Posted , 2 users are following.
I was on 200mg of sertraline until six mo this ago and I tapered to 25. All went well
My life has hit rock bottom I am in all sorts of pain if I went upto 50 would it help or make me feel worse please only reply if you have experience
0 likes, 5 replies
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betsy0603 Zerodark
Posted
When you say all went well, that was until you dropped to 25? At 50 you felt ok? How long were you at 50 and how long have you been at 25? If you have only been at 25 mg a few days or such, then go back to 50.
You are at that point where you will have to cut by smaller amounts if you want to succeed. The 10% taper is a harm-reduction approach that keeps people comfortable and functional as they come off their meds. See the 10% topic on this page:
https://patient.info/forums/discuss/depression-resources-298570
Going faster risks withdrawal at every step and protracted withdrawal when you jump off. You should never make a med cut when still experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a previous cut. Your nervous system is trying to modify itself to less drug, but if you keep making big drops it will be scrambling to keep up and you will feel lousy.
You can do a few things. Crude would be to get a pill cutter and try to split down your dosages. From 50 you would go to 45 and spend three to four weeks at each dosage. You may still feel withdrawal, but by keeping notes you will know when they arise after a cut, how long they take to resolve, and the allow another week of no symptoms before cutting again. Each calculation is based on the previous dosage.
It may seem like this method will take forever, but when you take into account the time lost to failed attempts due to cutting too steeply and the time it takes to get stable again before the next attempt, you will come out ahead. The idea is to go slow enough to allow the nervous system to do most of the healing while you are dropping down, so that when you come off, there's very little left for your NS to do. Coming off faster leaves much of the healing yet to be done once you are off, and that can mean months and even years of windows and waves (windows being good periods followed by waves of bad symptoms).
Of course, no one understands the windows and waves pattern of recovery and everyone thinks you've relapsed and so you go back on meds. It would be much better to go extra slow and be feeling pretty much normal all the while, functional.
I hope this helps :-)
betsy0603
Posted
Not all drugs come in a liquid form, and not all docs are willing to work with you on a slow taper thereby denying you a liquid even if it is available. Zoloft is available as a liquid, and it can also be made into one from the pills.
Zerodark betsy0603
Posted
Zerodark betsy0603
Posted
betsy0603 Zerodark
Posted
I would be reluctant to go all the way back to 50 if you've been at 25 for months. The reason being that your nervous system has done some remodeling back to account for less drug, and to go back to 50 would likely exceed that level and cause big side effects again, or in the worst case scenario cause an adverse reaction. When we go up, down, change meds, etc. the nervous system becomes more and more sensitized to the drug.
If you could cut down a 25 into quarters, you could take a quarter more and see if that helps. BUT....
Sometimes we feel the need to DO something immediately and it may be a matter of sitting tight where you are and waiting for this wave to pass.
If you had dropped from 50 t0 25 mg, that was a 50% cut, with a huge amount of nervous system normalizing needing to be done in response. Withdrawal is always just under the surface and any amount of stress can trigger a WD wave. But rather than give up all your gains, it would be best to sit tight and wait for stabilization to occur. It would help to know how long you've been feeling this way.