Dictate Your Own Treatment
Thursday, July 13th, 2000 (continued).
I’ve been reading a lot about weaning recently, and everything I’ve read seems to show that decreasing one’s dosage by 5mg can have an immediate effect on how someone feels and the withdrawal they experience — and it’s usually not good.
Lowering the dose by 5mg every other day for at least a week seems to be the least painful way of going about it. It’s like giving your body and your brain a taste of what it’s like every other day. So you get a taste of the lower dose one day, then the next day you (and your body and your brain) can rest on the regular dose. So that gives you a week (or more) to get used to the lower dose. Then lower it again and keep alternating for another week or so — or whenever you feel ready to lower it again.
Doctors right now are learning about weaning as we are; they don’t necessarily know any better. They’re saying lower it by 5mg one week, and then another 5 the next week, but it doesn’t necessarily have to go that way. Your body doesn’t necessarily work on a weekly schedule. You may have to gradually lower it by alternating with the lower dosage, and you may have to take longer than a nicely rounded 7-day week before you begin lowering it further. Everybody is different, so this can’t be an exact science.
If you don’t like how you’re feeling, you can probably make adjustments to how you’re weaning yourself off the Paxil. You may want to talk to your doctor. And don’t let him or her push you around.
If it doesn’t feel right to you, then it probably isn’t. You can dictate your own treatment.
Postscript - February 4th, 2001: When I began weaning myself off the Paxil, I followed the alternating method as described in this post. I didn’t have a bad reaction to this method, but there are people who do. The thing to always remember is that everyone is different. You have to find out what works best for you.
P.S. (Sept. 2006): I’m not sure if this information is out-of-date, if new less-painful withdrawal methods have been discovered. But if anyone wants to leave a comment with more info (if there has been a change in the past 6 years), I’d be more than willing to post it.