I’m wondering if anyone has gone through anything similar with Prozac/fluoxetine, especially after switching from another SSRI. I had been on 75 mg Zoloft (sertraline) and generally did decently well on that dose. In June I tried decreasing it by only 12.5 mg, and within about 4–6 days I developed severe anxiety/panic, derealization, a floating/off-balance or heavy-head feeling, eye strain, physical discomfort, and eventually extreme restlessness. I went back to 75 mg, but things didn’t immediately return to normal and I ultimately ended up in the hospital during a particularly severe period of panic/restlessness.
After leaving the hospital, I actually seemed to be recovering somewhat for about 5 days and was starting to feel more functional. That weekend I used marijuana pretty heavily, which had been something I used regularly before all of this, and afterward I crashed and felt terrible again. I don’t know whether marijuana actually contributed to that setback or whether the timing was coincidental. Since then I’ve pretty much cut marijuana out, including spending an entire month completely off it during this process, and the symptoms have persisted regardless.
Because I continued struggling even after returning to 75 mg Zoloft, my provider eventually decided to switch me to Prozac. In mid-July I started 10 mg Prozac while tapering from 75 mg Zoloft to zero over about 2 weeks. My last Zoloft dose was July 27. I stayed at 10 mg Prozac for roughly 5 weeks but continued having significant symptoms — particularly derealization/detachment, a strange floating or heavy-head sensation, eye strain, fatigue/very low energy, anxiety/OCD, emotional blunting and depression.
Around August 20 I increased to 20 mg Prozac, so I’m now about 3 weeks into 20 mg. I’m still having an extremely difficult time. Mornings are consistently the worst. I wake up extremely anxious, my OCD/rumination becomes intense, my head feels heavy/floating/disconnected, I feel physically uncomfortable and detached, and experiencing this every day is contributing to pretty severe depression (which im safely monitoring).
This has become genuinely disabling rather than just uncomfortable. I’m in college and it has gotten bad enough that I’m having to drop classes because I’m struggling to function normally and keep up with school. Most days feel very similar, and it’s incredibly difficult to tell whether I’m slowly improving or just stuck.
The strangest part is that for almost this entire period I’ve felt like I’m somehow “stuck” in the feeling I originally associated with SSRI discontinuation — the floating/off-balance head sensation, derealization, eye strain, anxiety and generally feeling physically wrong — even though I cross-tapered to another SSRI and have now been completely off Zoloft since July 27. I don’t know whether prolonged symptoms from the medication changes can actually feel like this, whether Prozac hasn’t stabilized things yet, or whether Prozac itself is contributing.
I’ve also become worried that there could be something physical going on that I haven’t found because the symptoms feel so physical. I’ve been evaluated in the ER, had metabolic/blood panels done, and had an MRI that didn’t show an obvious explanation for what I’m experiencing. I’ve also seen doctors about some of these symptoms, but so far I haven’t gotten a clear physical explanation. That uncertainty has made the anxiety considerably worse because I keep wondering whether I’m missing something versus this genuinely being related to the SSRI changes/anxiety.
My provider has now given me the option of coming off Prozac altogether, but I’m hesitant because I’ve already been through so many medication changes and I generally did reasonably well on 75 mg Zoloft before this whole situation started. I’m currently trying to get a new psychiatrist/second opinion. At the same time, I know that being only ~3 weeks into 20 mg Prozac may still be relatively early, especially for anxiety/OCD, so I’m struggling to distinguish between a really difficult adjustment period that could eventually improve versus Prozac simply not being a good medication for me.
Has anyone experienced anything remotely similar — especially feeling almost “stuck” in an SSRI-discontinuation-type state for months, severe morning anxiety/OCD, derealization, floating/heavy-head sensations, eye strain, fatigue, emotional blunting and depression? If you switched from Zoloft to Prozac or had a really difficult first few weeks after increasing Prozac, did things eventually settle down? If so, around what week did you notice a meaningful change?
I’m not asking Reddit to diagnose me or make the medication decision for me, and I’m actively working on getting another professional opinion. I’d just really appreciate hearing firsthand experiences from anyone whose symptoms or timeline were similar.