Can you explain how you felt coming off of Zoloft (or similar drugs)?

I was taken off an anti-anxiety drug and at night I got confused and had a panic attack and wanted to move back with my mom. I really needed a hug. My pharmacist said to sit down and sip warm water slowly. It is every three nights that I have the attacks. It is slowly getting out of my system.

@RedDeerGuy1 How many milligrams were you taking?

@DrasticDreamer 0.25 mg the lowest possible dose. It was purple. I don’t remember. It was clonazepam.

@RedDeerGuy1 Ah, okay. I was taking 25 milligrams of Zoloft for a daily dose, but my doctor did give me clonazepam for my wisdom tooth removal. I can definitely see why coming off of clonazepam was quite a transition for you. That stuff is pretty powerful, but it does work wonders for anxiety. I hope it gets easier for you, but if you can avoid taking it every day, that’s probably best.

Did you just stop taking it? You really have to slowly wean yourself off of it or you can have serious side effects. I think we talked about it before right?

@ARE_you_kidding_me Yeah, I did. I messaged my doctor because I’ve heard so many people talk about not just stopping cold turkey. Another doctor was covering for mine, but she said because it was such a low dose that I should be fine just quitting altogether, so I did. I’m kind of regretting it, though. I almost feel like I should have known better, because I’m pretty much more sensitive to any kind of medical/body stuff than pretty much anyone I’ve ever known. :-/

I ended up also getting a massive headache today (which isn’t actually unusual for me – I suffer from migraines), but typically two Advil would make it go away. Even by the fourth Advil of the day, it still didn’t get rid of it entirely. That’s why I think the headache might also be related. And I keep feeling like there are little zaps in my head, as weird as that sounds. They aren’t painful, but yeah. Don’t know how to explain it.

I wish I had been able to talk to my doctor… :-/

Well, I’m no doc but that was bad advice. It took me months to step down from 25mg to zero.

I don’t take any medication for mental health issues, but I have an idea. Why don’t you go back to taking it but cut your dose in half and so you’re going to take half a pill per day, or if you can’t do that because the pill is so small, then take the one whole pill but take it every two days instead of every day. Do that for a few weeks and then drop it totally.

I went off celexa at one point and had the same symptom. Memorably, I once started crying in the shower because I thought about the “Do you wanna build a snowman?” song from Frozen. It dissipated with time.

Oh, also the “head zaps” are a common effect from quitting these types of drugs. I never got them but my dad did when he quit lexapro. Stuck around for quite awhile for him. You might find that tapering your dose instead of quitting cold turkey helps.

Well, I didn’t bother taking more or cutting it off. I figured since I was already a few days in that I might as well stick it out. I’m still getting the head zaps, but my emotions seem to be stabilizing so I’m glad.\

@Mariah Yes, exactly. I was reading about a website called Rooster, which is basically just a “pay it forward community” for my city, and the idea alone – not even personal stories from users – was enough to make my cry. Then I also watched a video about a little boy who was extremely sad for animals and what people are doing to their environments and I almost lost it.

Are you kidding me – Zaps in the head rang all my alarm bells. I was taking Effexor (the drug from hell) for 12 months for anxiety – even though I ‘weaned’ myself off them, I had a very bad reaction. Apparently that’s common. One of the reactions was brain zaps. Nausea, constant dizziness and headaches that would put a hangover to shame. Don’t remind me of the horrendous nightmares – WHEN I could sleep! It took WEEKS for this to ease off – took over 12 months for me to be ‘symptom free’. I just ‘rode it off’ and have sworn off all medication. When I want to cry, I just go with it…

@RFR Yep, still getting head zaps. I was also wrong about my emotions being evened out. Thought they were, but I’m definitely not quite back to normal yet. From now on, I’ll do what I did before and just incorporate passionflower into my life again. It does help with anxiety if used correctly – so I recommend it if you’re curious and want something natural. Doesn’t mean you don’t have to be safe with it, but it’s an alternative option.