Paxil = Bad News, MY Story

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I went on CYMBALTA, and my head was SWIMMING by the time I decided tp quit cold turkey. I kept moving it up in the night, and then just STOPPED, so a lot of the worst was while I was asleep. Luckily I had only been on the full prescribed dose for about a week.

Wow !

Paroxetine is actually KEY for me. It's very simple: without it I just SUCK, with it (10 mg per day, though the psych who gave it to me suggests going to 20) I'm just fine, I can enjoy things and live a quite normal life. WAY less anxiety, negative thoughts practically erased, better eye contact and so on. Yes, some people complain about emotional flatness and TO A CERTAIN EXTENT that's true, but when 99% of my "normal" feelings are fear, anxiety, rage, anger, depression and so on I'd say some kind of detachment is better, isn't it ?...to put it simply, me without paroxetine = death, me with paroxetine = life.
The same thing applies to my mom who is exactly like me.
My opinion is this: it's all about genetics, there is a brain (and a body), it can function at different levels of efficiency, when it doesn't function properly the best thing to do is just accept it and use the available help.

Rainbow-Squirrel - It's nice to hear from at least one other person who has been on paroxetine and not had a totally awful experience.

I have no idea if I need it now, but I do think I needed it when I started taking it. I think it helped a lot with my anxiety, which was absolutely crippling at the time. (I was seriously unable to function.) I would like to think that I'm now in a situation where it's not necessary, but I'm not sure. I don't know how I could possibly find out without going off it, and I'm not confident enough to do that. I feel like I would have to have a long time with no obligations to try it out and that's just not going to happen.

I think SSRIs have been over-hyped and over-prescribed. I know they can have some very serious side effects and they can be very addictive and because of that, I am really not thrilled with they way they are treated in the US as virtually harmless. But at the same time, while they may not be the wonder drugs the drug companies say, I refuse to believe they are flat-out bad drugs. They're just drugs that drug companies promoted in a rather dishonest fashion. They have serious drawbacks but they're also seriously helpful for people who really have major problems, as I did when I started taking them.

Paxil WDs stole several months of my life. I thought I would be damaged forever, but don't worry, it passes eventually for most people. The fatigue, anxiety, shakes, shocks, even hallucinations and mind tricks I could handle. But when I started to become anorexic from the accute nausea (for weeks I would force myself to choke down the smallest portion of food or milk or juice and still throw most of it up), it really began to scare me and I had a breif relapse. The second time I tapered off while starting Prozac. I stayed on that for about 6 months just to give my mind and body time to adjust. After that, Prozac was a breeze to go off compared to Paxhell. Just had a little bit of moodiness for a while. Now all I take is a multivitaman and a little omega-3.

My opinion on this, after having seen the effects of various psych "drugs" on different people and having discussed this topic whit a friend of mine who is into cognitive sciences, and philosophy of psychiatry, is that prejudice against psych meds makes WAY more damages than the meds themselves. I think there are a lot of people out there who could really benefit from them and instead refuse to improve their quality of life just because the idea of taking this kind of pills doesn't sound good. I used to be on the "nature is always good" side myself...I was SO wrong.

I'm glad that you are benefiting, but I guess I really don't agree that the prejudice is worse than the damage of the meds themselves. Not just because of my own experience with them, but for example where the female gender is concerned, I read that if you even "think" you could become pregnant on it you should stop because it can cause serious birth defects. Let's face it, how many people out there actually plan out their pregnancies? That scares me to death, I have one child with a heart condition I don't need another. But not only that, the addiction, hellacious withdrawals, the suicidal tendencies... the all really needs to be brought to peoples attention much more than it is, even if it does scare people off...it should in alot of cases. There are so many people that I've talked to that don't even have much of anything wrong with them and start taking this crap. One lady I worked with a few years ago, she said "I'm so stressed...that's why I went to the doctor and got drugs". I think back on it now and wonder did she really need to do that? I don't think she did because she was always very happy and went out with her friends and had a good social life, good job, etc. Just simply feeling stressed and being put on something potentially dangerous is just not cool. I don't mean to rant. I see that some people really need it, and I really am glad that it works for them. What I believe doctors should do is an analysis of the patient much more in depth, and talk about the withdrawals, etc. before just pulling out the prescription pad.

Zoloft seems to help with alleviating some of my anxiety, and it does allow me to do things outside of my single interest; before taking it, I wouldn't do anything but that single interest (couldn't). They say it helps with obsessive thoughts, so I'm assuming that's why I can do some more stuff. When I stop it, my anxiety comes back....

I like Valium for its greater ability to suppress anxiety, but I only take that regularly for a month, and then on an as needed basis until another couple of months have passed, and then I take it for a month again. This seems to provide the most comfortable experience for me (I'm always anxious due to this Autism thingy).

not by choice...this has happened to me several times. I get close to running out of my perscription and something comes up and now I can't get to the pharmacy (it's closed, they are out of it, etc.) I have been on paxil for over 10 years. I have been on 50 mil. the entire time. I never thought anyone could feel the way I do, until I ran across this site. I am miserable, I have to work in a few hours and feel like my body is going to crawl out of my skin. How long can this feeling last? Tomorrow do I go back to the pharmacy and start right back up again, or do I try to make it? Do I try to cut down and finally get off this stuff or do I stay on it for the rest of my life? I just want to cry.....

I'm another one where Paxil = life. I was nearly paralyzed with anxiety before it. I could barely leave the house. I took public transportation to work (which wasn't a bad thing) which added nearly an hr each way to my commute. I was also in a not so good marriage that I was afraid to leave because I didn't think I could make it on my own. Once on Paxil, it was like the universe opened up to me. Long story short, I drove myself to divorce court. I still have social anxiety, but I can 'fake it' when necessary.

I used to take Paxil and it really helped me emotionally. I was happy and I didn't have as much anxiety but it didn't make the problems going away. I remember how weird it felt were my emotions were not at all in sync with my thoughts. I'm sitting there thinking about everything that was going wrong and how I didn't like any of it but I couldn't help but feel nonchalant about it. And after realizing this my mind just refuesed to accept the illusion anymore and the pills stopped working.

I tried paxil about 6 months ago and within a short time, I had to get off. Lets just say I made lots of enemies during that time I'm on a pretty good drug now called Manorex which is so far only available in Canada right now... it's for ADHD and anxiety and its the best I have been on so far.

Terrible those drugs. Simply awful.

I am in the camp that thinks they are akin to poison. But if they help others, that is good.

Sometimes if you have sense issues, drugs are like poison.

Tom Cruise and his ilk aka my family has a lot to answer for, , sadly I've been their done that Paxil saved my life!

I'm currently experiencing WD from Zoloft (Sertraline) (after taking it for 2 years) and have been for the past year 4 months.........at first I had panic attacks daily in the morning, and then felt panicky all the time as well as nauseous and very faint and heady, and stomach very painful and upset and many digestive issues- that was for about 6 months, then the panic level lowered a bit and for another 6 months still woke up panicky etc but not so bad; now I still feel nausous, heady and faint, stomach still very bad, but my body feels like it's burning and I want to scream in pain. I take probiotics and digestive enzymes but my digestion still bad, and I read omega-3 can help with WD so am taking that too.
This is my second time trying to get off because last time I came off I didn't know about WD and went back to my doctor with the symptoms I'm currently experiencing, was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and put back on Zoloft.
I don't trust doctors and I don't trust meds.
I just want to be well, I'm scared I could be like this forever, but try to tell myself WD is just my body healing from the meds, and that symptoms changing is progress. I had trouble going on the Zoloft orginally and my doctor told me to persevere with the panic attacks and stomach upset. I wish I'd listened to my body and not my doctor.


My doctor won't accept that I'm experiencing WD, he just says it's my anxiety returned.

are you stopping cold turkey?
you should always stop taking medication slowly by slowly lowering your dose over a month or so. its a lot easier on your body