Health - SSRI withdrawal advice (Escitalopram)

[insidiousvertigo]

Hi everyone. I'm on 30mg of Lexapro a day. I was on 40mg. It is mainly perscribed for my ocd, but also for minor depression and anxiety. I want very much to be off of Lexapro, and be past the withdrawl stage. I have not tried to withdraw anymore lately, because of the side effects. Should my next step be to cut down to 20mg or 25mg? And for how long? Another question, if I begin to have strong anxiety attacks, ocd attacks, or strong depression during withdrawl from Lexapro, will it pass eventually? I have heard that people with depression get depressed but it passes. I haven't read anything about ocd however, and I was wondering if my ocd would stay worse even after all the other withdrawl symptoms stopped. Thanks for any help everyone!

[Nagognog2]

Granted you are not breaking any laws taking such as prescribed, but please read the rules of the forums. They apply to even legal substances where you are. I suggest you begin here:

Before proceeding to post in these forums, you MUST first familiarize yourself with the rules here. Pay close attention to the rules regarding self-incrimination and learn to use SWIM (Someone Who Isn't Me) or equivalent. Proceeding without abiding by our rules can and will get you banned.

The rules can be found here:

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/misc.php?do=cfrules

Thank you & Welcome.

[insidiousvertigo]

I don't understand what I did wrong really. I know about the SWIM thing, but i am prescribed to Lexapro (unfortuanately). This makes it perfectly legal for me to take it. And I was really looking for help, because I feel as if it is dulling my life.

[Nagognog2]

Nothing wrong - you just need to read the rules - like the vast majority of newbies. No shame.

I'm sure someone(s) will be along to give you some advice in this matter.

[kareena]

To begin with if SWIY has a competent doctor then that doctor should be able to help schedule a good tapering plan to get SWIY off escitalopram (lexapro).

Next thing, SWIY should be thankful s/he isn't dealing with venlafaxine (effexor) or paroxetine (paxil) which are absolute hell to get off in comparison to most other antidepressants. Escitalopram should be relatively painless.

Going down by 5mg for a week and continually cutting 5mg out as each week passes until SWIY reaches zero sounds like a decent plan and shouldn't cause too many problems.

In times past SWIM has discontinued antidepressants quite abrubtly but this is more a product of him not getting enough return versus side effects and deciding to cut 'em out as quickly as possible (he will not be returning to the foray of SSRI antidepressants again). Cold turkey is completely unrecommended especially with venlafaxine (god, damn!) but doing so with antidepressants is not dangerous so it is viable.

About symptoms returning. Well, the idea behind drugs like escitalopram is that the patient learns to cope with their problems while on medication and can transfer these 'skills' to non-medicated life when they cease using meds. This is a nice ideal but of course some people have a recurrence of problems. I know close to nothing about OCD but a positive attitude, and other stuff like therapy, support, whatever should help prevent this happening.
But the main thing is SWIY wants off this class of drugs that is, in SWIMs opinion, a quite horrible class of drugs, so yeah, approach it positively etc etc and at the end of the day it's not that hard at all.

[insidiousvertigo]

thanks so much for the information, SWIM believes that he will try to taper off the drug, 5mg every week. SWIM is very fed up with SSRI's, as he knows how bad they can be in the long run. SWIM will let everyone know how the process goes. Thanks!

[insidiousvertigo]

SWIM forgot to mention how angry he his with his psychiatrist, as she doesn't hesitate to prescribe higher doses of SSRI's, without describing fully the horrible symptoms of withdrawl.