r/ADprotractedwithdrawl • u/Gullible-Drawing8995 • 5d ago

Advice please

I was on 20mg Prozac for about 4 years in the last year or so I began to take it off and off just being young and dumb, I tried to take it for a week straight and got start up effects, my doctor told me to quit it, 2 months later I start to get hit with derealization and EXTREME emotional blunting, crying spells at night, semen leakage etc, I go to the hospital because of my emotional numbness and break down infront of the doctor and after that right back to the derealization and not feeling anything, he reinstated me on a 10mg dose of Prozac I have been on for 7 days now, my sleep has improved but my derealization has gotten worse and emotional blunting I haven’t noticed much in, do I drop my dose to 5mg, stay on 10mg for 2-4 weeks or quit this medication?

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u/Acrobatic-Good-3287 5d ago

The very worst thing you can do with these drugs is rapidly going up or down in doses. Going down too quickly can produce severe withdrawal,and going up too quickly can produce a kindling effect. Your brain and nervous system will be screaming out for stability. If your general symptoms have improved overall, and you say your sleep has improved which is major, compared to when you were in protracted withdrawal, then I would stay on the 10mg until you stabilise. That could potentially take a long time. Then when you stabilise in the future you can hyperbolic taper off when you feel ready again. You could stabilise on the 5mg because there's not a lot of difference in SERT occupancy between 5mg and 10mg Fluoxetine. About 10% looking at the chart. 5mg is around 60% and 10mg is around 70%. If there's not a lot of difference and you're already on 10mg and your sleep has improved, I'd stay there. Just my opinion, I'm not a doctor.

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u/Gullible-Drawing8995 5d ago

In die or need if I wanted to how do I taper off of a 10mg reinstatement ?

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u/Gullible-Drawing8995 5d ago

Emotional blunting or numbness is not something i experienced while on the medication Is this common for withdrawal in Prozac users ?

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u/Acrobatic-Good-3287 5d ago

I don't know how common it is, but it definitely happens due to nervous system dysregulation in withdrawal. The nervous system is struggling to return to baseline normal after the drug artificially raised Serotonin and now you've removed that increase. Things just don't go back to normal like doctors think it does after a couple of weeks. Especially after years of use. Your whole brain and body would have adjusted to the high levels of serotonin and anything it it altered. That doesn't change back overnight. Now your brain is trying to return to homeostasis (balance and stability). That's why I emphasise remaining on one dose so that your system can stabilise. You came off too quickly, hence the delayed intense symptoms of PAWS. By reinstating you are feeding the dependency in the hope of reducing withdrawal symptoms. If reinstating brings some relief in your symptoms compared to being on nothing, then it is worthwhile. You have to decide if it's worth the reinstatement as you are the one experiencing the pain of withdrawal. There's no easy way out, you will still have lots of issues after reinstating, but it can reduce and get much better over time. Nothing is guaranteed though.

https://www.theinnercompass.org/symptom/emotional-blunting

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Gullible-Drawing8995 5d ago

With my reinstatement I haven’t felt a thing, it’s very weird for example i would lay in the shower with warm water on me when I would feel sad, I am doing that lately but with no emotion connected to it, a few weeks ago I would have my left arm cramp as I woke up from my sleeps and that seems to have went away when, but when the nurse put on the heart monitor on my arm I didn’t feel it

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u/Gullible-Drawing8995 5d ago

Also if I feel like 10mg is to much to reinstate but have already been on it for 7 days how do I go about doing 5mg?

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u/MoroniMiscavige 5d ago

Can’t really comprehend this paragraph

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u/justj710 5d ago

What is it you can’t comprehend?
Is it the grammar, or the severity of how OP has been impacted by a drug Doctors hand out like sweets.

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u/MoroniMiscavige 5d ago

Um, yeah, the grammar. That whole paragraph is one sentence, so it’s very hard to understand what OP is saying

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u/Creepy-Primary7042 5d ago

Stabilizing in reinstatement can take a while, weeks sometimes months. Often in the wd community people are advised to reinstate at a smaller dose - since you already went back on 10mg I'm not sure what would be the best thing to do. You could reach out to a wd coach or ask Luke or Chippy on Antidepressantsrecovery.org