coming off

Hi

I have been on mirtazapine since October,45mg since christmas,dose reduced to 30mg for 2 nights then onto 15 as a maintenance dose with venlaflaxine.Have had restless legs and been sleepy in the morning but no other side effects.Maybe toy need to give it longer then check with GP

Must have been lucky, only withdrawal symptom i had was no sleep for a week, didn't even taper off, had to come off them straight away, bad side effects when my dose was increased from 15-30. Tried to just take 15 mg again and still had bad effects even though I'd been on them for months. Different story with my sertraline though, tapered down to 25mg very slowly and started having anxiety and depression creep back. Back to 50mg again, for how long- who knows??

Hi if you dont mind me asking what side effects did you suffer, and did they only start once you tried to increase dose, where you alright up until then.

Thanks

Danielle

Hi Danielle, every thing went wrong only when my dose was increased from 15-30. I couldn't sleep, i was restless, agitated, anxious and felt twitchy, i then tried to take just the 15mg again with the same effects. Stopped them with no tapering off otherwise i had been fine on them. :wink:

Hi charlie girl,

We seem to of had a similar experience, I went to doctors yesterday, and he told me to just stop taking it, although I had reduced my dose to 7.5mg for 2 weeks, previously seen a locum doctor 2 weeks ago who suggested the reduction, my own doctor couldnt understand why she had done this instead of just stopping it. I have also started low dose of seroxat which will be increased in 2 weeks. Couldnt sleep last night and a bit restless today, took no diazapine today though. Do you know how long mirtazapine stays in the body, how long was it before your started to settle down? Only benefit I got from mirtazapine was a good nights sleep and I really missed that last night.

Best Wishes

Danielle

P.S Actually did a bit of housework today, 1st time in a while.

Hi Danielle, i think that it is a few days and then it is out of your system, i had problems sleeping anyways before i was put on it and it did work for a while but gradually wore off. I had broken sleep for about a week when i came off it, but even now my sleep isn't that good. It did help with my appetite, as i had no desire to eat, so i am grateful to it for that.

I think that you will be fine in a few days and hopefully you will get some sleep pattern back. I also found that when it was mixed with 100mg of sertraline i had similar side effects, i reduced the sertraline to 50mg with 15mg of mirtazapine and i was fine. I am only on sertraline now and i seem ok on that.. speak soon.x

Ive reduced my mirtazapine to15mg and my lithium put up from 400 to 500mg,also at same time started venlafaxine 75mg.Since raising the lithium I have felt very stange shaky and almost euphoric but not in a good way if that makes sense,Im so tired of feeling so wierd,my lithium levels were 0.58 before upping the dose so i dont know if my levels are too high,am scared and confused.

Jox

:roll:

Jo,

Hope this information helps (the example is a case of Bipolar so it may/or may not be what you want) ..........

Q: Please explain the therapeutic range level of lithium and it's significance for management of the illness.

Dear Cindy --

Now there's a concise question! Range: 0.7 to 1.2 ng/dl. What's that? Here's the story: in bipolar I, you need some way to predict whether the level of lithium is high enough to prevent recurrent episodes, since there are (hopefully) no symptoms to go by between episodes -- often so, at least. How do you know if you're taking enough lithium to protect you?

Answer: several large research studies have been done looking at relapse rates and relating those rates to people's blood levels at the time. In the biggest such study, the one that really defined the bottom of this range, patients with levels of 0.7 and up had significantly lower relapse rates than those with 0.5 and less. So generally in bipolar I, we shoot for a blood level of 0.7 or higher to be sure the person is protected, as best we can tell from these studies.

The \"top end\" of this range is defined by the level at which \"toxic\" symptoms begin to emerge: severe nausea, vomiting, confusion, unsteadiness of gait. This usually does not happen at levels less than 1.2, although I've seen it once in a while as low as 1.0.

Some labs print out different ranges of \"therapeutic\" (e.g. 0.5 - 1.1; I've even seen 1.5 on some lab sheets) but what really matters is the above logic in defining those upper and lower numbers, not the absolute value the lab chooses.

Finally, note that if a person has continuous symptoms, you can basically forget about the lower number, because you're going to go by their symptoms, not some reference range, in deciding what is enough; however, she or he still needs lab testing to make sure that her/his blood level doesn't go too high. This is generally the case in bipolar II -- i.e. labs are solely for protecting against overshoot, not for determining \"enough\".

Dr. Phelps

I hope this is of some help to you,

Best wishes,

Stephen

Hi Jo Hi all. Mty lithium levels were always on the low side before my relapse in September. I used to be on lithium 800mg and prothiaden 150mg. My meds are now lithium 1,00 mg, prothiaden 150mg and mirtazapine 15mg. I didnt have any problems increasing the lithium the worse side effects were from the mirtazapine. I guess that the shakes are to do with the increased lithium dose. Are you able to keep your fluids up and not get dehydrated? I still suffer from temors sometimes usually after exercise or when I'm feeling very stressed. Lithium therapeutic levels vary from person to person so your psychiatrist might switch the dose until he finds what is right for you. Have you had your bloods checked yet? That is a fairly reliable indicator of what is right for you and the way you feel. The withdrawal effects from the mirtazapine look scary.

Hi all, Today has been hell, expected to end up in hospital tonight, husband spoke to doctor over the phone, doctor thinks its the seroxat getting into my system, and this is the side effects, unfortunatly it can take up to 4 weeks, something to look forward to eh!!!

Things can only get better I hope!!!

Im gonna marry a light housekeeper so I can live by the sea( advert for m&s)

Not gone mad but when I hear it on tv have a little smile

Best Wishes to everyone

Danielle x

Oh dear Danielle I'm sorry that you are having a bad evening. Hospital might not be too bad if they can control your symptoms. Would that be a psychiatric hospital? I do hope that you are feeling better soon. Pooh bear

My CPN spoke to my psychiatrist,lithium levels stable at 5,8 which they are happy with.Its the venlafaxine apparently that makes me feel so wierd so not raising that to 150mg yet thank god.Still get my breath taken away by crushing fear,otherwise feel odd still.

Jo