SSRI Withdrawal
People who take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, AKA SSRIs, can face one of the more challenging medication discontinuation processes when experiencing SSRI withdrawal symptoms. Here in the Alternative to Meds Center Arizona drug treatment program, we have found SSRI withdrawal help methods to ease this process, and reduce symptoms of withdrawal.
SSRIs are prescription medications prescribed for depression as well as other psychiatric illnesses. Picture this scenario: You have been on a SSRI for 5 years or more. You discuss with your doctor your desire to decrease your dosage. He prescribes alterations and tapering in typical 10mg increments. After a few days of beginning this, you may start to show severe flulike symptoms –diarrhea, headache, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, chills, and fatigue. Agitation, vivid dreams, insomnia, impaired concentration, irritability and suicidal thinking can also occur. These SSRI side effects last anywhere from a week to as long as a year and vary in their intensity. You are wondering what the hell is going on.
Welcome to SSRI antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, a result of reducing your dosage or stopping the antidepressant altogether without SSRI withdrawal treatment. Some SSRI medications comprise of a really short half-life, which means that these drugs don’t stay within the body for a prolonged period of time. They go in, work for a few hours, then they come out again. One of the most prescribed SSRI antidepressants on the market today is Effexor. In as little as 5 hours of reducing or stopping an SSRI, SSRI discontinuation syndrome begins. If you miss just one dose, symptoms can occur. Five hours is frighteningly short. Electric shock sensations or brain zaps start to occur. If you’ve ever been to the Grand Canyon or a very tall building and looked down, there is a falling feeling that your brain sometimes throws at you though you are not falling at all. Your head feels like jelly with vertigo like feelings. You get a migraine. You feel incapacitated.
SSRI medications are nothing to mess around with. Stopping an SSRI cold turkey isn’t advisable. With Effexor for example, you may be forced to open up the capsule, calculate the amount of granules, and lessen the dosage one granule at a time each day as a method of dealing with withdrawal pain. This is a painstaking method that you must do each day. You cannot just take out one granule, since some capsules will contain more granules than other capsule. You have to add up the number of granules in each capsule every day. With these rigid procedures, people often restart the drug, often mistaking SSRI withdrawal symptoms for the original depression reason to start the drug in the first place. You just want to feel better. This is why it is crucial to go through a SSRI withdrawal help process that will make this experience tolerable.
It is important to withdraw extremely slowly from these antidepressant drugs, often over a period of a few months or more and under the supervision of an experienced mental health specialist. Think of your doctor as your partner in healing. Don’t go off one of these drugs without medical supervision. One of the most important methods of getting SSRI withdrawal relief is to wean off the medication slowly. By reducing the dosage in small increments, the brain can gradually adjust to the change in chemical balance and slowly adapt to living without the drug. SSRI discontinuation syndrome can last up to a year or longer, especially when an individual doesn’t have adequate SSRI withdrawal treatment.
It is best to withdrawal from SSRIs when any external factors that may have led to depression are resolved or at least under control. Support is the most important during this time, and having what you need to stay comfortable is also a key factor. Alternative to Meds Center’s Sedona rehab searches for potential underlying sources that are contributing to depression. Our program uses laboratory testing, natural substances for neurochemistry stability, SSRI withdrawal syndrome treatments, detoxification of collected environmental toxins, support from peers, IV amino acid therapy, targeted nutritional treatment, yoga, personal exercise training, massage, and the advantages of many therapies created to offer effective SSRI withdrawal relief.
Our Arizona drug treatment program is aware of other and better answers than living life medicated on SSRI drugs.
Is it time for your loved one, or you to begin living life in the ways you know are achievable?
Great successes are found everyday in our Sedona rehab program at Alternative to Meds Center. We have graduations parties every week that celebrate this success. Around 50 individual attend, including the participant’s friends and family members, and fellow residents. Stories are talked about at these events which are truly incredible, sometimes telling of decades spent in suffering, with unbelievable clearness. It encourages us when we watch this because we know they have the skills necessary to continue a positive life and be an inspiration to others.
You are invited to call us and talk, so you may receive an understanding of the SSRI withdrawal help available.
Written By: Nicole Bonnet
Welcome to SSRI antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, a result of reducing your dosage or stopping the antidepressant altogether without SSRI withdrawal treatment. Some SSRI medications comprise of a really short half-life, which means that these drugs don’t stay within the body for a prolonged period of time. They go in, work for a few hours, then they come out again. One of the most prescribed SSRI antidepressants on the market today is Effexor. In as little as 5 hours of reducing or stopping an SSRI, SSRI discontinuation syndrome begins. If you miss just one dose, symptoms can occur. Five hours is frighteningly short. Electric shock sensations or brain zaps start to occur. If you’ve ever been to the Grand Canyon or a very tall building and looked down, there is a falling feeling that your brain sometimes throws at you though you are not falling at all. Your head feels like jelly with vertigo like feelings. You get a migraine. You feel incapacitated.
SSRI medications are nothing to mess around with. Stopping an SSRI cold turkey isn’t advisable. With Effexor for example, you may be forced to open up the capsule, calculate the amount of granules, and lessen the dosage one granule at a time each day as a method of dealing with withdrawal pain. This is a painstaking method that you must do each day. You cannot just take out one granule, since some capsules will contain more granules than other capsule. You have to add up the number of granules in each capsule every day. With these rigid procedures, people often restart the drug, often mistaking SSRI withdrawal symptoms for the original depression reason to start the drug in the first place. You just want to feel better. This is why it is crucial to go through a SSRI withdrawal help process that will make this experience tolerable.
It is important to withdraw extremely slowly from these antidepressant drugs, often over a period of a few months or more and under the supervision of an experienced mental health specialist. Think of your doctor as your partner in healing. Don’t go off one of these drugs without medical supervision. One of the most important methods of getting SSRI withdrawal relief is to wean off the medication slowly. By reducing the dosage in small increments, the brain can gradually adjust to the change in chemical balance and slowly adapt to living without the drug. SSRI discontinuation syndrome can last up to a year or longer, especially when an individual doesn’t have adequate SSRI withdrawal treatment.
It is best to withdrawal from SSRIs when any external factors that may have led to depression are resolved or at least under control. Support is the most important during this time, and having what you need to stay comfortable is also a key factor. Alternative to Meds Center’s Sedona rehab searches for potential underlying sources that are contributing to depression. Our program uses laboratory testing, natural substances for neurochemistry stability, SSRI withdrawal syndrome treatments, detoxification of collected environmental toxins, support from peers, IV amino acid therapy, targeted nutritional treatment, yoga, personal exercise training, massage, and the advantages of many therapies created to offer effective SSRI withdrawal relief.
Our Arizona drug treatment program is aware of other and better answers than living life medicated on SSRI drugs.
Is it time for your loved one, or you to begin living life in the ways you know are achievable?
Great successes are found everyday in our Sedona rehab program at Alternative to Meds Center. We have graduations parties every week that celebrate this success. Around 50 individual attend, including the participant’s friends and family members, and fellow residents. Stories are talked about at these events which are truly incredible, sometimes telling of decades spent in suffering, with unbelievable clearness. It encourages us when we watch this because we know they have the skills necessary to continue a positive life and be an inspiration to others.
You are invited to call us and talk, so you may receive an understanding of the SSRI withdrawal help available.
Written By: Nicole Bonnet
