536 replies to this topic

[FiveNotions]

Excellent article, TM ... excellent website as a whole ... the "money quote" from that article is, for me, this ....
 
"The older a person is and the longer the drug has been taken, the less likely the person is to successfully taper off the SSRI."

I think quite a few of us here, myself included, fall into the "older" category ... and that most in that category have had/are having a rough row to hoe ... but I'm much more positive about our success rate ... I think a lot of us do, indeed, get completely off the stuff ....

[thismoment]

FN

Yes. While I perceive the primary mission of this forum is to help folks get through, articles like that from Dr. Shipko serve as Informed Consent for people considering starting or stopping- even if it is third person.

Here's an advocate I heartily embrace. As I mentioned elsewhere, I sent him an email and he got back to me in a couple of hours!!

[TryinginFL]

FN,

 

I hope that you're right...

 

I found that article disturbing

[thismoment]

We are all either on the ground floor of a revolution, or on the bag-holding end of the biggest pay-off and coverup the medical industry has ever seen! I wonder if one holds a bag in one hand or two . . . lol

[scared60]

Wagtail... Will pray for you for sure! ♥♥♥♥

[scared60]

TM, Hopefully it will be 2... 8+)

[Clara]

Thank you TN! I am so technically challenged!

[Carleeta]

FiveNotions, Im hoping you are better than this past weekend. I felt so bad when I read your post and how you were feeling. Sometimes its just going to be a bad day. With so many good days and then a bad day, it starts to make us wonder if we are going backwards or forwards. I believe its just one bad day out of many good days, and well worth getting off of antidepressents...

Hope you are better my friends.

[FiveNotions]

Thanks Carleeta and all... yep, I've bounced back, and I'm feeling pretty good ... guess I just needed to sleep for two days straight ... who knows... had my 2d appointment with my new shrink at the clinic this a.m..... as long as I describe what I've been through with Cymbalta as "extreme sensitivity" to it, and do not use the words "discontinuation," "withdrawal," or "adverse reaction," she's easy to talk with, and readily agrees that I'm "extremely sensitive to ssri's" ... sigh ...

I left with a refill for clonidine and valium, and for the Wellbutrin xl 300 mg that I've been on since the mid-1990s... in and out, in just about 8 minutes ... world record!

[FiveNotions]

Well, FH and others here warned me that clonidine can cause constipation ... yep, it sure did ... should call it "clog-idine" .... so, yours truly decided to counter that effect by eating some delicious organic dried apricots ... which I just love ... so, never having been one for moderation, I proceeded to eat almost a whole package last evening ... and.... the result was like dynamiting a beaver dam ... up at 3 a.m.... been "very busy" until just now ...

 

And that, dear friends, is my negative for the day ...

[TryinginFL]

FN,

 

Not funny, but it really is!!  Happy to know that you are now functioning "up to par"!!

 

Hope all is well and you are now feeling 'normal'...

[fishinghat]

OH FN, What are we going to do with you? If you haven't learned by now.....All things in moderation. lol

[FiveNotions]

Ah, yes... that pesky virtue of temperance/prudence.... "all things in moderation" ... to paraphrase Aristotle .... unfortunately, I've always tended towards the Oscar Wilde approach ... "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." 

[fishinghat]

I surrender!! I know when I am outgunned!!  lol

[brzghoff]

Ah, yes... that pesky virtue of temperance/prudence.... "all things in moderation" ... to paraphrase Aristotle .... unfortunately, I've always tended towards the Oscar Wilde approach ... "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." 

I like to say "everything in moderation, including excess"

[FiveNotions]

oooh, we are on a roll today!

[Clara]

As we say here in the south, "y'all ain't right", but we also say it takes one to know one! Glad to know I'm in good company!!!!

[gail]

Well, FH and others here warned me that clonidine can cause constipation ... yep, it sure did ... should call it "clog-idine" .... so, yours truly decided to counter that effect by eating some delicious organic dried apricots ... which I just love ... so, never having been one for moderation, I proceeded to eat almost a whole package last evening ... and.... the result was like dynamiting a beaver dam ... up at 3 a.m.... been "very busy" until just now ...

 

And that, dear friends, is my negative for the day ...

 

FiveNotions, you make me laugh! How weird someone's negative can make you laugh at times. It is just the way you write about it.

 

You make your negatives so funny! Been on clonidine for 3 days. You gave me the recipe in case....dried apricots. Thanks!

[Carleeta]

FiveNotions, you make me laugh! How weird someone's negative can make you laugh at times. It is just the way you write about it.
 
You make your negatives so funny! Been on clonidine for 3 days. You gave me the recipe in case....dried apricots. Thanks!

FN don't forget the probiotic Greek yogurt...this will help with the constipation and get you regulated also...

[FiveNotions]

Yep, I bought the probiotic yoghurt when I got the dried apricots .... I'll start that tomorrow ...

 

Oh, FH... I forgot to mention.... my spelling is an alternative ... I didn't even notice it until you teased me further up this thread ... apparently "yoghurt" is the "British English" ... "yogurt" is the "American English" ... how/where the heck I picked that up I don't know ...

[fishinghat]

Yep you are right. Yoghurt. Well, the joke is ln me. lol  I guess when you open your mouth too far your foot is bound to fall in.

[FiveNotions]

heheh ... FH, I think it's my Cymbalta brain damage ... I'm spelling words like a Brit...maybe I'm about to start speaking with a Cockney accent and singing "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" ... like some of those stories I've read about people with traumatic head injuries or waking up from comas ... whole new accents, or personalities ... If I change my screen name to "Eliza Doolittle," that'll be the "tip-off" ....

[FiveNotions]

I'm not sure if this is a "negative" or a "positive" ... probably both ... yesterday I had another encounter with my black hole of memory during my years on crapalta ... I'm redoing my resume, and called an employment agency I'd worked with for over a decade, to check my dates of employment in the positions they'd placed me in ... good thing I did ... not only were my dates completely off, but I'd completely forgotten about a couple of important jobs I'd held ... I had/have zero recollection of them, ever having worked there, and what I did while there ...

 

Afterwards, I sat with a calendar, and flipped through the months during those particular job years ... not only do I not recall where I worked, but I don't recall at all, or only vaguely, what I did during my vacation time or holidays, or who I spent my time with ...

 

I'm starting to think I'd better check the FBI's "most wanted" pictures at the Post Office ... for all I know, I could be one of 'em ... then again, maybe I was abducted by aliens ... or placed in Witness Protection ...  

[gail]

My goodness FiveNotions, this crapalta thing really messes up the memory. I have kept a daily journal, thank God, and recently re-read an entry made the morning before, I could not remember having written it, as though I was drunk when I wrote it. Coffee cant do that!

 

Kept notes and notes since the beginning, would I not have done that, I would not remember much.

 

And again, sorry for your negative, but that last paragraph was quite a laugh. That humor of yours is out of this world!

[Jones]

Five notions,
I tried to read old posts to find out but couldn't find how long have you been off this drug ?
I was blaming my non memory on Lipitor.
Your post is pretty scarey but it did make me laugh out loud.

[FiveNotions]

Jones, I'm just about to finish up my 8th month off ... I quit cold turkey early last December, after having been on the poison (60 mg/day) for what I thought was 7-8 years ... after sitting with the calendar yesterday, I'm now pretty sure I was on it for 8-9 years ... I must've been in the first "wave" of prescribes when the stuff first came to market for depression/panic, whatever ...

 

I'm one of the "older" folks here (just turned 61) ... and I do think that my age, both when I was put on it and when I got off it, have a lot to do with both the physical and cognitive effects it's had on me ... also, I was (and still pretty much am) in lousy physical shape while on it, and that didn't help me either ...

 

Humor is the only way I can deal with all this ... in the moments (days, weeks) when I lose that perspective, I either fall into the anger ditch or sit on my pity pot ... sometimes, I take the pity pot right into the ditch, and do both at once

 

By the way, if you see my name and avatar pic in the Post Office, or, now that I think of it, on the back of a milk carton ... send me a PM, okay?

[Jones]

I should be writing things down. I am not even sure when I finally finished with the beads, over a year.
Hopefully things I do on automatic won't hurt anyone.
Got your back on the Most Wanted list but I don't hang around the p.o. very much. I will probably run across you in one of those ditches though. I need to put my picture up there in case you see me on Nancy Grace.

[FiveNotions]

My negative for today is that it seems I'm about to be forced to spend a day or so "cold turkey" off the Wellbutrin xl 300 that I still take ...
 
I stopped at the pharmacy on my way to church, to pick up my rx renewal ... at the counter when I picked it up I confirmed with the gal that it was the brand, not the generic (to which I have horrendous reactions), she said yes. But, I didn't personally check the bottle. (Dumb.)
 
So, after I was out of the store, I got some water and was about to take one from the new bottle, and just happened to notice that the label said "bupropion" .... and, it's the one made by Actavis ... this is the exact generic of the Wellbutrin that almost put me into a psychotic episode late last November -- that happened just about a week before I had my similar "encounter" with the generic Cymbalta, which is why I quit that stuff cold turkey.
 
So, this means that my new shrink at the clinic ignored the first clinic shrink's file notes and what I told her about my reaction to the generic, and went right ahead and prescribed it anyway. (I was hospitalized twice from run-ins with the Teva generic of Wellbutrin that's now been taken off the market.)

I could call the clinic tomorrow ... but, she doesn't take calls, only messages ... and, she told me that she "tries" to return messages within 48 hours, but can't guarantee that she will be able to do so.

So, I'm going to do a "walk-in first thing in the morning ... and just sit there until she sees me ... it'll be a good "show and tell" for her ... she can see what cold turkey withdrawal really looks like ...
 
The moral of this story is .... ALWAYS read the labels on new rxs while standing right at the pharmacy counter ... don't ever rely on just what the pharmacist or pharm tech says ... AND, don't ever run out of meds before picking up the refills...

[TryinginFL]

Awwww,  FN...

 

Is there the possibility that you can get the name brand as soon as tomorrow?  Would that still cause terrible withdrawal if you get it that soon?

 

I am so sorry and hope that you will be back on the "good stuff" asap. 

[FiveNotions]

Luckily, Wellbutrin withdrawal is nothing like crapalta ... I've gotten "stuck" like this before, and I'll be fine ... also, as long as I don't take one of the generic tablets, I won't have the kind of reaction I had last November ..

If I do the clinic "walk-in" (more like a "sit-in" ... heheh) tomorrow, I should be able to get the witch doc to give me the right rx on the spot... by then I'll have gross sweating, minor muscle spasms and pin-prick pupils ... that should get her attention

I'm mostly just ticked off that she ignored the red flag in my file, and what I've told her... also ticked off that I didn't read the label at the pharmacy...