Poll: Were you told about withdrawal reactions ?

Or did you find out the hard way ?

I know now that withdrawal reactions are systematically ignored in psychiatric drug treatment or research, but they might represent the worst part of my whole drug-taking episode. I further understand that these reactions will often closely resemble the original symptoms for which the drug was prescribed to me, and are likely to be taken for a return of these symptoms (a "relapse"), rather than for withdrawal effects. I realize that my doctor or the researcher is likely to interpret these reactions as a sign that my "illness" is chronic and that my drug is "effective."

All psych pills Including SSRIs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI_discontinuation_syndrome

55 views n two votes ?

Total votes 8 now

Sorry for being so late to vote on this - good pole.

I just wanted to throw it out there that views are also counted from guests so it is likely the post views appear high with few answers due to guests not being able to reply.

I wasn't told when I had my first withdrawal and it was handled really badly. After 7yrs straight of 200mgs of zoloft it stopped working so the psych I saw at the time cut me off completely in 2days.

The side effects were horrible so many to list, I was lying there blind at one stage. I wrote down everything afterwards and went to my GP who didn't believe I could have suffered so much until she went into a detailed psych section and found everything listed as I had said. Needless to say neither are my doctors any more.

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Well yeah, most people coming off meds are going to get a rebound (ie symptoms of the "mental illness" causes entirely by drug withdrawls)- and most of them are going to be told that its because their illness is permenant and they need meds, unlike say a person on anxiety pills, who be properly informed that they will feel anxious for awhile until their brain normalizes its way out of the drug tolerance, downregulation and dependence.

I don't think really anybody is told about this, and I think generally its entirely misrepresented. In fact I don't think any psychiatrists every really think about drug tolerance, dependance and withdrawl, outside of anti-anxiety meds. Which is amazing to me, because they are taught that in basic neurobiology, but somewhere between pharmacology, studying mental illness, and med school, they seem to loose their ability to connect the obvious dots.

Recovered45 wrote:Well yeah, most people coming off meds are going to get a rebound (ie symptoms of the "mental illness" causes entirely by drug withdrawls)- and most of them are going to be told that its because their illness is permenant and they need meds, unlike say a person on anxiety pills, who be properly informed that they will feel anxious for awhile until their brain normalizes its way out of the drug tolerance, downregulation and dependence.

I don't think really anybody is told about this, and I think generally its entirely misrepresented. In fact I don't think any psychiatrists every really think about drug tolerance, dependance and withdrawl, outside of anti-anxiety meds. Which is amazing to me, because they are taught that in basic neurobiology, but somewhere between pharmacology, studying mental illness, and med school, they seem to loose their ability to connect the obvious dots.

I think they connect the dots $..........$..........$$...$

I call every emotion a mental health problem, and blame a brain chemical imbalance. This is only our second appointment. Using little information and no tests, I'm diagnosing you as 'ill' Here's a prescription for several brain-disabling drugs (that cause dependence and withdrawal reactions).

You're now locked into a life-time diagnosis, needing life-time treatment. Meanwhile, I'll get life-time payments: either from you or from your health insurance."

I'll never get questioned by anyone. And, if the scam is found out, I've got peers and attorneys to cover it up....

Nope, I wasn't told, though I wasn't really told about anything, because I was in one of those nominal hospitals when I first took them, where we had to take them, otherwise they put you in "intensive care wards" (that should read intensive control and punishment wards), where they just gave them to you without going into details. Last year I tried coming off Effexor cold turkey having been on it for 9 years, lasted 4 nightmarish days, went back up to about 125mg (about half the dose I had been on for 9 years), and I was still experiencing the repercussions 8 months later, still getting seizures and horrible muscle contractions, still getting sudden, terrifying perceptual shocks that would plaster me to the wall rigid with fear etc.

The worse is just how sensitive you become to aural and visual stimuli. For example , a helicopter flew over my house, and my body was suffused with something that felt like electricity and all the muscles contracted. This was going on at regular intervals in a day, and it is much worse than it sounds. My imagination was so vivid and sadistic, I kept on envisaging horribleness, such as being tortured in a variety of ways. I just stopped thinking pleasant thoughts. When I wasn't thinking about being tortured I was constantly thinking about death, space and time, thoughts impossible to regulate and that would invariably occasion nausea both philosophical and emotional in character, although it could be hard to work out which came first, the thought or the feeling.