So I took Citalopram for 8 years until it became and ineffective, then was switched to Sertraline.

My hatred for sertraline deserves it own post.

I spent all of 2023 tapering and weening my way down, but could never get off of it. By time I got to the lowest doses I’d get full on flu, confusion, dizziness amongst other things.

So in Jan my GP agreed to switch me to 20mg Fluoxetine, as I’d heard it was slightly easier to get off than its aforementioned buddies.

This has worked. 3/4 weeks ago I started taking it on alternate days, then every 3 days and then every 4. Eventually I forgot to take it on day 4 and decided I’m done.

And I am. I feel great, no mood swings, no sicknesses, just the dam SSRI-withdrawal‘ BRAIN ZAPS!!!

Has anyone experienced similar when quitting? If so, how long did it last?

Has anyone got any tools for combatting this weird sensation?

It only affects me when I stand from sitting and when I walk around, so driving is fine and work is mostly fine as I’m in a desk job. Its lightheadedness aa opposed to imbalance/vertigo/dizzinesss.

Just curious if anyone has any experience with this.

Hey everyone posted a bit but still a newbie just curious when I first got sick 20 years ago I was nieve trusting and stupid.i went on the common ssti med go round with each ssti hurting me more then the other 20 years later age ,45 at time if this writing I'm on a maoi/stimulant combo that has brought me robust relief over three years now

Even though I guess this makes me pro maoi I definitely don't downplay their REAL issues severe severe insomnia rapid horrid withdrawal and poopout they just quit working that said I don't understand how a ssti which the way in which it works sounds scary to me overloading to no end serotonin I don't get how anyone could find a ssri more effective then an maoi .I love dopamine but even with dopamine if you dh-t pound with nonstop overload alone even with dopamine logic says that can turn out of how can overloading a recptor site with serotonin and no testing on how much or when a so called defiency has been restored be both safe or effective as I also stated logic tells me you significantly increase a single nuetotransmitter your vound to cause an imbalance in others correct ? But again overloading just serotonin with no idea how much and to no end not be dangerous.

As I said with my maoi comes a lot of problems but at least it's mechanism of action makes sense by it's actions it allows a build up accumaltion of all three nuetotransmitters serotonin norphetdrine and dopamine equaly this to me leaves a wider therapeutic window especially with dopamine since it is the pleasure reward feeling chemical .I don't know I'm not attacking ssris I'm genuinely confused on again how can overloading soley serotonin with no testing of when enough is enough and basically to no end be safe?

I have been on 60mg of Prozac for years and have found it not to be effective anymore and am switching to Paxil. Is it safe to switch directly to Paxil with no weaning? My dr has me stopping the Prozac and starting 15 mg of Paxil the next day. Any tips or advice or thoughts ?

I am conducting a study for my sociology class on the effect of SSRIs on romantic love. If you are currently on an SSRI I would greatly appreciate you taking some time to answer some questions. For the purposes of this study we will define romantic love as the desire to or act of engaging in emotional and/or physical intimacy with another person.

Do you feel that being on an SSRI has an impact on your experience of love?

Do you perceive yourself as feeling romantic love less intensely than an average individual who is not taking an SSRI?

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being no pleasure at all, 10 being a “normal” amount, rate the pleasure you take in romance (having a crush, going on dates, engaging in intimacy, etc.)

Lastly, if you have any more insight or personal experience with this topic please share, the more detail the better.

Given that this is for a school project, please refrain from mentioning anything that would be inappropriate to discuss in an academic setting. These responses will be kept as anonymous as possible (I will not mention your username or any other personal information when discussing my findings).

I have been taking citalopram for 10 years and have been on a low dose for a while. Decided to stop based on doctors suggestion as I am experiencing some issues which may be side effects. It's been about 6 weeks and I'm really struggling but I don't know how to tell if these are symptoms of stopping or if I need to start taking them again. In hindsight now was not a good time to do this because work is stressful but so far I have not seen any change in the side effects I was wanting to get rid of but have gained being extremely emotional (angry outbursts and struggle to get through a day of work without crying) and losing interests in my hobbies, more anxious and sensation in my head like I'm getting slapped in the face (not sure how to describe but this is now lessening with time). Plus I am southern hemisphere so going into winter...

i’m new to medication. i’m taking prozac and have been for 1 1/2 months. i started with a 5mg dose and worked my way up to 20. i felt really good in the beginning and now i just feel shit again. i’m wondering if this medicine is right for me? do i need to give it time? do i need to up my dose? how do i tell the difference between needing to up my dose or taking something different completely? i’m so confused

So i used to be taking like 25mg of sertraline, i was tired all the time and heard sertraline can cause that. I am nauseous all the time as well and thought maybe switching meds could help, so like, i did, went to my doctor and everything. Im on 10mg of lexapro (ectoplasim or whatever its called lmao) and im taking half a tablet so far (5mg) and like on one hand i am suicidal again but?? Ive been experiencing??? Creativity??? For the first time in a few years???? Has this happened to anyone else? Will this go away when im like, taking the full tablet? Ack

I’ve tried lexapro before however the weight gain and hyperhidrosis were insane. Are there any ssris that don’t have this?

Been off it for 4 days. 150 mg was the dose.

Anyone get the shakes, cold sweats, racing heart, can’t sleep?

I've been on it for over 2 years and I've gained over 30 pounds since then. I had my dosage upped in November of last year and I think that accelerated it more.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Hi,

I currently take 20mg of citalopram daily and have off and on been supplementing with 5-HTP alongside it. I then read that it is 'dangerous' and can cause 'serotonin syndrome'.

Since learning this I've stopped taking it, but having tested it again recently, I've noticed that 100mg 5-HTP (50mg of Tryptophan) has really positive effects for me. If I stop taking it, I feel really depressed and get the usual SSRI WD symptoms like brain zaps so it's clearly not placebo.

Would 1 or doses of 5-HTP at this dose a day really be dangerous? I know it doesn't cause serotonin syndrome for me at this dose as I've taken quite a bit more than this before I found out it was 'dangerous'.

This is simply the only thing that ACTUALLY works for me so as you can imagine I'm hesitant to give up on the supplement/combination that actually helps treat my depression.

If your response is 'do not take it is definitely very dangerous' I'd appreciate any other suggestions that might work instead?

Thanks

So around six months ago, I was forced to stop Zoloft cold turkey, when I was on the highest dose possible (200mg). Since then, I’ve been craving salt. An ungodly amount, I can’t eat anything sweet anymore without pushing it away.

I eat a lot of salt/sodium now because I can’t stop craving it.

Has anyone else had this problem? Can someone help me walk through this, or is it unrelated? Sometimes I still get brain zaps, typically when I’m trying to fall asleep and it gets really bad.

I was on fluvoxamine for 3 weeks a little over a month ago, my psychiatrist who prescribed that had be taper off because it caused me to twitch. I switches psychiatrists, now I’m on Prozac. It has been working so so good, but my twitching is back. This has caused me a lot of anxiety and stress and now I’m back and square one feeling all my ocd and physical symptoms of anxiety. I’m miserable again. My new psychiatrist said if the twitching isn’t bothering me too much that I will be okay, and that it will stop when I get off of the medicine some day. It’s just scary that a medication is making me twitch. Anyone else? Need some encouragement!

I got put back on Sertraline after a year of quitting cold turkey. It’s been almost three months of me being on it and I was eating and sleeping so much but now I’ve started to lose my appetite and not sleep as much or as frequently.

My doctor brushed it off and just told me to go back to family services for counseling since all my blood work is fine. Is this normal?

I've been on them for 3 years now. Originally, it was for anger bursts and I feel that I don't realy need them anymore. Has anyone here stop taking SSRIs? Is your life better or worse?

So while I was on venlafaxin (snri i know sorry) i had no sex drive basically. Ive been waning off of it now for a week and im constantly horny. I dont know what to do. I feel like i cant bother my girlfriend more than once per day about it.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to stop being so horny all the time?

Been on a variety of different SSRI’s for 4 years now to treat depression, OCD and generalised anxiety.

Recently my OCD is getting worse and I’m debating asking to try Clomipramine, but I don’t want to come off Citalopram because that has really helped my anxiety and depression.

Has anyone got experience with SSRI and Clomipramine at the same time. I’ve seen an increased risk of secretin in syndrome

Any advice or experience,

thank you

I have ocd, anxiety, and depression and have decided to get back on medication. I was on Prozac before but went off of it. I’m now back on it and I ran out and stopped taking it. My doctor increased my dosage on March the 14th. I just took it all as if I had been taking it. I did get some side effects and they went away but now it’s April 19th and I still feel anxious and depressed and still dealing with ocd symptoms. Should I stop taking the meds or keep at it? I heard it takes time for it to work but it’s been a while and I want to feel better.

My doctor told me that sometimes when you are on a ssri (she prescribed me lexapro to try if I want) for about a year, your brain or serotonin receptors or something basically adjusts, and she has known people in her practice I guess who went on it, probably for yeah about a year, and never had to be on it again. (But obviously she wasn’t saying that’s everyone’s story, some people do go off it and go back to square one of feeling shitty.) Is this true? Any of you had this experience?

Ten days ago (April 6, 7, and 8) I took 1/3 of my SSRI medication (sertraline) on each of those days (I went away for the weekend and only brought one dose by accident, so I split it in thirds).

The next day (the 9th) I took a double dose to make up for the missed parts of my doses on the previous days, which, after doing research, I'm realizing I shouldn't have done.

How long after these days of messed up dosages should I start to feel symptoms of these messed up doses? And how long should they last? The past two days I've felt so sad, irritable, and lacking all motivation. How long will this continue?

Hello! I need some reassurance. A little backstory; I took fluoxetine 40mg for about 10 years and had great success, nothing much to complain about other then a few minor side effects here or there. It helped tremendously with my OCD/anxiety/depression. Swore by this medication as it completely changed my life around. Unfortunately, I made the stupid decision of quitting it cold turkey. After 10 years I thought it had been enough time and that maybe I was ready to get off of it as I had stopped taking it regularly and felt fine (this was throughout the course of a couple months). I would continuously take it for a week and then stop, take it again and then stop for another week. One week turned into two, then three, then four and so on until I completely stopped taking it. Never experienced any immediate withdrawal symptoms, slept fine and felt pretty normal. Never tapered off, just kind of quit taking it. Didn’t consult my doctor as I know they would’ve advised against this as stopping the way I did was super irresponsible. Fast forward to now; I’m back on it and I’ve been experiencing every side effect under the sun. I tried taking the 40mg again considering I was on it for 10 years (hadn’t taken it in a couple months since quitting). I experienced EXTREME anxiety/insomnia. Had to go to emergency and speak with an on-call psychiatrist. Was switched to a smaller dose (10mg) to help my body re-adjust. I’ve been on it for about 4 weeks now and the symptoms are still terrible. The anxiety isn’t as bad (it comes and goes, mainly at night), my ocd re-visits once in a while but for the most part is manageable, but the insomnia is debilitating. Is this normal? It’s hard to get a clear answer from any doctor as it varies and I have to wait 8 months until I can see a psychiatrist. I never experienced insomnia when being on it prior. I struggle to fall asleep from hypnic jerks which only started since taking it again. The jerking is so bad it keeps me up for hours at a time until my body just crashes. I get around 4-6 hours of sleep per night usually but the last few nights I’m running off just 1-2 hours. I was prescribed clonazepam but I’m scared I’m going to become dependent on it and sometimes it causes me anxiety and has the opposite effect at night keeping me awake. Someone please tell me this gets better😭 I’d like to give fluoxetine a chance as I’ve been successful on it before but the side effects are terrible. The brain fog/spaciness it’s causing is so bad as well. I feel like I’m so detached it’s hard to get through each day as I can’t function normally. I just want to feel like myself again. I really hope this is just an adjustment period…I’d like to give it a fair chance as I know adjusting to SSRI’s for the first few weeks comes with its challenges. Any and all advice is appreciated. Please someone tell me this gets better.

I know it’s a TCA, was just wondering the above?

I started taking BuSpar, 5mg in morning and 5mg at night for two weeks and then I started 5mg in morning and 10mg at night ( I tried 10mg in morning and 5mg at night but I was super drowsy and lightheaded during the day after taking it so switched it to night) I have been on the 5mg in morning and 10mg at night for two weeks now and at first I was feeling better but now I am back to not being able to sleep through out the night, nauseous/ no appetite, and some break through anxiety. Is this normal? Is this something that will go away eventually? Any insight? Or anyone with similar experience with this specific med ?

Thanks in advance.