In February 2022, I decided I wanted to go off my antidepressants. This is what led me to find the company Truehope and their supplement EMPowerplus. I wish I never had. The direction from the staff at Truehope has damaged my health more than I ever thought possible. I have depression and have been greatly injured by Truehope. This is my story.
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Generally, following the rules I wrote about last week on how to stop antidepressants while minimizing withdrawal work, and most people can successfully withdraw from antidepressants with few side effects.
Unfortunately, some antidepressants are not so easy to get off of no matter what you do. Some antidepressants:
Any antidepressant can feel impossible to withdraw from, but the antidepressants people have most trouble withdrawing from are:
But by far, venlafaxine and desvenlafaxine (Effexor and Pristiq) are the ones I hear about. In my opinion, these two drugs are a nightmare to come off of for most people. ^ (I’m not saying everyone has trouble with these antidepressants, just that many do.)
Here are tips on how to get off of horrible~ drugs like venlafaxine (Effexor) and desvenlafaxine (Pristiq).
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While antidepressants can absolutely be life-saving medications, sometimes antidepressants aren’t the right medication at the right time for you. Or sometimes, it’s just time to try to get off of antidepressants. (For simple depression, this is often done if you have been stable for 6-12 months.)
But the key to getting off antidepressants successfully is to minimize withdrawal symptoms because otherwise you may feel like you’re trapped on the antidepressants. Additionally, the withdrawal symptoms may get mistaken for returning illness symptoms, which you do have to watch for, but if possible, it’s best not to get withdrawal and returning symptoms confused.
So, here are some tips on the best way to get off antidepressants while minimizing withdrawal.
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Before I started taking psych meds, one of the major concerns I had was addiction.
I didn’t want to be an addict of any sort as I’m quite familiar with the horrors of addiction, having addicts in the family.[push]Will I get addicted to antidepressants?[/push]
And I knew people often took antidepressants for long periods of time, sometimes forever.
So weren’t these people addicted to antidepressants?
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Long (long) time readers will recall that once-upon-a-time I took the atypical antipsychotic Geodon. I found this to be an unbearably painful and side effect laden psych med. I hated Geodon. I wouldn’t wish Geodon on my worst enemy. I lost touch with reality with Geodon. I passed out at work on Geodon. I got sick constantly on Geodon.
You know, that being said, Geodon works for a lot of people.
I gather my reaction to this antipsychotic was fairly atypical. And if I had known what to eat when taking Geodon that might have helped.
Read MoreA couple of posts ago I talked about getting off of the antidepressant, Pristiq. I just thought you might like to know I was unsuccessful at getting off the final 50mg of Pristiq. I stopped taking the final Pristiq pill while increasing the antidepressant, Welbutrin and fell entirely apart in withdrawal. I became a swamp of tears, echos of choking sobs and a rainforest (?) of suicidality.
Yeah, so I gave into the withdrawal and just took the Pristiq again. Ah…failure. Failure getting on antidepressants, failure getting off antidepressants, and failing to get better. Sheesh. That’s quite a lineup.
Drugs are bad. Just say no. Or ow. Or please god stop.
Or that might be just me.
Read MoreNow I’m not a doctor, in fact, I don’t even play one on TV, but I wanted to share a little about me and how I’m handling getting off of, or at least reducing, Pristiq.
I’ve been talking the antidepressant Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) for months and it doesn’t seem to be doing much, but honestly, the withdrawal from Pristiq is so bad I didn’t want to attempt getting off of it. As you might know, Pristiq is a metabolite of Effexor and Effexor, another antidepressant, is also a nightmare to get off of. If I would miss a Pristiq dose by even a few hours I would become suicidally depressed. Really. No joke.
So getting off of Pristiq wasn’t on my short list of fun things to do. There is no taper strategy for Pristiq as it only comes in 50 mg and 100 mg tablets and you cannot cut them.
But I seem to be successfully reducing the dose of Pristiq with minimal impact and withdrawal.
Read MoreI like to think I know almost all there is to know about mood disorders, but I was pretty shocked when I read this:
Differential Diagnosis
Mood disorders are sometimes caused by general medical conditions or medications. Classic examples include the depressive syndromes associated with dominant hemispheric strokes, hypothyroidism, Cushing’s disease, and pancreatic cancer (DSM-IV). Among medications associated with depression, antihypertensives and oral contraceptives are the most frequent examples. Transient depressive syndromes are also common during withdrawal from alcohol and various other drugs of abuse. Mania is not uncommon during high-dose systemic therapy with glucocorticoids and has been associated with intoxication by stimulant and sympathomimetic drugs and with central nervous system (CNS) lupus, CNS human immunodeficiency viral (HIV) infections, and nondominant hemispheric strokes or tumors. Together, mood disorders due to known physiological or medical causes may account for as many as 5 to 15 percent of all treated cases (Quitkin et al., 1993b). They often go unrecognized until after standard therapies have failed.
(bold mine)
I’m shocked. No one ever mentioned anything about birth control pills to me and I’ve been on them for years. YEARS. This is yet another reason why doctors so often get on my bad side.
This quote was taken from the Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. The whole report is a good read, but very long. It’s everything you wanted to know but didn’t know you needed to ask.
I’m disgusted.
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