lexapro withdrawal

This site was very helpful to me. I had so much stress and trauma in my life for years with almost deing ina car accident, then getting over that , then getting chronic fatigue for 7 years, so my life vanished before me and my dreams as well as many other problems like, absolute poverty with no help from anyone and on an on and the accumulation made me very depressed and having anxiety so bad I could barely do anything other than work because my mind kept obsessing on some irrational fear. I am holistic, so I never wanted to go on medication, so i went to therapy instead and meditated but it barely helped.. Anyway, in one year I lost three close friends, moved, was ditched by a man I thought was a friend whom I was in love with, lost my job, and was making half as much money as I used to make and my new roommate was nuts and had a terrible temper and would scream at me calling me every name in the book. All of this lead me to have a break down, and not be able to function at my new job. I kept crying and having anxiety attacks. So I finally went to doctor and told him and he said the body can not take all that stress and it lowers its seratonin so he put me on Paxil. I was scared, but I have to say, it saved my life! I couldn't believe the difference I felt it was a Godsend and was mad at myself for not going on it a long time ago when i was suffering from so much trauma to help me through. I no longer had those obsessive thoughts and was able to accomplish all the things I had wanted to and focus because I felt like my old self again when i was younger before my accident and ebv when I was motivated and creative. So I was incredibly happy. I have been usually underweight for 20 years, and I will say the draw back was the carefree attitude I had made me start craving foods I would never eat like doughnuts, pizza, candy, and I gained 15-20 pounds in a few months. I was a super healthy eater before so this was wierd to me, and anyway, it did bother me, that I was popping out of my 00 pants and snapping off buttons and having to safety pin them. i too gained alot on my gut. Anyway, I switched to lexapro which my doctor told me isn't as strong for anxiety, but my life was going so well, and i heard lexapro doesn't cause as much weight gain. i went on it and felt an immediate difference with my cravings, but it didn't help with the gain. I was on 20 mg. paxil and switched to 10 mg. lexapro. I was on both of these for a year. I just stopped cold turkey with the consent of my doc and am hoping to regain my normal metabolism again. i am feeling nauseated, headaches, and irritated, but i expected these temporarily. Anyway, I recommend any of these to anyone who is truely suffering from obsession, depression, anxiety, anything where every other option isn't working for them,. If i ad it to do over, i would have gone on one of these when i was in really bad shape years ago, but instead i spent 4 years crying and in therapy. It is worth the temporary weight gain, to be happy while you are going through TOO much to give your system a buffer from the stress. i had a very smart doctor so i feel blessed by that. peace.

i have been on lexapro for 4 years and just recently weened off,thats the key word ween off .If you go cold turkey you will have bad withdrawl symptoms from what im reading.I have been totally off it for a week and a half i do get some dizzieness,tiredness and remembering dreams too much,i did have night sweats but they went away.so i know it will pass they are not too extreme,but i think i will be ok,buy the way i did start off with paxil and gained 40 lbs right away they changed me too lexapro i still gained so now being on it for 4 yrs ive gained 65 lbs total so i hope now this weight will come off.

For those who suffer stress, I suggest learning self-hypnosis. 30 minutes of self-hypnosis is worth 6 hours of sleep. Not that I am preaching we replace sleep with hypnosis, but the meditation definitely helps and is a great way to get to sleep if you are restless.

Also, so far I have had two sessions of hypnotherapy reprogramming - hypnosis with a specialist and intend to continue until I feel 100% mentally healthy again. Already with two sessions some of the past grief and anger, which instigated my rollercoaster of 14 years of depression, are starting to lift the depression.

As we all know, past emotions not only leave baggage and skew our current belief systems, but can manifest themselves physically, causing ill health both physically and mentally.

I know it all sounds hokus pokus but don't knock it until you try it.

I was on 10mg of lexapro for 18 months and quit last sunday, it has been 7 days today and i'm so nauseas, dizzy and have a hard time swallowing. Does anyone know when this is going to end??

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:

I noticed some withdrawal for about 1-2 weeks.. now they are completely gone... i mainly had what felt like shocks in my head and some dizziness.

I To have had shocks now for three days stright and today is the worst. I tappered off Lexapro but when I was down to my lowest and last dose I started to feel the withdrawal symptoms so I went ahead and stopped taking it. I wonder how long the shocking feelings will last because they are very scary and interfear with everyday life and driving. Thank you for everyones input you don't always get the truth from doctors.

:? ....i am on lexapro..but i need to stop sto take some medical test for a rare tumor..however my psychiatrist is weaning me off of lexapro...was on 10mg everyday...down to 0.5mg everyday for 10days then off..so far i experience nausea and vomiing and nervousness and crying...hopefully it will pass until i can go back on..lexapro did help my mood swings..so we do what we have to do..allmed aren't for everyone..its helped me

I took Lexapro the ENTIRE time I was pregnant with my now 15 month old son. It has no known harmful effects to the unborn child I would get another doctor. My son was born healthy and has developed correctly and is a happy go lucky baby. I actually was on Lexapro for almost a year before coming pregnant with him .

I have been on Lexapro for around 5 years. I started getting severe Migranes and headaches for 6 weeks. My family doctor and my psychiatrist collaborated and decided with ween me off Lexapro. I was on 10 mg. For 14 days the dose was cut to 5 mg. then completely off it. I went off on Thursday, April 12, 2007.

I have been experience the "brain shocks" others are speaking of, feeling like I am having out of body experiences, weird changes in colors at times like everything goes grey, numbness in my arms, hands, face, mouth. Today I started crying in my car listening to a sad song. I haven't cried in around 6 months.

I am hoping that they don't last too long but now the headaches are completely gone. I will not go back on it because of how bad these headaches and migranes were - one whole week of migranes was horrible.

So many posts with people weaning off lexapro but I have not seen any posts yet where someone said they are fully off with no symptoms.

I recently started lowering my dosage and sometimes I forget to take it. I started getting the dizziness and while driving it got to be too much. I guess the key is to maintain the dosage schedule while weaning but now I am worried that I have not seen anyone fully come off it yet.

BTW: I've been taking lexapro for about five years started at 10mg and went as high as 20mg.

omg I thought I was going crazy, I also had what felt like shocks in my head. Thank god someone else feels this way.

Charlene Mc wrote:

I am having the same exact withdrawal symptoms as BridgetJ. I've been on 20 mgs of Lexapro for nine months. Last time I got a refill a bottle cost me $275.00 because of a change in our health insurance!!!! So I quit cold turkey. Its been 10 days and I feel like there are sparklers going off in my brain. When I turn my head I feel an electrical zap. I am extremely light and noise sensitive. I am red in the face and having hot flashes. I am also irritable, but sheesh, who wouldn't be with all the electrical racket going on in my brain. BECAUSE the withdrawal symptoms are so svere I am convinced to continue cold turkey with this and get it over with.
Can anyone who has previously posted about their withdrawal symptoms post a follow-up and tell me how they are progressing? I'm just wondering how long I have to put up with this! [/qujote]



hi there i to are haven these zaps ive gone cold turkey too im wondering if they have stoped and how long it took hope ya can help me

Hello All,

I haven't seen anyone else post thier continued progress while staying off of Lexapro so I will attempt to do so.

I've been on a 15mg (1 1/2 pills) dose of Lexapro for the past three years. I was prescribed Lexapro because of a series of panic attacks I experienced. I experience some side effects when I first began taking Lexapro, but they went away within 6 weeks. Some of the side effects were unique and severe headaches, out of body experiences, hypersensitivity to sound and bright lights and mild depression. Lexapro helped with the panic attacks and I felt fine for the first two years. Over the past year I began experiencing some of the same side effects that occured when I began taking Lexapro so I talked to my DR. and decided to stop taking it. I began "weaning off" slowly last Wednesday (5/02/07). Today is Tuesday (5/16/07) and I've been completley off for three days.
I will try to update every day or every other day.

Here's what I'm experiencing after being completely off.

Day 3
A. Mild headache
B. Mild Dizziness (off and on)
C. Strange and uncomfortable feeling when moving my eyes left or right.
It's hard to describe. This may be the "shocking sensation that some
of you have mentioned.
D. Hypersensitivity to sound.

i have been taking lexapro for about 4 months recently i finished my pills and i experienced a withdrawl i guess thats what my doc said. I felt weird like i was out of this world aor up in a cloud and i felt fatigue and like all my blood was going up to my brain. When i went to my doc she said to take one pill every other day till i finished the package. The problem now is that i have heart palpitations and dont know what to do my doc says its because of my stress and anxiety but i feel fine i guess i have to go get a heart exam or something, i would not reccomend this med to anyone its hard to get off of it.

I have been taking 20 grams of Lexapro for the past 6 mos.......it actually worked great for me !!! My doctor started to taper me off of it 2 weeks ago by dropping my dose to 10mgs. because my husband and i want to have a baby. I've been off of it now completely for about 6 days. I actually stopped taking it all together for about 4 days earlier than I was supposed to and now I've been experiencing waves of dizziness and a weird shocking sensation in my tongue and lips. I also found out that I'm pregnant...so I am happy that I'm off the medication. At the same time I hope these effects will soon stop. Does anyone know how long this could last?....or have you ever experienced these weird sensations?

Lexapro Withdrawal. I have a long story about coming off my lexapro dosage. I had many bad symptoms for about 6 weeks and I am back on a very low dose (5mg.) and going to taper back on the lexapro until my life is more settled and then when i want to get off the lexapro again in the future, I am going to really really taper. I tapered this time for about a month and my withdrawal symptoms were horrendous: symptoms included, severe dizziness, anxiety, spaced out, stack of books falling on a floor sound in my brain/head, not myself, really unsettled, really out of it, terrible terrible terrible. my symptoms of withdrawal were not getting less and less at time went by, they were not getting worse but not subsiding either! as I said, I am back on 5mg and feel much better. this is totally ridiculous, my doctors had me going to 2 ear doctors, and I go to a regular family doctor for my lexapro and she too did not know it was the lexapro withdrawal. I finally went to a 3 ear doctor and she said that people can have pretty severe symptoms of withdrawal from anti-depressants! I am really pissed off. I feel like a guinea pig. I feel the the FDA and the medical establishment did not study anti-depressants closely enough and no one is talking about this severe withdrawal issue! shocking. I think the FDA and the medical establishment really need to be warning the public much better about this. what a sham!!!!

I came to this site three weeks ago because I was on my third day without Lexapro and having all those hellacious symptoms. Through all my reading, I just wanted to read about when it was going to end, not rehashing everyone's symptoms.

Three weeks later, my continuing symptoms include dizziness, lack of focus, very short temper. But a LOT of the other symptoms seem to have moved on.

The first three days were bad because I didn't know what was happening. The brain shocks were bad. The following five days were really bad, all the symptoms hitting at once. Again, for me the brain shocks and lack of sleeping were the worst. I'd wake up every hour with those shocks and sweating. Had to keep going to work and being a mom.

By the second week, I was just trying to fake it. I had a difficult schedule at work, needing to learn a lot and found it extremely difficult to concentrate. Still not sleeping, brain shocks, but less often. Nausea seemed to pass by this point. But my face got really red, my skin itched, headaches, feeling cold this week. The irritability started kicking in... I just didn't have patience for "stupid" people.

This week marked a big improvement. I've slept through the night for two nights. I haven't had a brain shock in a couple of days, I still feel dizzy and find myself spacing out during a conversation, but overall I feel healthy. No nausea, no headaches, no brain shocks, face back to normal. I continue to feel really fat and hope once I feel better, I will start getting more exercise and feeling better and better.

Well, hang in there. If I had to live like this I could, but those first couple weeks were not pleasant and I am also ticked that we aren't warned or taken seriously by our doctors.

I will try to post again in a week or two to let you know if I continue to improve or if this is what I end up living with.....