Weaning Slowly
Tuesday, September 25th, 2000 (continued). In response to a post at paxilprogress.org:
According to what I’ve been reading, if you took at least 20mg of Paxil for more than 4 months, then it will take you at least two months to wean yourself to zero without experiencing any major withdrawal symptoms.
I know that everyone is different, and I’ve read of people who managed to go from 20mg to zero is less then a month. Whippee for them, but I’m more inclined to think that that’s the exception, not the rule.
The rule is: GO SLOW. Everyone, it seems, who does not wean slowly, usually experiences more severe and prolonged withdrawal symptoms.
I don’t think you’re going crazy. You just may have gone off the Paxil too fast. And you may have to go back to a comfortable dose and then gradually wean yourself off the Paxil — slowly.
Not knowing your exact background, that’s my best guess.
Besides weaning slowly, there’s a ton of another things you can do to make it a smoother ride. There are vitamin supplements like B-complex, C, E, Gamma Oil; there’s the elimination of nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and white sugar from your diet; there’s daily moderate exercise; there’s staying away from negative people; there’s music; there’s sunshine; there’s soy products; there’s fruits and vegetables; there’s ginseng tea and ginko, whatever-it’s-called — there’s all kinds of good stuff that can make a difference.
I’ve done all of the above (even the soy products; ugh), and I’m down to 10mg now and haven’t had a single brain zap. I get a little wobbly on my legs once in a while, but no electrical current firing off every time I move my eyes — none of that crap.
Levelling off at 15mg for 10 days was a rough ride (I had headaches and extreme dizziness), but, surprisingly, things have gotten better since I got down to 10mg, and I think it might be because I’m eating all the time. It’s a funny thing to describe, but I can feel it in my brain when I’m hungry. The second I begin to get hungry, my synapses go nuts and I immediately grab for whatever’s closest, be it an apple, an orange, cold meatloaf, moldy cheese and stale crackers — as long as I get in it my mouth within a few minutes after I begin to feel hungry (and it’s not even hunger; it’s an instant starvation that requires immediate quenching), then I seem to be okay. I get the feeling that by putting some kind of food in my mouth every 90 minutes (usually a piece of fruit), I’m warding off those lovely brain zaps.
I don’t know if any of this helps, but this can be done without going crazy. I’m not exactly whistling a jaunty tune here, but I’m getting through it — by eating nothing but good stuff, and weaning slowly.
Good luck.
Postscript - February 5th, 2001: In this post, I said, “…it will take you at least two months to wean yourself to zero without experiencing any major withdrawal symptoms.” Having now survived it, I would say it takes at least three months. Anyone who can do it in two months, and have a smooth ride, is doing extremely well. At the time I wrote this post, I mostly had extreme dizziness, having to always grip onto something whenever I tried walking around the house, and I had bad headaches.