For the past few weeks I’ve been slowly weaning myself off my meds. I had gotten to the point where my emotions were completely numbed and I could barely accomplish anything because I just didn’t give a shit. The side effects were becoming worse and worse. I decided to taper off, because I read that many psychotropic drugs can cause further psychiatric problems if you go cold turkey. Google Serotonin Syndrome if you want to know more, it’s scary. I knew that I shouldn’t have been doing this without discussing it with my doctor first, but I honestly have had it with pill-pushing doctors right now. I am certainly not endorsing that anyone else take the route that I did if they feel like they should discontinue his or her meds.
I never imagined that it would be that difficult to withdraw from modern medication. I know that they keep playing around with medications to make them less toxic and have better side effect profiles, and thought that there would not be many problems to taper off. Was I ever wrong. When I first started changing my med schedule, I was taking one pill (Pristiq, for the record) every second day. That wasn’t so bad. I’d get the “brain zaps” occasionally and an increase in the tinnitus that I’ve been dealing with for over a decade, anyway. This was tolerable and came and went. When I started taking the pills every three days, I started to get very sick. It was like having a really bad head cold for weeks on end. Throw in some nausea and a few bouts of vomiting, just to top it off. The real problems began when I moved the schedule to taking a pill every four days. I had all the symptoms mentioned before and then suddenly, I would start crying for no reason and would have an overwhelming desire just to have a complete meltdown. This I managed (for the most part) to contain.
After being on the one-pill-every-four-days schedule for eight days, I decided that I was prolonging my agony. Within a few hours of taking the pill I would start to feel better, but as the medication wore off, I had to start the withdrawal process all over again. As of right now, I am Pristiq-free for almost eight days. I have to say that it was one of the hardest thing I have physically done. I now know what a heroin addict means when they say they need the drug or they will be sick. They really, truly get physically ill when their bodies are going through withdrawal. Taking the drug makes you stop hurting, at least for a little while.
Most of the really bad withdrawal symptoms are going away now, but I still have the sniffles, occasional bleeding nose, some crying jags and I am pretty irritable. Another issue that has cropped up over the past few nights is sleeplessness. This should not be happening because I HAVE NOT stopped taking my sleeping pill. It’s weird to sit here at my computer at 3:40 in the morning typing away when I should be zonked out from that pill.
Maybe now that I am (almost) drug-free I can resume my normal activities. I want to be more physically active, blog more and work on my poor jewelery line that has suffered the most from my lack of motivation. Here’s hoping that better days lie ahead. I’ll keep you posted.


