Lexapro withdrawal help

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I took Lexapro for a year and a half. I started with 10mg and went up to 20mg after about 6 months. I tapered off in 3 weeks. The first week I took 15 mg. Felt no side effects. Second week, I went down to 10 mg. Still no side effects except for some restless sleep. When I went down to 5mg the third week, I felt some side effects, but nothing too severe. I felt a little sick during the first hour of waking up, and I got these little muscle spasms. However, it's nothing too serious.
Make sure you taper off and don't go off "cold turkey". I took natural supplements of Magnesium, Vitamin D, and a women's multivitamin. Get plenty of exercise and sunshine. Instead of taking a prescription I now take 5-HTP.

My friends, good evening,
This site helped me a lot, so I want to help others as well. I've been on lexapro for six months uninterruptedly and for four years with intervals in between because of anxiety problems. First I started with 20mg, then 15mg, then 10mg, then 7,5mg.
It was a very dark phase of my life and I needed all the help I could get. So, without further ado, here are the rules I followed:
1) Lexapro doesn't save you. You have to save yourself. Surely, it is a powerful ally but it wouldn't do any magic to your life. For instance, if your wife cheats you or your husband couldn't care less, you have to have willpower to break up with them while you are still on this med. See, Lexapro won't make your family be better, it will make the suffering tolerable, but it will always be there. Lexapro won't make you thinner ou prettier, but it will make you bearable to yourself. So, if you have a bad or abusive partner, break up. If you are fat, start exercising. The magic is not in the pill, it is in yourself.
2) After you resolve your problems in life, talk to your doctor to lower your dosage slowly;
3) If you haven't done it yet, start therapy. If you can't afford it,look for a group in your city. If it doesn't exist at your locality, talk to a friend. If you don't have friends, start social working for the needed. There is always something you can do.
4) Exercises are vital. Talk to a doctor to check which type of exercise you can endure. Walking is a miracle ability in which one of us.
5) Talk to people that love you that, for some time, you will be very, very upset and you will need their understanding and support for this period.
6) Understand that you can't control the world. For this, steps 3 and 4 are paramount.
7) After slowly lowering your dosage as your doctor recomendantion, cut the pills.
8) You will be a mess. Truly. I had dizziness, nausea, vomiting, irritability... It was terrible. I went to work by cab because the dizziness was so great, I couldn't handle my car.
9) During this period, the dizziness and feelings were so intense, I seriously thought on going back to Lexapro.
10) Even with dizziness, you have to exercise with someone. This is very, very important. You see, lexapro helps with serotonin. When you stop it, the captation of serotonin diminishes. And guess what exercises produce? Yes, serotonin. Even with the dizziness I put on my running shoes and walked for two hours. The effects were great. The dizziness right after the exercise was much better. Of course, you have to exercise with a partner because, after all, you are not 100% and can fall or worse during your exercises. Needless to say, but weightlifting and other sports could be dangerous. Imagine if you faint with weights around... Not a good idea. And you have the added benefit of loosing some weight while running. Of course, talk to a physician to see which kind of exercise is adequate to you.
11) Don't drink alcohol. I love wine and beer, but during withdrawal, they always made me very, very sick.
12) Trust in yourself. You can do it. Everyday I got the dizziness I thought: "Will this ever stop?" Until, it stopped... For me, it took 3 weeks. For some, 2 weeks. For you, who knows? The only thing I know is that it will go away.
13) Always remember number 1 and keep yourself away from bad influences. You will be ok whether you are alone or with someone.
14) After you manage winning this battle (and you will), help someone who needs your help.
Sorry for my bad english. I'm not a native speaker.
Best regards,
Your friend.

I cannot believe that I have finally found someone who shares everything that I'm going through. I too was always skinny and got teased about it even though I ate fine. My doctor put me on 10 milligrams of Lexapro when I was in my 40s to help curb my premenopausal symptoms. After 10 years I quit Lexapro cold turkey because I had no appetite have lost a total of 10 lb which I could not afford. I was wasting away and I didn't know why - that's why I stopped. Having definite anxiety and the body zaps from hell but I'm determined to get off of this c**p.. I felt better before my doctor put me on this

I stopped lexapro cold turkey because it actually made me feel numb! I could no longer feel very much of anything in the way of emotions. I had brain zaps for a few days & I haf a few nights of insomnia but not all at once. The first 2 weeks were the worst but as the lexapro got out of my system, I began to feel better! I did not have headaches like some people have said, I did have a range of various emotions though. I had 1 week of anger, 1 week of anxiety & a few weeks of feeling sad & crying spells. It has almost been 9 weeks now that I am off & I feel more like myself. I keep busy & exercise helped me immensely, I cannot stress this enough! Walking helped more than anything else that I did! I will never ever take an SSRI again, I am so much better off of them. I have some sad days but that is normal & I can handle it. Good luck to anyone who wishes to get off, it really wasn't too, too awful, there is Hope, tou will recover, you can feel better each & every day!!

Hello all. I am just shy of two weeks off of Lexapro after a few months of tapering. It has been very manageable. Before I tell you how I did it, let me say I am the type that gets ALL the side effects from SSRI's. I had a bad experience with zoloft and paxil. They both about killed me. So, needless to say I was frightened to come off Lex. I found a site that had a good formula and I followed it.

I was on 10mg.

Mg for mg, Lex is twice as strong as other ssri’s and it has a VERY short half-life. That is why tapering slowly is so important! I tapered 10% every two weeks. It was not exactly 10% as I used a knife to cut the pills. As it got down in mg, the taper was more because I couldn’t cut off 10% of 5mg… too hard… but I tried. The main point here is I took my time. I stuck to the two week per step down. Once I got to 5 – I used the 5mg pills… and started cutting those.

I also did the following and I did itRELIGIOUSLY. (remember there are very good reasons for each – look them up.)
- Breakfast – fish oil (helps eliminate the zaps and good for brain rebuilding)
- Lunch – had 250mg of Magnesium (helps with anxiety), and QAULITY multi-vitamin, and Allergy pill, Fish oil
- Dinner – fish oil
- Bed time – 500MG of Magnesium and sometimes a Tylenol for soreness (from working out). (Cant take ibuprofen and Lex together according to what I have read on Medscape)
- I exercise almost every week day (helps with anxiety and side effects of taper). Even if only a 30 minute walk.
- If symptoms of taper were uncomfortable – I ate dark chocolate. IT HELPS!
- I see my therapist every week or two and I discussed the whole thing before I started to get his support
- I talk with my wife when I am feeling like c**p. She gave me encouragement and reminded me its temporary
- I pray every morning and night

Observations
- About day 2 or 3 after a step down, I would feel pretty jiggy… But, not near as bad as when I tried getting off without any help (see above regimen)
- Virtually NO brain zaps! You read that correctly – the fish oil works!!!! (for me)
- The lower the dosage the longer I felt jiggy during that first week.
- Week 2 after a step down, I almost always felt great
- If I felt like c**p – I would
o Remind myself it’s a physical reaction to the medicine leaving
o Remind myself its temporary
o If I got anxiety – I would use the 3”x3” sticky note pad I kept with me and write the following (I include an example)
 Situation: feeling jittery and going into meeting
 Thoughts: I am afraid I will have an anxiety attack in the meeting. I am afraid of making a fool of myself. I am afraid of getting brain lock and looking stupid.
 Emotions: fear
 Physical sensations: jittery, heart racing, sweaty, tingly stomach (etc)
 Alternative Thoughts: I don’t have to be a finished product (as a person). Its ok to make mistakes. I know what I am doing. This feeling is temporary. Even if I make a mistake or fool of myself, I will survive this. No one ever died of being uncomfortable.
o The above would help relieve the emotional hooks into the physical feelings and vice versa.
o I invariably felt better within 5-10 minutes if not sooner.
- When I stepped off - the physical feelings, though mild, are lasting longer. But they are manageable.
- I don’t think I ever had a brain zap – however, after stepping off, I do get a weird feeling sometimes like someone is holding a half-way depleted 9volt battery to my brain… just like a low grade electric weirdness… NOTHING like a brain zap… I just figure that if I wasn’t taking the fish oil, how much worse it would be.
- One of the side effects of Lex for me was a tingly stomach – its gone now!
- Once I was down to about 2.5mg – sex started working again. I could finish!!! Man, is that great to finish again. Truth be told, I am finishing more than I should this past week…just because I missed it so much. Lol
- After stepping off, I notice I am more crabby than usual. My daughter called me out on it. So, I am checking myself… Writing about it and talking about it with wife. I apologized to my daughter!
o Transparency has been key to getting through this. Going it alone doesn’t work for me anymore (I am typically a reserved, tough it out on my own, type of person – it doesn’t work with this – having support is invaluable to my mental condition)
- My wife and therapist both said they are surprised how well I am doing. I will be honest – I am surprised also.

I am writing this so as maybe to bring hope to someone out there. This medicine can be scary and there is VERY FEW success stories or tips and tricks to follow. All I ever found was horror stories. So, I promised myself I would share my method if it proved successful.

If I think of anything else pertinent, I will follow up. Good luck to you and God bless you. My prayers for those still suffering will be daily. You are not alone.

Its bad but no way is it the worse. No way. Klonopin withdrawal is 100 times worse. I have quit them both this past month. Everyone is different but I was on a high dose of them both

I'm not sure if you'll see this because your post was over a year ago, but I've been on SSRIs for 16 years as well. After my sister was killed in a car accident when I was 14 almost 15 I developed severe anxiety disorder and had cyclitic panic attacks that rendered me borerline insane. When the doctors figured out what was going on they put me on Paxil, Effexor and Xanax. (Yes that's too much for a 15 year old) about a year later we dropped the Effexor and stopped the Xanax daily to only as needed. The Paxil worked well for a few years then just kind of stopped. Then we moved me to Zoloft. It worked amazingly for my anxiety from age 18 through 29 then BUH. It just stopped. Cyclitic attacks returned inspite of being on 100mg of Zoloft daily. My new doctor said it was time to change the medication so we tried buspar and webutrin. Holy God NO. I never really understood what "may cause suicidal thoughts" meant on medication labels, until buspar. I am a rational adult knowing that even though I have anxiety disorder I have a good life. I was other than the attacks thankful and happy. I had a constant voice telling me to kill my self. It was my voice. Every free thought was "just end this". I realized what was happening (thank God) and stopped it. The Wellbutrin was not enough or right for me so on to Lexapro. (All within a month). Lexapro has been great. I have gained weight and experienced some issues in the marital relations department but no anxiety attacks. I haven't needed or taken Xanax since I started it.i figured, heck, I'll take the weight etc. I'm now almost 32 and my husband and I want to have a baby. My doctors say it's not dangerous to stay on it per say but there are no long term studies. I decided to try to come off of it completely so that I can feel like I did the best thing for baby. The first time I will have been medication free since 15 years old. Let me just say wow. Both my primary dr and my obgyn said to taper 1/2 dose daily for two weeks then every other day for two weeks, then stop. Yeah, negative. Not ok. I was a HOT MESS. Dizzy head floaty, brain zaps and burning and I literally could not control my tears. I'm not a cryer, I was bursting into tears at the smallest things. I was nauseous couldn't sleep and felt lile my IQ just up and ran away. I'm determined to try for baby in the best way I can so I regrouped and tried this: regular dose of 20mg a day until I felt normal again then 10mg a day until I felt normal again, then 5mgs a day until I felt normal then try to stop. The length of time in between each drop down varied and I just went off of how I felt. I'm now on day 3 of no meds. I'm going through the feeling like c**p thing again but it's gotten better every time I dropped the dose so I have faith it will get better this time too. My biggest symptom today is the dizziness/floaty head. It's difficult to walk and I don't feel safe driving. I'm sure it will ease within the next day or so. I'm going to try my best to stay off of these meds for ever as I never want to go through withdrawal again! I am realistic though and know if the cycling attacks come back I'll have no choice. Wishing hoping and praying that's not the case and I can be med free from three days ago to forever more. Best of luck to anyone out there going through coming off of SSRIs. It's rough and scary but you can do it.

I did the same as you, Hazel. Went from 20mg to 10mg, no problem. Then went to 10mg every other day, no problem. Did this for two weeks then stopped altogether. OK for about four days then went bad with aches, diarhea, insomnia and other flu like symptoms. Today I gave in and popped a 10mg. Felt much better after about half hour. .So I may go to a rescue pill occasionally but still plan to be off the stuff 100% as soon as possible. This is not the recovery I intended but the physical/mental consequences demand occasional relief.

Yes, Sam-E helps a ton. After about my third week of quitting cold turkey, I started getting incredible headaches, couldn't hold my thoughts together, and had incredible fatigue. I was also falling down a black hole emotionally. I started taking Sam-E daily and it immediately pulled me back up. I felt much more even. I am still in the process of withdrawing but, symptoms are not near as bad.

I have been on Lexapro for 10+ years. I have come down from 40mg 6 weeks ago to today being my second day on nil. I am prepared to take 5MG if I need to assist with the withdrawals which include fatigue, anger, dizziness. I have low level anxiety (want to grind my teeth) but no depression and am sure with time this will pass. I am still undecided on where medication fits in. It has helped me for 15 years but also listening to the likes of Kelly Brogan has given me confidence to try to get off completely. I dont swallow all of Kelly Brogans speak but nor do I feel our GP or Dr's are at fault. Some of us get pretty sick. Wikipedia clinches it for me by saying the double blind studies 20% of medicated patients relapsed to their symptoms after 8 weeks compared to 50% of the Placebo. In other words it works for some. If I crash emotionally I will go back on but I am confident with working hard on meditation, diet and lifestyle I will cope with the lows ok. I am hoping this last stage of withdrawals doesn't lat long. Sounds like others have emotionally and physically crashed. Thanks for everyone sharing their experience. My heart goes out to you all.

Thank you, very helpful

I also had steady weight gain and decided to get off this awful stuff cold turkey. I didn't want to drag out the misery. I got electrical feeling brain zaps (not painful, just strange) and terrible nausea and dizziness. I took sea sick pills and it worked really well. It took several weeks to feel normal again. I have since found that selenium supplements work incredibly well for depression with no side affects. I tried everything and this was at last a solution that worked. I also take glycine supplements for anxiety and the affect comes in minutes. 15 or less. You just notice a calm, not tiredness. I wish everyone knew about these 2 supplements. They are life changing. I wish I could help everyone on this tough journey of withdrawal, I found my way back to wellness and feeling happy and I hope you do too. Best wishes and never give up.

I just want to say that I've been on sites like this looking for the same answer for over a year. It's hard because no one else but people on these threads seemed to understand what a withdrawal really is and that it is REAL. SO, After trying practically everything to get off 10 mg of lexapro, I finally found what I feel to be the CURE. Go to your local vitamin shoppe and get 5-HTP. Also, read the book the Mood Cure. They talk about why 5-HTP works like a antidepressant NATURALLY without all the side effects!!!!! It's a precursor to seratonin. So basically what happens when you stop or taper off antidepressants and/or SSRIs, your body naturally will have a seratonin deficit. Because it has been getting all this seratonin from the antidepressant and your brain relies on it. When the antidepressant is taken away from your brain it basically freaks out and needs/craves seratonin. The freak out is what we feel as a withdrawal/- brain zaps, anxiety, depression, crying spells, nausea, digestive issues,etc. When we supplement with something like 5-HTP or L-theanine, we are giving our brain the seratonin it needs, naturally. Hope this helps!!! I take 5-HTP everyday with Relora (lowers cortisol levels) and I have been off Lexapro 10mg for about 3 weeks without any withdrawal effects. I did taper from 10 to 5 to 2.5 in the span of 2.5 months also.

Hi all, just thought I would let you know I withdrew from 40mg of Lexapro to nothing over an excruciating 3 months. After 2 months off all medication I was in such a bad way (depressed and anxious) that I have returned to 10mg of Lexapro and feel in a much better state. I just want to be able to function for my kids. Good luck to everyone on their journeys.