Anxiety Support Group

Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...

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first time posting... anxiety medication advice?

wildflowerchild
wildflowerchild

hi everyone. first time posting here and very glad to have found this website. i have been dealing with anxiety & depression my whole life and have been taking Zoloft for 10 years now. at my worst, i was taking 200mg a day. for a while, i was fine on 150mg a day. now, i am sick of being on medication and feel like it's doing more harm than good.


i decreased my dose to 125mg and have been pretty much fine on that for a little over a month now. i still experience slight withdrawal symptoms here and there but nothing major - a slight headache here and there, moodiness, anxiety (obviously), slight change in appetite. i'm going very slow as to try my best to avoid withdrawal symptoms as much as i can. i'm not sure when i will take it down to 100mg but i still have a ways to go.


has anyone else had any experience with medication withdrawal symptoms? how did you manage them? i would love to hear any success stories as i am feeling quite anxious today. i know it's a process that comes with good days and bad days and will be worth it in the end.


if anyone else is going through the same thing, i would love to have other people to work through this with. i'm not too sure how that works on this website, so any tips are appreciated as well.


thanks for reading!

gryphons
gryphons
Hi wildflowerchild! I have been in a similar situation. I was on Prozac for two years before being put on Zoloft as well for anxiety. About a week after starting Zoloft was when I began having the worst anxiety ever and panic attacks everyday. I was convinced it was the Zoloft so I went to a holistic psychiatrist to get me off all meds. I actually found out that the Prozac as well as the Zoloft was in fact doing more harm than good in my body. My toxicity lvls were super high and I even contracted EBV(disease that causes mono). I was also diagnosed with panic attack disorder.
I didn’t experience any withdrawal symptoms when coming off my meds because of how slowly I took it. I decreased my dosage by only 5mg every week. And if I had adverse effects, I didn’t continue to lower. I stayed on the dosage until I was stable again. Going down 25mg is a huge jump and will definitely cause withdrawal.
I also take the supplement L-Tryptophan (500mg). It is a depression and anxiety fighting supplement that also helps people coming down off their meds so they don’t have increased anxiety and depression while tapering down. I’d definitely look into that if I were you.
Feel free to message me if you want to talk or anything :)
wildflowerchild
wildflowerchild
thanks so much for your reply! how long have you been off meds? are you feeling better now than when you were taking them? i didn’t think 25mg was too much and i’m doing pretty well. it’s hard with my pills to cut them up that precisely. are there any side effects with l-tryptophan? i haven’t heard of that before.
GirlinCalif
GirlinCalif
Hi Wild! Please check with your psychiatrist (NOT a regular doctor, because they don't know anything about the meds you are talking about), as to how you should taper/wean off your Zoloft. Your psychiatrist can instruct you on the right way to do this so that you have the least amount of withdrawl discomfort and possible future side effects (side effects can happen later on if you don't wean off properly). Also ask him or her about taking any supplements, such as the Trytophan. Thanks!
Community LeaderMid
Mid
Stay hydrated. Use gentle flow motions to move as needed. Breathe.
Tired
Tired
Maybe you could be switched to another drug. Unless you are
very sensitive to meds and get side effects from most meds.
I didn't want to go on medication but it helped me so much.
Started on Paxil for many years then Prozac when Paxil stopped working.
Talk to a doctor or pharmacist to find the best way to get off your drug.
wildflowerchild
wildflowerchild
i saw a psychiatrist 10 years ago who originally prescribed the zoloft and only saw her for about a year after that. i did not like her very much and didn't want my mom to waste any more money on those visits. thankfully i have been mostly stable on my own except for a couple of bad episodes.

so yes, i am doing this without a doctor's supervision which i know most would not recommend. my goal is to be off medication completely so i would rather not switch to something different. my fear is that i will just exhaust different medications and then have nothing left to take when instead i could learn coping skills to conquer this on my own.

i am going very slow and know my body very well. i realize that maybe i will need to always be on medication, but for now my goal is to not have to depend on it the way i do now! everyone is so caring here and i appreciate the advice more than you know <3
Community LeaderMid
Mid
I weaned myself off zoloft. Not easy, not simple, and definitely not to be done without a plan of action to help you maintain the balance.

I would keep track of your daily activities to help you find what works best when.

Best wishes.
wildflowerchild
wildflowerchild
i’m planning on staying at 2 months per lower dose, maybe longer depending on how i feel. so it will be a long time but i want to make sure my body is adjusting as well as it can!
Caty
Caty
Withdrawal is absolutely brutal and the only way to do it smoothly is to do it slowly. The lady I see for accupuncture told me yesterday that some people use cannabis (I'm assuming without the thc) to help with it.

I would like to share a sort of funny story that highlights how bad withdrawl can be. When I was younger that I am now but still old enough to know better I had a tendency to want to stop my SSRIs when I had a new boyfriend. As we know SSRIs can be very numbing and I wanted to feel the rush of new love without the numbing effects of my SSRIs. Invariably my choice would be to go cold turkey. I remember one Christmas my relatively new boyfriend took me home to meet his family. All I remember are the brain woodshes, the headache, the nausea, the chills, and the running out the door overcome by heat and wretching. I told everyone I had a flu. His mom loved me but I am sure she wondered if I was a drug addict. Moral of the story. Withdrawl is brutal. Take it slow.
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