Posted , 6 users are following.
Can anyone please let me know if the Mirtazipine withdrawals eventually go?
I'm so worried,it's been 6 weeks since I took my last dose and I'm still not over it.
There's a lot of discussion about the withdrawals but nothing about it going for good,
I'd like to thank anyone who has any feedback.
0 likes, 10 replies
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sue97090 vikki87350
Edited
Well, I was on 45 mg. (after I complained of inreased anxiety at 30 mg., my idiot shrink RAISED the dosage), and said idiot shrink took me off it cold turkey because he had no clue there even was a WD syndrome. even after I told him I was mysteriously starting to suffer daylong acute nausea and insomnia and muscle aches. No clue. I had to figure out it was mirt. WD myself, because I had heard one should taper off psychoactive drugs. Apparently he missd that in his psychiatric training.
Anyway, I had the WDs for two months before figuring out the problem (with a little help from the internet; especially this very helpful site). no sign of improvement. In fact, I had to go to the emergency room to be rehydrated intravenously because i couldn't keep (enough) WATER down. (They thought it was gastrititis, because i didn't list mirt. among the meds I was taking because I hadn't been on it for more than 2 months.)
So I had to instruct Idiot Shrink about mirt. withdrawal and go back on it to taper off it. (Rolls eyes.) And suggest a taper schedule, which he ignored, instead prescribing me only enough to taper off completely in one month. Luckily I still had a refill coming, so I have more to play with. So far I've gone from 45 to 22.5 to 15 mg. in about 3 weeks, and only mild nausea and malaise. But I know it takes a while for the WD to kick in. I plan to try going to 15 mg. every other day in about another week. may still be too fast, but I can go back up a little and go slower if i get really sick.
I was only on the stuff initially for about 3 months -- i don't know if that helps with tapering faster.
But, no, when I was taken off it cold turkey, there was no end or even improvement in sight at two months after last dose.
Which makes this stuff worse than heroin, when it comes to the withdrawal -- I have an acquaintance who got addicted to heroin in his ill-spent youth, and he kicked that cold turkey, and he says the vomiting and trots only lasted two weeks, and then he was ok.
idea for a commercial: "If you're currently taking Remeron, and suffering from weight gain, increased anxiety, and volatile moods, why not switch to heroin? You'll lose weight, get REALLY relaxed and mellow as a dozing kitty, and feel no physical or emotinal pain, and if you ever want to go off it, even cold-turkey withdrawals only last a couple of weeks, cf. to months to indefinitely with mirtazapine."
JUST KIDDING. I DO NOT ADVOCATE THE ABUSE OF ANY OPIATES.
But it's a sad sad statement about mirtazapine that it's true. (Though mirt. has less potential to kill you, which is not to be ignored.)
kelly8973 sue97090
Posted
I too came off cold turkey from only 7.5mg in july first couple weeks i felt great then boom oh my Lord i honestly thought i was going to die i ended up in hospital in severe agony dehydrated not eaten for 2 weeks with pain. I was in a week but like you i never mentioned mirt because i wasnt it it by then they had me on another ad my old one. Anyway after scans tests was sent home. Doctor had to put me back on mirt to see if that would help and would you believe first night id slept without pain. Unfortunately this didnt last and the side effects of this horrible drug are making my life hell. Signed off work with it. Im now on just 7.5mg last 2 weeks .
Its true ive seen and heard if people going to rehab to get off herion and after a few weeks right as rain. This drug has taken my life away x
sue97090 kelly8973
Posted
Oops, made a mistake in my first post (no edit function here?). I was originally put on 15 mg., and my pdoc raised me to 30 mg. when I complained of increased anxiety on 15. (???? Drug makes patient feel worse, so raise the dosage? Do they teach that in med school now; or did he pick that up during his residency? Sheesh.)
Kelly, don't despair. It hasn't taken your life away. People do get through the WDs. Calmer and Evergreen and others have posted advice in these forums advising how to taper off slowly and with minimal discomfort. Your brain and body WILL readjust to the absence of the mirt. It's just not a fun process for most people, to put it very mildly.
May I ask why you decided to come off it? Side effects?
vikki87350 sue97090
Posted
OMG...your so right, this is worse than Heroin..
I shamefully have to admit I was a Heroin Addict in my "ill-spent youth"
I stopped all drugs,alcohol and cannabis only to be prescribed Mirt.
Withdrawals from Heroin wasn't anything like this,it doesn't last like the Mirt W/D and didn't effect my mind like this awful drug.
I felt amazing"after I stopped the drugs "except for the sleep,
What did I expect after self prescribing with Heroin.
I feel like I deserve this,but I don't,I turned everything around and this happened
This is an awful experience that know-one should go through.
Not even I,
10years of addiction and I'm left with this,maybe I do deserve it,
1 thing I'm sure of is none of you folks do.
sue97090 vikki87350
Posted
You so do not deserve this. As you say, you were probably self-medicating with the drugs of abuse. Nobody sets out to be an addict -- they just don't realize it can happen to them. You deserve congratulations for getting clean and sober. That is not easy. Congratulations!
And you really didn't deserve going for supposedly proper medical help and trusting your doctor and complying with his/her recommendation and thus ending up on a medication that you can't stay on and can't get off of without getting miserably sick. A good, experienced, knowledgeable, caring, careful doctor can be a literal life-saver when no-one else can be; but the phrase "iatrogenic [doctor-caused] harm" exists for a reason. Also the old joke:
Q: What do you call the med student who graduates in last place from the worst medical school in the world?
A: "Doctor."
As I said, a really good doctor is invaluable; a competent one is very useful; but there are doctors out there who should've had their licenses taken away and not given back. Personal examples: I am on Medicaid (the U.S.'s rather sad nod to medical care for people who can't afford to buy insurance/pay cash for better medical care) and thus no longer have much choice of doctors, or much access to the better ones. (Not that there aren't good doctors who take Medicaid. But they are voluntarily working for a lot less than they could make, because Medicaid reimburses them ridiculously little for their services; and, sadly, in the US at least, many doctors go into medicine because here it is a very high-paying profession that's almost impossible to get kicked out of.) Anyway, I needed to see a rheumatologist, and my choices were a) the doctor who accidentally killed someone with an overdose, was judged by a majority of the review committee to be likely to overprescribe the same medication again, and still had his license and practice; or b) the doctor who was reviewed on all the "doctor review" sites as unhelpful plus nasty. (I went with "a." but he turned out to be incompetent and nasty as well.) then I had to have emergency gallbladder surgery, because my gallbladder had gone septic while I was waiting for approval for surgery through the normal channels, and the emergency surgeon they had working in 6 hosiptals first refused to do the surgery because I wasn't dying fast enough, then had his mind changed by his superior and agreed to do it but didn't tell me, nor explain the procedure -- both major legal violations of medical practice -- and left me nauseated for months. One of the nurses in hospial tried to comfort me by telling me that I was lucky my sutures weren't infected, as that surgeon was notorious for leaving patients nauseated and with infected sutures, and i was just nauseated. Some comfort. Then when I got out of hospital I looked him up on a review site that tracks malpractice cases and sanctions against doctors, and found that he'd had his license suspended, then returned to him, then in 2014 was sanctioned for "incompetence, negligence, and sub-par care," and then in 2015 settled a malpractice suit out of court. And he's still got his license, and he's who they send you to if you're on Medicaid in my city and need a general surgeon.
So. if you have a choice of doctors, for heaven's sake research them and pick one who hasn't killed anybody avoidably and/or had their licenses suspended and/or been sanctioned for incompetence, negligence, and sub-par care and ideally has good reviews; if not, research them anyway, and if they sound dangerous, get a second opinion if you can; and if you can't do that, get as much information as you can about the diagnosis and the proposed treatment. Unless it's an emergency, in which case you'll just have to take your chances. I mean, if you're bleeding out, better to have a vet stitch you up than try to find the perfect doctor.
gay33737 sue97090
Posted
Oh Sue, I'm SO with you on this! I refuse to go to the docs because I'm worried they will give me oher crap which is worse than Mirt!
Week three now without any Mirt and wonder if I will EVER feel myself ever again. It is affecting EVERYTHING I do, can't function at all and I only feel well for about one hour a day. My husband doesn't understand and now refuses to listen to me altogether. They say complete WD takes about 2-3 months? i was on it for nearly 3 years, so theres a lot of drug to get out of my system!!.
Panic attacks are the worst - can't even drive around the block without thinking I won't make it home. WHO INVENTED THIS BLOODY DRUG?
Can't believe how many other poor souls out there who are going through the same (if not worse) than me?
One day.............?
vikki87350 gay33737
Edited
MIRTAZIPINE WITHDRAWALS!!!
The day really does come!,
I didn't believe I'd get my life back,I thought the damage was done and I was really scared 😳
The withdrawals were so powerful I thought my brain was going to stay this way for good!
I could cry really!
Please believe me when I say I've had an awful 6 weeks and now I've turned the corner,I didn't think it was possible.
Good luck and hang in there it's so worth the wait.
paul_33483 vikki87350
Posted
After being on mirtazapine for over a year I can say withdrawal symptoms do go away. Yes- I am still on it but there have been weeks when I've been unwell then stopped taking them with no WDs. Then when I conciously try and stop them I get the WDs. One night I thought I won't take my 7.5mg dose. I usually sleep great with it but as soon as my head hit the pillow I was thinking about WDs and needless to say I had a rubbish sleep. For me at least a lot of the WDs are created by my mind. I'm not saying they don't exist but I've learned over the last 12 months just how powerful the mind is. CBT has helped tremendously along with stopping googling health symptoms and even coming onto forums like this. I rarely comment anymore. I hope to come of completely next year after reducing further. Good luck, you will do it.
sue97090 paul_33483
Posted
i agree that it's bad to anticipate and/or obssess about withdrawal symptoms. Especially if you're not having any. This is after all a very small subset of people who are on mirt. or have gone off it.
it's very easy to give yourself insomnia by worrying about having insomnia. Same with anxiety.
That said, I for one would never have come to this site if I hadn't been having WD symptoms so bad I ended up in the ER being intravenously rehydrated because I was throwing up so much for so long, I got seriously dehydrated. Without even knowing that mirt. has a withdrawal symptom, until you wonder why the meds they gave you for your presumed gastritis aren't helping at all, and it occurs to you that you went off a psych med without tapering, which is generally a bad idea, and check to see if that med has a withdrawal syndrome, and find that yes it does and its symptoms match yours exactly; and your symptoms vanish when you go back on the med.
But, again, dwelling on the symptoms is a bad idea, yes. It's possible to distract yourself from them if they're not really acute; and it is possible to bring on insomnia, anxiety, depression, and even mild nausea by predicting them.
vikki87350 sue97090
Posted
Thank you Sue for your vote of confidence,I must say I chuckled whilst reading your posts haha(great sense of humour)you have there!!
Saying that you bloody well need it,when battling with this crap!
Never before did I think that a good doctor was hard to come by until now,I find myself asking if they've ever had a patient with Mirtazipine W/D,the very first time I hit the jackpot,she understood exactly,
Wow this was such a relief.
Two weeks later I couldn't get to see my Gp so I had to see someone else,he started with...watch this video,it's called"I have a black dog"which follows me around wherever I go(the black dog being Depression) OMG really,
This situation goes from clued-up to clueless,one can totally get it and the other thinks there's an underlying issue going on in my mind 'it's so bloody frustrating'.
My w/d are very mild at the minute and agree they have to be forgotten about whenever possible,I try to manage it by not overthinking,I stay positive and believe that one day I'll get my life back.
I wish people didn't have to go through something like this before realising how important it is to check out the reputation of a GP
Preventing this mistake is better than any cure and I hope Mirtazipine is struck off!,
it could prevent this from happening to someone else.
Any Gp prescribing Mirt as an A/D with a sleep agent in it should be
(Hung,Drawn and Quartered)
Thanks again for lending an ear!