Everyone's at it

Lily Allen - Everyone's at it.

 



2ml (8mg)

Another up dose :(

Good days and bad days, I think the good days are way out numbering the bad days now, but the bad days feel....bad.

I've tried throwing everything at it, mindfulness, relaxation CD's, my piano, positive affirmations, magnesium, nope, none of this truly shifts a full blown anxiety attack in full flow. Lately, on a bad day, I've caught myself thinking about going back to full dose. Then on a good day I wonder what I was thinking, having got so far.

1.30ml (5mg) - Remember that Light at the end of the Tunnel?

Well I think in the end it was an oncoming freight train. I never really seemed to get any better, many insomniac nights and anxious low level depressed days, so hard to keep functioning and so very exhausting. It’s in my nature to soldier on regardless, I’ve always been Mrs Reliable, always turn up when I say I’m going to turn up, never off sick, whole years with no sick leave, always do what I say I’m going to do. Now I feel like Mrs Flaky and unreliable. I never know from one day to the next how I’m going to be. I must be a great actress though, no one seems to believe me and everyone tells me I always seem the same and I hide it well. Either I should be on the stage or they’re being polite I can’t work out which.
P has been trying to persuade me for ages to go for another up dose, so since nothing else seems to be working, and I’m desperate to feel better, we settled on 1.30ml (5mg), this could either go well, or totally backfire, anyone who knows anything about drug withdrawal or reinstatement knows that recovery comes in "waves" and "windows" and as I've had a lot of lovley "windows" this week I'll choose to be optimistic that the "windows" of getting better will increase and the "waves" will decrease.

I’m one week into the up dose and it’s been a bit of a roller coaster week, initially I felt like a plant that’s been starved of water coming back to life, all the anxiety and dread cleared, as though someone had waved a magic wand, I felt so well the contrast made me realise just how “unwell” I’ve really been feeling the past 6 months. On day 3 in the evening I had intense anxiety and dread kick in, had a poor night and woke to very very intense anxiety, it can be so intense and physical it can reduce me to tears.  I was working with P that day and decided to soldier on, as the day wore on the intense anxiety lifted again and I was well again. The next day at my other job was all good, I felt great, the following day was ok and then last night moderate anxiety kicked in again and I was wired and awake all night. I need to give it a few weeks and see if I settle down. In any case I’ve almost come to the conclusion that I might never achieve my goal of all the way off the drug without being so ill that my whole life goes down the pan, and I might just have to find a permanent stable dose and stick with it. 

In other news I have my new piano at last, electric so I can practise with headphones and not disturb anyone; this is a great way of just getting lost in the moment and so relaxing.

At this point here, I want to say thank you to my husband, my parents and a couple of friends in real life who’ve  been so supportive and been there for me going through this, I think they’ll know who they are if and when they read this.

Me Too!

5th Anniversary of my Blog

Yup I can't believe it's 5 years since I started this, privately, and I thought I would be finished by now and this blog would be all neatly tied up and finished, but no I'm still here with a Facebook page to boot, and a job in addition at: Surviving Antidepressants.

ONE day this will be history.

My Prozac Reduction Timeline

There IS light at the end of the tunnel - and no I don't think it's an oncoming freight train.

My younger son who takes an interest in this blog came up with the heading for this blog post, and his sense of humour is a bit of a worry.

Oct/Nov/Dec saw me unravelling in a nightmare way, the worst things were the fairly severe internal anxiety and adrenaline surges, and resultant insomnia, I’m a bit scared to publish this but in the interests of an honest log of my progress here goes, at my lowest points, a few nights saw me self medicating with tamezapam and whisky, either one, or the other or both together, 2 or 3 hours of total oblivion even with a hangover the next day was slightly better than 7/8 hours of sleepless anxiety with someone snoring beside me, only slightly better and it was the bit of oblivion I was after. The tamezapam has virtually all gone now and I won't get anymore and I've abandoned the whisky, especially after reading alcohol is no good for damaged nervous systems anyway.

I also had a lightbulb moment about a multivitamin I was taking, I'd read that too many B vitamins can be aggravating to messed up nervous systems so I looked at my Holland and Barret vitamin bottle (other brands are available) and discovered that I was taking over 100% of the RDA, so I ditched them and just sticking with the high EPA fish oil capsules and a healthy diet.

Mid December I realised I’d got to guesstimate the best dose of Prozac and stick to it for better or worse, messing about with the dose was sending my nervous system into constant turmoil. Just before Christmas I could feel myself starting to come out the other side, somewhat, the internal anxiety, dread and adrenaline surges subsided, but knew I still had a little way to go to get stable again. There was a fair bit of “faking it to make it” through December, in other words I had to get a grip and force myself through the motions of whatever I had to do on any given day, whether it was work, working with P or Christmassy preparations, but "going through the motions" is grim.

Now into January, I can feel myself feeling more like my old self again, my normal sleep pattern is coming back, not 100%, still getting odd bad nights but definite improvements and feeling more normal, whatever that is, "normal is a setting on a washing machine" comes to mind.

At the moment, I just want to relish feeling “normal” for a few or even many months, I am torn between feeling desperate to get off this last 1ml of medicine drug poison, and terrified to rock the boat and do anything about it.... ever.

As an aside, a colleague at work asked me the other week, is there no help or withdrawal specialists on the NHS? really?!?! Yes really!!

I am grateful to P for being my rock, and to Alto Strata and other friends at Surviving Antidepressants, and my nurse friend, for helping me untangle this and work out the best dose to be on.

 

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

A Little Knowledge Can Be a Dangerous Thing!



1ml Syringe

Yesterday, my friend who is a specialist nurse called round and we talked syringes. (I really need to get a life). This friend is the only health professional me and P know who has taken on board and taken an interest in my issues. I happened to mention in the course of the conversation that I'd started flushing the syringe in water and drinking the water to make sure I got all the medicine out. I'd read that this was a good idea. She pointed out to me that if I had just started doing this, I had inadvertently been updosing another .05ml so I had gone up from 0.85ml to most likely 1.10ml which was a bigger jump than I had intended. I was flusing the Prozac out of the nub at the bottom and that nub is quite big. 

 

Everyone close to me has had a different opinion on what I should do, but I decided to go with my gut feeling and go to 1ml. Six days later I think this gut feeling is begining to pay off, this week end the awful gut churning anxiety/dread/doom feelings seem to have just melted away, I'm sleeping better, not quite as well as previously but noticably better and today I feel a definate shift towards feeling more "normal" self again. I have also been practising a mindfulness meditation everyday and of course that may have helped as well.

 

Prozac Reduction Timeline

1ml (4mg) - Who Needs Red Bull!

So after nearly a month at 1.05ml I honestly wasn’t feeling any improvement, in fact I think I was beginning to feel worse again, the main problem was feeling “wired” or like I’d drunk a jug of Red Bull and unable to sleep, this in turn was making me feel really depressed. 
I would really like to thank Alto Strata at http://survivingantidepressants.org/ who asked a knowledgeable doctor about what was happening to me and the conclusion was that by going to 1.05ml I may have overshot my bolt, and the Prozac was becoming too activating, it is a stimulating drug and I seem to be very sensitive. When we studied it I was beginning to feel better shortly after I went to 1.05ml but since Prozac takes a lot of days to reach “high tide” it was probably the effect of going up to 1ml beginning to take effect and then I ramped it up by going up further to 1.05ml and got worse again. So I’m going to see how back to 1ml goes.

In my real life I seem to be surrounded by people who just “stopped” their drug or had no problems, I am so thankful for the internet and finding that I’m so NOT alone with this and I'm not mad.

In the meantime I have begun to practise mindfulness, and can thoroughly recommend a book called “The Mindful Way Through Depression”, it has a CD with it and I’ve begun to do about half an hour practise a day, and if I can find the right dose to get my nervous system back on the right track I’ll stick there because I’ve had enough of this crap for now.
My Prozac Reduction Timeline

1.05ml - Arresting the Spiral

So I’ve  found myself spiralling down in a way that I hadn’t felt for 5-6 years, after years of fairly benign withdrawals because I’ve been tapering so slow, I was shocked to find myself getting all the old symptoms from years back. A bad withdrawal seems to take your most negative emotion like anxiety and ramp it up or amplify it to a spirit crushing level. Mind you depression does that as well?!?!

 As I’ve documented in the posts below the worst things I was getting and still getting on and off, was insomnia, deep despair, dread and adrenaline/anxiety. I actually, maybe naively, thought I’d left those things behind years ago in the bad old days. It’s impacting on my life again recently in ways I hate; I’ve been too exhausted to go into work for a few days during October/November, and I’m struggling to get myself back on an even keel again. Insomnia is the most debilitating symptom and just aggravates everything else and is classic in drug withdrawal.

So having taken guidance from the eminently knowledgeable and wise Alto Strata, (who I probably should have listened to months ago when she suggested a micro taper to me) I’m going to go up a tiny bit more to 1.05ml in an extra bid to clear my current issues, as she explained it .05 is 5% of 1ml and it could well be that I am sensitive to tiny amounts now, and Prozac is a stimulating drug, if I’m sensitive I don’t want to aggravate things further but need to find the right balance and stabilise myself at that point.

So I suppose the lesson here is never get blasé and underestimate the power of these drugs, for good or bad depending on how you view them.

The other lesson is that recovery and progress doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

 

My Prozac Reduction Timeline

1ml (4mg) - A Small Reinstatement

So on Wednesday I had to updose a tiny bit back to 1ml, the received wisdom from those who have trod this path before me is that if you start unravelling it's best to go back to the dose where you last felt well, so this is what I've done,  I will write more fully about it hopefully in the next week, right now I'm just totally drained.

Prozac Reduction Timeline

C'mon Inner Peace I Don't Have All Day!!

The people who mentioned it gets hard near the end, they were not wrong!!  Anyway I realised this blog was turning into a right misery pity fest so I want to turn it around again into a more positive story of recovery and celebrate the fact that I have in fact come a long long way even if there is still a bit or work to do.

I’m getting the adrenaline surges I used to get years ago when I did cold turkey but not as severe, it becomes a bit of a downward spiral because adrenaline surges means it’s hard to relax/sleep and in turn the tiredness/exhaustion makes the surges feel worse and more desperate; the one positive thing about adrenaline surges is that they appear to eat calories and I can now eat cake and lose weight.!!Has to be some benefit doesn’t there? Yesterday I had a couple of strong coffees in the morning and couldn’t help but notice how very on edge I felt an hour or so later, so I guess that’s something I’ll have to cut down or eliminate, hopefully temporarily. I have taken some advice and this is the positive action I am taking:

       Out with the bungee jumping


       Out with the trips to Alton Towers, no more Oblivion for me, at least for the time being

Cut down on tea and coffee

 

And:

       Replace tea and coffee with chamomile, green and rosehip tea (boring but soothing)

Eat healthy

Magnesium citrate (was already taking magnesium but apparently magnesium citrate is much better absorbed and is good for the nervous system and muscles)

Melatonin (good for sleep)

Learn about Mindfulness, “Wherever You Go There You Are” on order.

Keep up with the exercise, sadly weather for cycling is not good but I still have the X trainer.

Continue to appreciate my caring and supportive husband who worries about me, and my funny affectionate sons.

 I’ve been trying to unravel whether this is “withdrawal” or mind and body rebelling against the crutch I’ve had for so many years now disappearing, and even whether I ought to up dose a bit or tough this out. At the moment I’m going to stay at this dose, take positive action as above and mull over how to proceed in the future.

Peter Hitchens writing in the Daily Mail about Felicia Boots

Peter Hitchens often writes on this topic in the Daily Mail. I have actually been avoiding this story because it's really so painful, but it is actually really important to share this, as most people will be missing the point entirely and blaming the post natal depression, the real story is that she stopped taking her pills cold turkey. Thank you thank you Peter Hitchens.

Investigate the evil of these pills

I bit my tongue when I first read of the tragedy of Felicia Boots, her life now a desolation of unbearable grief.
As soon as I learned that she had killed her own children and then tried to do away with herself, I was sure that I would find she had been taking ‘antidepressants’. And so it proves.
Our courts let many people off because of spurious claims that they could not control themselves.

Probe: Peter Hitchens wants an inquiry into the usage of antidepressants following the tragic story of Felicia Boots, right

But I believe that in her case the judge was right to say that this unhappy woman was in the grip of ‘forces that were beyond her control’.
It will be pointed out that she had recently ceased taking these pills, because of a perfectly reasonable fear of passing on the drugs to her children through her breast milk.
To anyone who has studied the matter, the fact that Mrs Boots became unhinged after ceasing to take her ‘antidepressants’ will be no surprise.
Normal human beings become abnormal, possibly for ever, as soon as they first ingest these powerful, poorly-researched chemicals, often prescribed by doctors shamefully ignorant of the growing body of expert criticism of them.
The effects of coming off them can be even worse than the effects of starting to take them. I have absolutely no personal stake in this argument. I have simply observed what seems to me to be a pattern, both among several people known to me and in a growing number of news reports.
I will be told this is ‘anecdotal’. Very well, then. Let us have a proper, fully-funded inquiry that will settle the matter once and for all. It is very urgent. Prescriptions of ‘antidepressants’ grow all the time.
If there is the slightest risk that they make good, kind mothers lose their minds and kill their own babies, I can imagine few more pressing matters on the agenda of any government than to establish the truth and act on it. Please, somebody listen.

Link to the article (scroll down)

Cutting Up Rough

Just had one of the worst few days in a long while, since I embarked on this taper in 2008 my withdrawals have been fairly benign and I’ve been pretty much able to work through them. This time however I’ve had a few days that have felt much more crippling in intensity, I’m wondering if it’s because now I’m below 1ml each cut I make is more than 10% of previous dose. At this point I could make micro cuts, which could be endless, or just leave even longer between cuts and accepting that the withdrawals will be more debilitating when they do hit. At the moment I am thinking the latter; whatever, it’s just really frustrating to be so near and yet so far to the end. It’s so tempting to just think to hell with it and just drop this last bit dead but I just know Prozac and my brain won’t like it and will cut up very rough.

These past few days I’ve had the following:

·        Wired/caffeinated feeling

·        Insomnia (one night I got so fed up I went downstairs and made a packed lunch and sorted laundry, went back to bed and still couldn’t sleep)

·        Free floating anxiety

·        Crying

·        Despair

At my lowest point I nearly deleted my page off Facebook and this blog, until P talked me out of it, and now I’m so glad I didn’t, I would have missed the page and all the wonderful people out there. This time I even had to take a couple of days off my local authority job and I felt really bad about that, I’m so used to rarely being off sick. The plus side is that I work with a great team of people, and I felt able to tell the truth about why I was off sick and even had a lengthy chat about it with a colleague when I did get back and it was all positive.

Today I feel like I’m definitely coming out the other side and I’m just left feeling like I’ve been through the wringer and feeling a bit spaced out.

I do just want to address something that I know people think but are too polite to say or ask, everyone who goes on these drugs went on them for a reason, depression, anxiety (and nowadays PMT, ADD, ADHD, physical pain or any number of different ailments). How do I know I’m not just depressed still? Of course I’m not naive enough to think depression will leave my life forever, of course I will always be someone prone to depression/anxiety as part of my makeup and I am ever mindful of that fact. Having had depression I know that with no drugs involved it just doesn’t shift that quickly, it’s a longer haul. When doing a slow taper off a drug the depressions are mercifully time limited and do shift in a way that depression wouldn’t.

My youngest son is 14 this coming week, this means its 14 years since this story started.

I just want to end this post with a picture made by a good friend Paul:

My Prozac Reduction Timeline

Today is World Mental Health Day

P is in a lot business networking groups on Facebook, and he received an invitation to an "Afternoon tea and talk" event at Arlingtons Brasserie in Ipswich this afternoon, it's a mental health awareness event with interesting things going on,  at first I thought I wouldn't be able to go and then I realised I had in fact swapped my work days for a staff meeting so I could in fact go.

 A portion of the proceeds of the event are going to Suffolk Mind and The Mind Sanctuary in Suffolk. This was too good an event for us to miss as it combines business networking for P and mental health awareness which is of interest to us both.

The Mind Sanctuary

Suffolk Mind

Antidepressant Withdrawal is Hell!

When I shared this picture on my Facebook page a while back I was shocked by how much response it got, so many related to it or had something to say about it.

I could tick at least half the things on that list and many people I know could tick nearly all.

It's.just.a.drag





So a week into my tiny cut this is how I've been feeling, my sleep pattern has temporarily gone to pot and I've been dragging my weary ass through the days, it's. just. a. drag. On saturday I'd had a good nights sleep but despite that I just felt like someone had pulled my plug out, I felt drained like when you have flu.  No emotionals this time, just tiredness,  I know it will pass. I really was hoping to speed up the last bit of the taper now, but P, very sensibly said what does it matter? who cares if the last bit takes another load of months? enjoy the stability in between the drops? I know he's right darn it!!

I'm married to someone who can sleep on a clothes line at the drop of a hat, I however have to go to bed the same time every night and no matter what time I go to bed, I always wake early, I never sleep the clock round, and I daytime sleep just doesn't come easy, and if it does I get a thumping headache, so routine is important to me, I've found talking to other members of my family that they are much the same, and I think it's to do with being brought up in a farming family.

Prozac Reduction Timeline

0.85ml and Surviving Antidepressants

It's been a long time since my last reduction, I decided to hold it steady over the summer as I did feel the last cut for a while, and it took me a bit by surprise. Now I'm on the home stretch I decided to make smaller cuts as the last bit is allegedly the hardest. Partly at the suggestion of Alto Strata on the Surviving Antidepressants web site and partly because my husband worries :)

Speaking of Surviving Antidepressants I was hugely flattered a few weeks ago when I got a message from Alto Strata at Surviving Antidepressants asking me if I would like to help admin/moderate the forums and in particular the "Tapering" forum. I was impressed with my "staff" badge on the site,  but at first I wondered what I let myself in for, not because I was worried about talking/helping people on the forums, I do that a lot anyway, it was more all the techy bits I now have access to behind the web site. I also wondered if I would be able to do it justice and visit the site enough to keep up with people, but it's been absolutely fine and the tapering forum doesn't move as fast as some of the others forums on the site.

Link to Surviving Antidepressants for Anyone Seeking Support

Prozac Taper Progress Report

So here I am still at 0.90ml since mid June. It’s not been an easy ride this time; I had a feeling from things I’ve heard from other people that it can get tricky when you get near the end. I’ve been waking up with low level depression, waves of sadness most mornings, sometimes it hangs around like a bad smell for best part of the day, but mostly it does dissipate mid morning. That’s it, it’s just low level and niggling, not crippling. It has crossed my mind that either I could get stuck at this low dose, permanently, or the last 1ml of the taper could just take an awful long time. It’s the sheer subtlety of it now, the not knowing what it is that’s really annoying, is it withdrawal or “me”? I do know that I am always going to be one of those people who will be “prone” to depression and anxiety and therefore I need to be mindful.

This happened to a fellow taperer/friend (I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning) and she reluctantly chose to stay at the very low dose permanently because every time she dipped below that level depression kicked in. As she said “it is what it is”. It’s great to compare notes with someone else from a completely different country and different walk of life but going through the exact same thing.

In the meantime, I am helping a lady in New Zealand to admin her support group on Facebook, there are about 90 people in the group, not all active, I think some just like to sit quietly and read things. It's a brilliant supportive and friendly group so if anyone reading this and needs help/advice and would like to join please contact me and I'll add you, it is a closed group, not visible unless you search for it, and therefore no one outside the group can read anything in it.

Today is a good day though, the sun is shining, I now have 2 weeks off from my part time job (not from helping Peter with the business though sadly), we are going to a Newmarket Race Night this evening with some very good friends, Tom Jones will be performing at the end of the races, and over the next two weeks I’ll get to spend more time with my youngest and catching up with friends before the new school term starts.

Prozac reduction timeline

School Shootings, SSRI Nightmares, Suicide and Violence

I don't normally dwell TOO much on the dark side on my blog, partly because I want it to be a story of recovery, but there is a massive dark side which can't be ignored. Back in 1999, 2000, 2001 I would have dismissed it as scaremongering bollox as well.

Until I experienced it myself I never would have believed it. Cold turkey sent me to a very very dark place, by end of 2003, I knew I couldn't go on much longer, it was harder and harder to keep a front up, at work and at home, the only person who really knew what was going on was my husband, I couldn't eat properly, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't stop the adrenaline surges day and night, I couldn't stop the dark dark thoughts and feelings. The adrenaline surges were the hardest thing to deal with. If you can imagine the gut churning fight or flight response never switching itself off. I couldn't tell anyone, people talk about "losing the plot" but I really had lost the plot and was lost in my own inner torment that no one could see, let alone understand. Hell I didn't understand it myself so how would anyone else? I did get to a point where images of the Orwell Bridge entered my head, it was just a thought but it was there. I've since met people who've had similar experiences with coming off too fast, severe agitation, distressing thoughts of violence towards other people and themselves, which cleared with reinstatement of the drug. This happened again to me in 2005, 2006 and 2007 but to a much lesser degree as I reinstated the drug more rapidly when I realised what was happening.

If I had perservered without reinstating Lustral for another month or so into 2004, I think the internal agitation, desperation and despair would have driven me to something dreadful to end the misery. Fortunately with my husbands encouragment I reinstated Lustral and fairly swiftly my symptoms subsided.  This was my insight into the dark side of SSRI's.

No one told me this could happen.

Since writing this blog I've met many others with similar experiences and I've read a lot. Really I do need to get a life, but knowing the medical establishment are either genuinely ignorant or totally in denial and there is so little help out there, I am prepared to talk about it here knowing that others stumble on it and find they are not alone.

Sometimes even now when I drop my dose I get a flavour of that "dark side" again for a few days, and then it just suddenly disappears as my brain/body gets used to the new slightly lower level of Prozac. My husband is so finely tuned into me, he knows, he said to me the other week I looked like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, and then almost overnight it just went as my metabolism adjusted to the new lower dose.

In recent years as I've done a lot more research into SSRI's I've discovered my experience wasn't unique, but many many people when it happens don't know the inner agitation/adrenaline surges is a side effect of dropping a drug too fast. Suicide and violence are now recognised in many circles as side effects of dropping Prozac/Lustral/Seroxat etc too fast, or starting it too fast.

Like I said, I would never have believed it years ago, and most people who are settled and comfortable on SSRI's don't believe it either. If you're one of those people reading this, I can hopefully save you ever having to find out by telling you that when you do decide to come off your drug, don't do it cold turkey, don't do the alternate day thing and do it extremely slowly, there is no such thing as too slow for some of us.

SSRI stories This is a really interesting data base of reported SSRI related violence/suicide, there is even a celebrity section.

Many many stories of random violence or suicide that you read in the media have an underlying hidden story of prescription medication behind them that the media generally don't pick up on, unless it's a celebrity, maybe. Unless you've experienced it yourself it just doesn't cross your mind.

Hmm I can hear some people I know reading this and thinking, yes, but how do you know it's the drug? you might be a sandwich short of a picnic and the drug might be nothing to do with it, how do you know it's not the mental illness? well that's the head f*** because it can always be blamed on the original illness and big pharmaceutical companies hide behind this.
But don't just take my word for it, look at SSRI stories and Dr David Healy, professor of psychiatry in Wales.