls but then chickened out as that would be a nearly 10% reduction and as I am now getting pretty low down I'm aware the reductions could impact more and I might be more likely to suffer a harder withdrawal. With prozac it takes a couple of weeks for a withdrawal to impact as it stays in the system a lot longer than other ssri's. The advice I've been given is to never reduce by more than 5-10% of the previous dose.

Prozac reduction timeline

Lucky Dip

A friend of ours once said, if you could put your life into a big hat or a lucky dip with loads of other people's lives, and pick one (life) out, would you take that chance? and no actually I wouldn't!! I thought that was a really good thought, but maybe it sounded better the way he put it!!

The Road Back

This plopped into my e mail box yesterday, it was sent from "The Road Back" which I fogot I subscribed to a few years ago.
The Sussex Newspaper - The Road Back
They claim to be able to get people off antidepressants and benzos using their program called "The Road Back", when I was really really desperate a few years ago I looked at this, it claims to be free as well, but I think it's a big fat con, because when you look into it, they recommend all these supplements you have to use to follow the program, when you look at the supplements they are hugely expensive!!!! I found one or two other companies like this as well.
TRB Products
This was when I realised I was desperate but not that desperate and sadly there are companies out there who will prey on others desperation and profit from it. I decided in the end to use a huge dollop of common sense, a multivitamin from Boots, high EPA fish oil tablets, exercise and taper slowly.

Prozac reduction timeline

Anxiety

Well we found out on Monday that we HAVEN'T got to reapply for our jobs, SO relieved! However despite that I had a mahusive anxiety attack on Monday night, and no idea weather it was withdrawal or reaction to an extremely busy week this week, anyway I just could not turn my brain off at all on Monday night so I spent tuesday feeling like absolute rubbish and the worst of it was that I was having to work in a school, but I THINK I managed to not show how exhausted I was and grit my teeth and get through the day, with the help of lots of coffee. This week is really really full on with Scouts bi annual village auction prep all week on top of work, I am so looking forward to getting back to a normal week next week. I think I had I found out I had got to fill in an app for my job this week and do an interview next week it would have tipped me right over the edge.

Restructuring

Well after a crappy day yesterday, found out that four colleagues are all going, voluntarily, in one fell swoop (that's about one third of our total staff) and that myself and four others may have to go through an interview process with one of us being made redundant, I was a bit gutted. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that but I should find out Monday next week. Anyway, I think these events triggered a withdrawal and this morning I just totally cracked and couldn't stop crying for a good hour or so, now I feel totally drained, I haven't felt this low for so long it came as a shock. Anyway the cartoon is very apt because we are undergoing a "restructuring"

Raging apprehension

eurgh! couldn't sleep last night, we have a staff meeting today where we will find out who is staying and who is going, some of my colleagues put themselves forwards for voluntary early retirement/redundancy, they found out themselves on Friday privately if they would be allowed to go or not, but were sworn to secrecy, the rest of us found out what's what today, last night I couldn't sleep for feeling apprehensive, about the possibility of losing half my colleagues in one fell swoop and what it means for the rest of us. The feelings of anxiety and apprehension also echoed the feelings I had in the past when suffering withdrawals so of course I can't help wondering if it's work that's worrying more or if it's prozac withdrawal.

The night before I had that recurring dream again for the first time in quite a while, I was trying to pack a suitcase that was too small and the amout of stuff I'd got to pack in the house/hotel was overwhelming. Mad!

1.60mls..

that's it, gone down to 1.60mls today.

Jury Service - oh the irony!!

P has been called up to do Jury Service, right now we need this like a hole in the head!!! The irony is that last year I got called up for Jury Service, I really wanted to do it, but I was rejected because of being on prozac, I wrote about it last year on my blog.

Now, I have given in one of my part time jobs to work with P who is a self employed, and now HE has been called up for Jury service, when you're running a small firm you cannot afford to take time out!!! Grrrr

Prozac reduction timeline

Supermodel midlife affair with antidepressants article on Femail website

Found this on Femail website today, lucky her I thought, it's only took 3 weeks to get off Lexapro, that's not a battle, it's taking me probably 5 years all in to get off of prozac. Wonder though if she will have withdrawals because she came off so fast? maybe not now, maybe months down the line like I did in 2003.

Super model mid life affair with antidepressants

1.70ml New reduction

I realise I've left it a long time since I last made a reduction but really that's no bad thing, I am feeling very well at the moment.
I finished one of my two part time jobs last week and although I felt really sad on my last day, and they gave me a lovley send off, I also felt quite a bit of relief, because I realised it was actually getting me down more than I thought, being in two work places where there was restructuring and threat of redundancy/closure, now I'm only in one work place that has that (and that's bad enough LOL).
Next week I will be starting work with P part time as well and I am really looking forward to the new challenge!

Prozac reduction timeline

Today is my eldest's 17th birthday

My older son is 17 today, can't believe he is 17!! I remember all those highs and lows in hospital when I had him, the cloud 9 euphoria and then the over whelming fear of the massive massive responsibility I now had, and also feeling quite trapped by it. I did have post natal depression in the months following as well but I didn't recognise it for what it was and as we were going through incredibly tough times financially I blamed it on that, although it probably was that as well as post natal depression and a seismic shift in our life with having a new baby. Despite all these early difficulties I think he's turned out well!

Today I felt absolutely and totally drained this morning at work, so drained I almost felt ill, I think it was partly low blood sugar, it was a long time til lunch as I started early and partly that woolly headed prozac withdrawal feeling, the computer screen and everything just felt too bright as well, for two pins I could have literally fallen asleep on my desk. After lunch I seemed to rally and feel "normal" again.

So tired..

I couldn't get to sleep easily last night and I woke up at stupid o clock with a splitting headache, sinus pain and feeling really fed up, I went and took a couple of neurofen and waited for it to kick in, drifted off a bit but not enough and now got to go to work feeling knackered and "down", think this could be a withdrawal.

My job(s)

Lots of changes are afoot this year, with all the restructuring going on in the local authority I work for (it's called the "New Strategic Direction" which means getting rid of lots of staff). I have two part time jobs and it looks like I will be made redundant from both this year, one job I know is definately going between now and end of August but I have been there less than two years so I don't qualify for redundancy, the other job is a job I do really love and a service I have worked for for 20+ years, we have been called to a meeting late Monday afternoon, it's all been very secretive and handled strangely so we suspect they are going to drop a bombshell on us, this job I will feel very sad about, I love some of the people I work with and I love the service we offer to schools, but if schools can't afford to buy into us and so many are falling away, then so be it.
Fairly soon I will be making the leap (from the job with no redundancy pay out) to go and work with P, his business is our business and I am a shareholder and director, he desperately needs help and this is an opportunity for us both to make it a success, I am looking forward to being a part of it again. Meanwhile I will hang onto the other job I love and if and when I get made redundant from that I think I'll be on the look out for another part time job to replace it and dove tail in with http://www.essentialifa.com/

1.80mls - new reduction

Decided to go to1.80mls today, I've held off for a long while being aware that I hate January and February but now we're into March why not?

I was really touched again

When some people very close to me and one in particular (I won't say who to protect identities) called me to say they had discovered and read my blog and were really moved by it. Most of the time I don't really know who reads this apart from one or two close friends I know about but it was so nice to know that someone read this empathised.

Exercise....or lack of it

It's half term week this week and I have a week off work, and looking back over this blog I noticed my exercise regime when I started out, then half way through this blog I started working full time, but I still tried my hardest to keep up and either do cross trainer or cycle ride, at least twice a week, then since before Christmas I just kind of fell off, I'd get home from work, and it's just become easier to sort tea out, and whatever else needs doing and well, exercise has just fallen off the end. Today I decided to get back on the cross trainer, thought I was going to find it hell after weeks of sluggishness but actually I went steady and it was fine, think I might try a bike ride tomorrow. It certainly does make you feel good after, all those endorphins and the satisfaction of knowing you've done something good for your wellbeing. Can't guarantee I'll keep it all up next week though.

Update on bad withdrawal

Well I am back to my "normal" (whatever normal is!!) self again and the relief is enormous....again, until the next bad withdrawal when I terrify myself yet again that I'm disappearing into that black hole... again.

A bad withdrawal

So I have had another night of insomnia and in the morning I felt really shite, I felt like I had dropped into that black hole again, all those old feelings of dread, anxiety, bleakness about nothing in particular. As the day wore on the blackness lifted and I started to feel better again although exhausted from lack of sleep but my mood gradually shifted. Peter keeps reassuring me that it is a withdrawal, he's seen me go through it before and I will come out the other side, and I have to tell myself that it is a withdrawal if I start to think otherwise I could go into a dangerous downward spiral. As it is I'm begining to think I have forgotten how to sleep :(
It is a reminder of how soul destroying depression can be.

Insomnia

Insomnia






I lay awake all last night, just could not switch my brain "off", getting more and more wound up as the night dragged on, worrying. When you're lying in the dark, unable to switch off, everything seems so much worse than in the cold light of day. For me insomnia is a very frightening experience because back in 2003 when I was "breaking down" a feature of that illness was not being able to sleep for literally nights on end, and feeling really so terrified and alone as I felt myself cracking up and mentally falling apart at the seams, adrenaline rushing round my body 24/7 keeping me awake against my will, caused by the prozac/lustral withdrawal, a very dark and frightening place to be. I feel scarred by 2003, one bad night now and I'm back in 2003 and thinking I'm falling apart once again. In the cold light of day I know this isn't true. This too will pass, I love that quote.

Prozac withdrawal how long

I hate January

I feel really flat now, I always feel flat after Christmas, even though it's my birthday tomorrow and I should be looking forward to that. I hate January, after all the excitement and build up to the Christmas holiday everything seems so dreary. Roll on summer!!

1.90ml Now breaking the 2.0ml barrier!!

Yes today I am going to 1.90ml, waited quite a long time for this new reduction because the last one was quite a biggish one and you should never drop more than 10% of your current dose.
I have been feeling very well on the whole but there are subtle shifts of feelings in that I am aware that in certain situations I feel more anxious which is probably the "real me" without the prozac crutch and it's probably no worse than many people deal with anyway on a day to day basis.

Who is reading my blog?

Can't help but wonder, I have my little gadget (to the right) which shows the location of people who visit but I would love it if someone made themselves known, maybe left a comment even if to tell me my blog is dull as ditch water LOL

I've been feeling so so tired today, and woke up with a splitting headache, felt like a prozacy type head today.

Dizzy

Yes this picture is how I feel today, low blood pressure? or something to do with the prozac going down? felt like it before so I expect I will just wait for it to pass.

2.00ml (8mg)

Nearly breaking through the 2.0ml barrier

This week end I am going to drop from 2.20ml to 2.0ml, I should probably go to 2.10 ml first but actually it's such a fiddle to measure out the 0.10ml on that skinny little syringe I decided it would be easier to take a chance and go straight to 2.0ml. I've read that you shouldn't reduce by more than 10% of your current level and this is still within 10%.  Will be interesting to see if I have a withdrawal reaction in a couple of weeks or so.

2.20ml and redundancy

Down to 2.20ml today, I did wonder wether to take it down to 2.10ml but there is quite a lot going on in my life at the moment, both my jobs are under threat of redundancy now in about a years time with all the cuts this government are making so me and Peter are having to plan for this eventuallity, after all my money, child benefit and tax credits pay the mortgage and all the direct debits/ utility bills :(     ....and jobs are very hard to come by at the moment.

Whistleblowing

This is an interesting link.

New reduction today - 2.30ml

Hopefully I will break the 2.0ml barrier by Christmas.

Losing a job

I have two part time jobs and we had a staff meeting at one of my jobs this week, and it seems definate that we are closing down with all the cuts going round, and this job will be going, at least I have plenty of notice to start looking around but it is very sad for all of us. I haven't been there long enough to qualify for any decent redundancy so I may as well start looking.

Weight loss

I'm not complaining but I'm wondering if my metabolism has speeded up a little as the prozac has gone down, I'm always fairly careful about my eating anyway as I have a big appetite and can eat like a horse so I do have to "reign" it in and exercise or I can find myself piling it on, however what with working pretty much full time and family commitments I do find it hard to fit in the exercise, but my weight seems to have dropped somewhat without me trying. Wonder if prozac does cause weight gain and coming off it speeds up metabolism?

Feeling blah and interview

OK so it's just hit me this morning that I am in fact feeling very "blah" this week. I had a job interview on Monday, it was only a little 7 hour a week job in a school with the promise of other hours in the school office, when I got to the interview it was so not what I expected, the job described at the interview differed greatly from the job description and what I had applied for, in fact it wasn't a little 7 hour a week job, it was a huge challenge he wanted someone to fulfill on a totally inadequate pay scale and hours and he was desperately trying to convince me what a great idea it was and how I could achieve it, and I felt I'd been led up the garden path somewhat, so needless to say I totally lost interest and wasn't offered it. I was a bit gutted because in my head I'd run away with the idea of this nice little term time only job and having more time at home in the school holidays and maybe during the week as well, that'll learn me!!
I since learned the didn't manage to appoint anyone and no one who went was prepared to take on what he was proposing, suspect it was the misleading job description and the fact he's not paying enough for what he wants to achieve.
Since then I've been feeling quite rough in my head, just really flat, confidence knocked,  is this a withdrawal? is it a normal emotion? is it withdrawal triggered by an event? who knows, all I know it that "this too will pass". The sooner the better.

2.40ml

Down to 2.40ml today and over half way now. I've decided from now on to make only 0.10ml drops and no more 0.20 ml because now I'm lower each drop is steeper and I'm getting more withdrawal effects like the cotton wool fuzzy head and wiered dreams!
Slow and steady wins the race.

My morning regimen...

.. one Boots own brand multi vitamin, four multi vegepa Omega capsules and 2.50ml prozac!

So true...

Funnies

Prozac reduction timeline

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

This song is so incredibly beautiful and I always thought "comfortably numb" was a really good description for the effect prozac has. It certainly does make you comfortably numb.

Dream again

I had that recurring dream again last night, packing away I was, no one else was worried about having to get the packing done, and I was getting really annoyed because it was the end of the holiday and no one else was worried about missing the flight or whatever. Still puzzling over this, same dream, I'm sure there is a higher power trying to tell me something.

So dizzy today!

Today I was just feeling so dizzy, like I might fall over, it wore off as the day went on, but I almost thought I was going to have to come home from work, I just felt so fuzzy :(

officially half way - 2.50mls (10mg)

Yup, I am officially half way, it's only taken me a little over 2 years LOL.

Vivid dreams and emotions

I've been having such vivid and bizarre dreams and the other morning I woke up in tears but couldn't remember why!
I've also been feeling much more emotion coming back now and in a really good way because I think I have been emotionally a bit numb for so long. I'm finding myself easily moved by different things now and it's soooo good to have that feeling back!!

I feel SO much better now!

Phew! How nice to feel "normal" again instead of profoundly depressed and sad, at least I know yet again it is a withdrawal and I can "ride it out".

That dream again

Yup I've had it again, in fact I think I've had it a few times lately, this time we were back at old two up two down first home, and it was a right mess.

Some reassurance was needed

 My question

I'll try not to ramble, I have been very sucessfully withdrawing from prozac (after 10 years of failed attempts). It's taken me two years to reduce from 5ml to where I am now at 2.60mls (that's how slow I've been taking it! All has gone well up to now, the past week I've been getting feelings of profound sadness a little anxiety, the waves come and go and feel like my old depression/failed withdrawal attempts in the past.


 Is this a withdrawal that will pass in time? or is this the real me? feeling a bit confused but rationally I think this is a withdrawal reaction but it's something I've not felt for a long time. Anyone relate?



The answer

**, this is normal in withdrawal/recovery . Your chemistry will be changing regularly and will do so even for years after you have totally discontinued the drug.



The difference now is it comes and goes, right?



I've never seen anyone go into a depressed state after stopping a drug unless it is stopped too quickly. This is a reaction of the biochemistry.



People have been sold a lie when they are told depression is genetic. It's not. Someone might say their mother was depressed and so is their sister. This is genetic only in as much as behavior is learned (children learn to mimic parents' reactions without knowing it so if mom is depressed children learn to be depressed). The other cause is poor diet. This makes all the difference in the world.



It is perfectly normal for people to experience a couple of periods of depression in a lifetime. An argument can be made for the use of this but that's a huge topic. Any doctor who has not been brainwashed by the drug companies who want you to believe the genetic lie so they can sell you drugs for life will tell you that depression is self-limiting. What prevents it from resolving in most people is nutritional and/or the unwillingness to meet life on life's terms (people who do this are usually people who believe that life is sometimes "unfair").



As I said, you'll feel many things at various times on this journey. Just ride it out. If it stays more than a couple weeks at most, check your diet and supplements. If this isn't it, increase the drug by one dose. This is sometimes necessary as you get into the lower doses. Don't stay long at the increased dose. A week or 10 days will be enough to get you unstuck. Then reduce again and you should be okay.



--C
 
and sure enough I do feel a lot better today, phew!

Blah...

OK well for the past week I have been feeling really quite "blah", like a low level depression, no not really depression, well maybe but very mild and just kind of flat. Hope this passes soon, can't help wondering if it's here to stay but that's negative thinking we all know what happens when you get into negative thinking spirals.

Wow I had that dream again!

Had a lovley day, beautiful weather, reconnected with a school friend, we met for lunch at an Italian restaurant and had a lovley time.
Then last night I had that dream again, it was the end of a two week holiday, and we'd had a great time, but there was a mind boggling amount of packing to do like moving house, not just a couple of suitcases, and a real feeling of sadness, what the heck does it mean?

2.60ml

2.60ml today, small drop this time or I think my head will go into cotton wool mode again.

Out of sorts

I have been feeling so out of sorts the past couple of days, I nearly came home from work early (sick) today, woke up with a splitting headache, my head is very fuzzy and cotton wool like and feel like I can't get a handle on things, I just know it's my head adjusting to a drop in prozac and I've got to ride it out, but I just feel so tired and drained :(

Cotton wool head and a bad dream

I've had a bit of a fuzzy cotton wool head this week, a bit like when I used to withdraw the old fashioned way. I can only assume it's because I'm getting lower down on the dose now so each drop is a bigger drop if that makes sense.
Had a bad dream last night, I was crying and crying and grieving, but not sure who or what for and I woke up in tears but then I was rapidly relieved that it was only a dream.

2.70mls

Nearly half way.

Following on from Jury Service

A friend at work found this article of the Guardian web site 10th January 2010

Call to lift ban on jury service for people with mental illnessBarristers join forces with mental health charity to urge rethink




Denis Campbell, health correspondent The Observer, Sunday 10 January 2010 Article historyMinisters are facing demands to scrap an "unfair and discriminatory" law that bans thousands from being jurors because they have suffered from mental ill-health.



Campaigners claim that many law-abiding citizens are wrongly excluded from jury service after being treated for conditions such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.



One in four Britons suffers mental illness at some point in their lives, and one in 10 is prescribed antidepressants, which would be enough to debar them.



Rethink, a mental health charity supported by barristers in England and Wales, will this week launch a campaign to have the rule rescinded. It agrees that some people's mental state makes them unfit to be jurors, but argues that many others are victims of an "archaic" ban.



More than 9,000 people a year in England are refused permission to serve on juries. The government promised in 2004 – and again in early 2008 – to review the situation, but has not done so.



The ban arises from the Juries Act 1974. A section on "mentally disordered persons" bars from jury service anyone "who suffers or has suffered from mental illness, psychopathic disorder, mental handicap or severe mental handicap, and on account of that condition either is resident in a hospital or other similar institution, or regularly attends for treatment by a medical practitioner". Rethink wants that replaced with a new definition of "capacity", based on the 2005 Mental Capacity Act, which would allow many of those currently banned to serve, while excluding those who are genuinely unfit.



Stephen Fry, the actor and comedian, who has suffered from bipolar disorder since childhood, is backing the campaign. "There are thousands of people with mental health problems who are willing and perfectly capable of serving on a jury, but who find themselves rejected solely because they see a doctor from time to time for support or medication," he said. "Exclusion purely on the grounds of treatment for a mental health problem is unfair and discriminatory."



Rethink cites Winston Churchill as someone who, owing to his depression, would be banned. Paul Corry, Rethink's director of public affairs, said that about 50,000 people with mental health problems had been excluded since the government's first pledge in 2004 to consult on the issue.



"People should be judged on their capacity, rather than being arbitrarily written off. It is high time the government carried out a consultation and considered outlawing this archaic and discriminatory practice, which prevents capable citizens from carrying out a basic civic duty."



The Criminal Bar Association, which represents barristers in England and Wales, also argues that the ban is wrong. "Trial by jury is a vital component of our criminal justice system and, in order to work at its best, juries should represent a cross-section of society," said Paul Mendelle, its chairman. "Figures suggest that one in four people will be affected by mental health problems, so it is inappropriate to impose a blanket ban that prevents anyone with a history of mental illness from sitting on a jury without assessment of their capacity."



But the Ministry of Justice ruled out any revision of the rule, and refused to say why the government had reneged on its pledges to consult. While ministers were committed to tackling the stigma and discrimination around mental ill-health, "any change would need to strengthen our jury system. There can be no question of changing the law to allow people to serve as jurors where their ability to do so is in doubt", said a spokesman.

2.90mls

Yup I have now broken the 3ml barrier and still going strong!

Jury Service

I had a letter several days ago asking me to do Jury Service, I was really excited, it's something I always wanted to do, so I filled in the form and sent it back, not really thinking much about it, the form asked some questions about health and the last question was about mental health, and weather you'd ever been sectioned under the mental health act, which I havn't, but I answered honestly about the past post natal depression and prozac use, almost by return of post I was rejected, and I know it was down to my answer about depression, it felt like a kick in the teeth and I was quite insulted, because I'm the most stable unstable person I know and I know one person far more unstable than me who has done jury service, still that's only my opinion and I suppose they have to have some guidelines/rules to follow.

Three followers!

I just noticed my blog has 3 followers, welcome to you whoever you are! LOL

Femail article on antidepressants

Long term effects of antidepressants

Femail web site was running an article on antidepressants today, it's good when the media report on things like this, sad though that so many people have such negative attitudes to mental illness though.

Happy Birthday....

....to me, 42 today :(

3.10mls and recurring dream

Have gone to 3.10mls today, a small one, then in a few weeks will go to 2.90mls. Love Christmas but hate new year and January bah humbug!
I've been getting that recurring dream loads lately, overwhelming packing and cleaning to do, I am sure someone up there is trying to tell me something or give me a message if only I could interpret it!
Anyway Happy Christmas to anyone who might be reading this and a happy 2010 and here's to lots more successful reductions, who knows this time next year I might be nearly off the prozac!

3.20ml

That's it, down to 3.20ml today!

Insomnia

I lay awake all last night, just could not switch my brain "off", getting more and more wound up as the night dragged on, worrying, I'd got a full day tomorrow, how was I going to cope on no sleep? should I throw a sickie, I've never ever thrown a false sickie and pride myself on how little sick leave I have had. When you're lying in the dark, unable to switch off, everything seems so much worse than in the cold light of day. For me insomnia is a very frightening experience because back in 2003 when I was "breaking down" a feature of that illness was not being able to sleep for literally nights on end, and feeling really so terrified and alone as I felt myself cracking up and mentally falling apart at the seams, adrenaline rushing round my body 24/7 keeping me awake against my will, caused by the prozac/lustral withdrawal, a very dark and frightening place to be. I feel scarred by 2003, one bad night now and I'm back in 2003 and thinking I'm falling apart once again. In the cold light of day I know this isn't true. This too will pass, I love that quote.

Prozac reduction timeline

Fuzzy head

I've had such a rotten cold and lately my head has been quite fuzzy and spaced out, don't know if it's the cold or the prozac reduction which is kind of what it feels like, like the old days when I used to withdraw to fast and get the fuzzy spaced out feeling.

Recurring dream

I had that recurring dream in a very strong way last night, it was the end of a two week holiday, which actually seemed a lot longer than two weeks, a coach was going to collect us to take us to the airport the next morning and our hotel room/house was an absolute tip and I just did not know where to start with all the packing and tidying to do. It was more like moving house really, quite bizarre.

Oh yes, 20th Wedding Anniversary yesterday!!

Blip

I have had a bit of a withdrawal reaction this week, came to my notice on thursday that I was feeling a bit "blah", and P who is very finely tuned to my behaviour noticed it because I tend to transfer my negativity onto him, ie blame him for everything, sort of like kicking the cat I suppose. These days it doesn't phase me or P and I know it's only a temporary blip.

I was deeply touched by a relative this week

This past week or so a relative has made contact with me and has been like a breath air talking openly with me about this blog and the contents, I have been deeply touched and wish I'd realised 10/11 years ago at the start that I could've talked to this person. Thank you!

3.30mls or expressed as a percentage I am 34% reduced

Tomorrow I will go from 3.50ml to 3.30ml, I calculated that I am now 34% down, so about one third of the way, and it's taken me about 16 months to get that far, so I suppose it could be another 2 years and 8 months before I'm free of the drug, so about June 2012!!!

Another recommended read (kind of)

Just read "Prozac Diary" by Lauren Slater, a good read about Lauren's life and 10 years dependent on prozac, in places the language is too flowery and what I call "arty farty" but where it isn't too flowery it's a good description of a life with prozac.

New job

This Monday, I am starting a new part time job, so I'll be working two part time jobs and doing 4.5 days a week now, which I'm looking forward to as I know the new job will be good and they are a nice team of people I'll be working with, and we need the money, I've been so lucky getting away with working part time while the boys were young, but the time has now come where I need to pull some weight to get some much needed money in the house,  but I'm going to be so busy with work and the boys and Peter is so busy getting his business fired up that I'm hardly going to have time to worry about how the withdrawal is going!!!!
All being well this coming week, I will go down to 3.30ml on saturday!

An excellent book on PND

I have just read "My Journey to her World" by Michael Lurie, it's only 130 pages but it's about his experience coping with his wife's post natal depression. There was so much in it I could relate to. "Going through difficult times can either make us stronger or break us. This book is my story of how I came face to face with the devestating illness of depression and in particular post natal depression..."
Anyway, recommended reading for anyone going through this.

My partner's depression

A chemical imbalance in the brain

That's how you end up hooked on ssri's, like lots of others I believed that line about a chemical imbalance in the brain, that's why you get depressed again and have to take the pills.

3.50mls (14mg) New reduction....

....now down to 3.50mls, I can't believe how well this is going, after so many years of trying and failing at this I sometimes wonder if I'm just dreaming that this is working and I'm going to wake up from the dream one day.

I am getting used to "feeling" more in the way of emotion about things, hard to describe to people who havn't been on prozac how much it can numb you.

Recurring dream again...

had it again last night, had loads of stuff to clear out from one place to another, it almost felt like the Scouts Auction.

Recurring dream

Yes I had that recurring dream, had it several times and it's always been about moving house or packing at the end of the holiday, and always the task of packing everything up seems overwhelming, and exhausting and sometimes sad, and so it was last night.

3.60mls

New reduction...

....now down to 3.60mls.

Comfortably numb

I'm feeling more emotion just lately, nothing major, but enough to appreciate how much prozac has numbed me over the years.

Kick the ginkgo

I've been taking ginkgo for months and months, I've now been advised by an expert not to take it, so I've ditched it!

110 Views?

Just noticed there have been 110 views of this blog (and it's not all me) but no comments? LOL

If you were diabetic you'd take insulin wouldn't you? so what's the difference?

I heard this line a lot, but I never totally bought into the idea that my body/brain needs Lustral or prozac, this line gets thrown about a lot when someone can't get off SSRI's without getting depressed again, it made me feel totally dependent and trapped by my dependency.

3.80mls OK so I'm still a crap blogger but....

...I have broken through the 4ml barrier, in fact I am down to 3.80ml and still going strong. Peter worked out that I seem to have a withdrawal about every 4th or 5th cut, as if there is a cumulative effect. So from 5ml to 3.80ml, I think that means it's gonna take another couple of years LOL

3.90mls

4.10ml Is it really four months?

I am now down to 4.10ml and at the end of April I will go to 3.90ml and will have broken the 4ml barrier!!! I did have a bad withdrawal for a week or so in March, I got really depressed and tearful, it was quite hard again to hang in there and think "this will pass", but with Peter's support I did, and it did, and I am now feeling really well again. Of course the better weather is great and I went on a 7 mile bike ride yesterday and 8 miles today and we got the garage and garden cleared and loads of crap to the dump. We're going through a bit of a scary time at the moment, Peter working mega hard to get the business up and off the ground, we could do with being a lot busier....

4.25ml (17mg)

Did I repeat myself?

OK looks like I've repeated myself and got my days in a muddle, I blame sleep deprivation LOL

Run aground this week

I seem to have run aground this week, Tues night I woke in the early hours with a searing headache, like brain freeze but worse, so I had to go down and get a couple of painkillers. Wednesday night I kept having lots of vivid dreams and negative emotions, and then last night I just could not get to sleep and when I did, vivid strange dreams again, I am exhausted and a little scared, when something like this happens it's easy to convince yourself you're losing your marbles and exhaustion doesn't help you to think in a rational way, I feel a bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Rationally I know it will pass and all will be ok again and my brain is probably having to readjust to less prozac.

Now down to 4.40ml

This picture shows what the .40ml bit of the 4.40 looks like:

We're talking tiny drops of liquid here, amazing to think what a powerful drug it is. Had a rough couple of nights, two nights ago I woke with an absolutely splitting, searing headache in the early hours, had to go down and take some aspirin, I don't remember having a headache like it ever, then last night I had lots of vivid, strange dreams. Did I ever mention my recurring dream? I have this dream about moving house, sometimes it's moving house, sometimes it takes the form of having to pack up at the end of a holiday, and always, the amout of packing is overwhelming, and the feeling of leaving everything I know behind, I'm sure this dream is significant in someway but not really figured it out, I have this dream about once a month, anyone know about dream? is a spirit guide trying to send me a message?

19th wedding anniversary

Ooh can't believe I forgot to mention, it is in fact our 19th wedding anniversary today, and we are in a really good place with our marriage now, it hasn't always been so, we've been through a lot of ups and downs over the years, some of them too personal to post on here, most of them the financial stresses of bringing up a family and Peter working long hours and the effect on our relationship and family life.

4.50ml (18mg) 10% down

Wey hey!! I should have put this on here a few weeks ago but I've been so bad at this blogging lark, strange considering I come from a family of diary writers and have in fact kept paper diaries myself since about 1976 LOL
I am now 10% down and it's still going well, I've had the odd withdrawal but I have faith that it is "withdrawal" now and if I feel a bit low it only lasts 3 days at the most. Of course it maybe that I have to get used to the "normal" moods that everyone has, prozac does tend to render you a bit "emotionless".

4.60ml Damn I've been bad at blogging!

Is it really April since I last put anything here? I nearly deleted this blog but changed my mind.
I'm doing really well, I started withdrawing in May again, gone down 0.10ml roughly every 5 weeks, so today, 14th August I am now reduced to 4.60ml, very slow progress but I've been feeling good, I was so scared to start with that I was going to fall flat on my face again but I think slow and steady wins the race!!

4.70ml

4.80ml

4.90mls

5mls (20mg)

Started the switch from 20mg prozac tablet to 5ml liquid prozac. Earlier than we originally planned, I was too impatient to wait!

Useful websites..

...but Peter thinks these may bring me down if I dwell on them too much, I need to think positive and not get too stuck on these sites.

Paxil Progress and Seroxat Mad

Supplements I am taking

Since New Year 08:

1,100mg EPA Vegepa capsules

6000mg Ginkgo


Exercise regime:

7 mile bike ride or
30 mins on cross trainer or
3 mile run/walk then 20 mins on cross trainer
regular walks
as many times a week as I can fit in

Discussion of withdrawal plan with Peter

On one of our walks together we discussed how I would go about the next attempt at withdrawal. So, the plan is from 1st June (ish) I will switch to liquid prozac, after two months 1st August I will make the first tiny reduction, plan to withdraw by no more than 5% between August and Christmas, this seems incredibly tiny but I feel this is how I have to do it now, partly because of the severe reactions I had before and partly to reassure myself that I can do it. Peter is a great mentor, he quite rightly as well pointed out that all my perusing support groups wasn't doing me any favours because I'm just reading negative stuff all the time, I've got to think positive about it and just get on with my life, not dwell on other people's severe withdrawal problems which bring me down, I have to think of people out there who have suceeded and moved on.
The reason for waiting for Aug is our house is in so much upheaval and rennovation and we feel that by then the house will be more comfortable and we'll be on holiday and chilled out so to speak.

A probably badly written history of my experiences

A few years ago after I had James, I had a severe post natal depression, at the time I was in a very black and frightening place, but I knew it was THAT bad I had to do something about it. When I went to the doctor he assessed me and prescribed antidepressant medication, Lustral, at the time I was very scared about taking it and scared of how I was feeling, scared of getting addicted to something, doctor reassured me that the new SSRI medications are very safe and totally not addictive and at the same time I knew I had to do something constructive because I had two young children to look after and a husband working his socks off who couldn't take time off.
Anyway, long story short, I took the Lustral, and two weeks later almost overnight, I was well again, the sun shone, I felt like a massive weight or black cloud had lifted off me and I was able to function like a “normal” human being again. I assume it was the Lustral but it may have been the placebo effect of “doing something” about it with a pill.
The theory goes, that you take Lustral, or prozac or whatever your physchiatric drug of choice is, for about a year to 18 months from the time you feel well again then you come off it. Anyways, after being well for a long while I went to the doctors to come off the Lustral, which he agreed, the way I was told to come off was take a tablet alternate days for a fortnight, then every third day for a fortnight or so, then once or twice a week until your off. I did this as instructed, felt very dizzy, my head was full of cotton wool and so spaced out but persevered, then a short while after I’d come off the drug “bang” I’d be hit by massive depression/anxiety, go back to the doctors, we’d come to the conclusion I’d relapsed and back on the Lustral to feel well again. This happened several times over the course of the last few years and I always got well again on the Lustral. Fast forward to January last year, a book jumped out at me in Waterstones called “Coming off Antidepressant Medication”, bought it, and it was a shocking revelation. It explained that the way to come off antidepressant medication was to “taper” it, and NOT the alternate day method, and it explained about “withdrawals”, which I’d had no idea about, and I’m certain my doctor knew nothing about either, in fact I gave him the book to read, withdrawals come in two types, the physical (bear with me please!) which is the head shocks, spaced out dizziness and/or flu like symptoms, and physchiatric withdrawals which can be depression, anxiety, violence, suicidality and loads of other things. The dirty little secret is that the phsychiatric withdrawals mimic or are worse than the original disorder for which you are put on the medication for, and which leads people into a catch 22 situation, you come off, probably too fast and by the alternate day method, get the withdrawals, think you’ve “relapsed” and are a mental defective and go back on the tablets and feel well again.The other dirty little secret is that any alteration in dose up or down can lead to serious problems, and in the US they have a lot of SSRI induced violence and suicide because they dish them out far more than in this country, and in this country they dish them out like smarties because mental health services are woefully underfunded. This lead me onto loads of interesting research and what I don’t know about SSRI’s (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors - prozac family) you could write on the back of a stamp. Anyway, I decided to try and taper Lustral but it’s only available in 50mg and you can only cut it once in half to get 25mg before it crumbles, so I tried it anyway but failed, so then I went back to doctor and switched to prozac because it has a long half life (half life is the length of time an SSRI takes to wash out of the body, SSRI’s with a short half life like Lustral and Seroxat are harder to withdraw from because they wash out fast and you get hit by withdrawals fast, whereas prozac takes days to wash out and the theory is that it’s easier to withdraw from), also, prozac is available in the UK in liquid form so you can taper it slower with a syringe. Anyway, Jan 08 I switched to prozac liquid and armed with my syringe I decided to withdraw at the rate of 5% a week, of course I now know this was WAY too fast, I was getting the usual dizzzyness and spaced out feeling but I could cope with that, but after three weeks in and a 10% down I was hit by a massive massive wall of depression, I could feel it washing over me, I woke up in the mornings feeling like death warmed up not wanting to face the day, couldn’t eat (HAVE to be ill for ME not to eat and weight literally dropped off me) I thought about toughing it out but after three days I know Peter was really worried and I knew if I carried on I’d be jumping off the orwell bridge or doing something equally silly, I felt that ill and it was going to start impacting on everyone around me, I felt like a heroin addict going cold turkey. Luckily this fell in half term week when I was off work and in fact the day of a colleagues leaving do I was in the thick of it. The fact that when you start taking the tablets again you feel well again indicates a withdrawal/addiction problem but medical people won’t ever call it addiction, they call it “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome”. Anyway, I now know that there is a huge spectrum of experiences with SSRI’s from people who take it successfully and come off with no problems to the other end of the spectrum to people like me and worse, and I’ve been advised to take it much slower, reduce by 1/20th or 5% a month or so, make a tiny reduction, stabilize for a few weeks, feel well, before you make the next tiny drop, it’s like landing an aircraft in a hurricane!! One of Peters clients is a pharmacist which has been really handy and Peter has picked his brain. I’ve found a couple of really good support groups on the net, when you try and fail you can also get VERY phobic which can hold you in the catch 22 as well, it’s a complete head fuck, also, what happened to me in Feb half term week shook me up badly and has taken me some time getting over, I’ve felt like I want to die but of course I would never do it.
Oh the other thing is, for the past couple of years I keep getting this recurring dream, sometimes very frequently, it’s always about packing up moving house or packing up at the end of a holiday, and for a long time this has puzzled me, and recently I heard a programme on the radio about recurring dreams and their meanings and the fact that it’s your subconscious or a higher power of spirit trying to guide you or tell you something and you have to think about the emotions in the dream to get the meaning, and the penny dropped, it was about coming off the medication.

Prozac reduction timeline