Mirtazapine Successful Withdrawal Stories

I know several of us are tapering but I don't know anyone who is off and feeling fine on this forum.  Those people tend to disappear!

You've got your scale now?  I think you will find that reducing by 5% two to three weeks will be a piece of cake, giving your system plenty of time to adjust.  When down to the last couple of mgs, it gets tougher, so there is no rush, and even a reduced dosage can bring relief for side effects.  Be open and flexible.  When down at that level, it is probably wise to even crawl at a reduction rate of 2.5%.  

The alternative is to stay where you are at, right?  So taking an ultra conservative approach to reducing is working in the direction you want to go.  You can always updose to the previous dose if you feel uncomfortable symptoms.

When you do get down to the smallest doses, you can make your own liquid using something thick to suspend the powdered tablet in and an oral syringe for dosing.  There is a suspension liquid product called Ora-Plus, and I am going to try that.

Congratulations on your successful taper off trazadone!!  

Hi betsy. I'm about to purchase my Gemini scale. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind. I'm on 7.5 mg of the Rem. I'm a bit confused as to what the readings will be on the scale.

Would I be able to go down less than a milligram at a time, let's say 1/2 mg or 1/4 mg? I know the scale would show .001 for one milligram, but what would it read for a half a milligram. Sorry if this sounds confusing, because I am so confused! Thanks.

 

Hi Annie, that is great news - you are ready to start the slow taper!

What you'll want to do is calibrate the scale and then weigh the tablet.  Are you starting with 15 mg?  My brand is Teva and the 15 mg actually weigh 150 mg with the fillers.  So, to cut 10% would mean weighing 140 mg.  Or if I was going for 7.5 mg, that would be half the tab which should weigh 75 mg.

So, for my tablets, I would keep weighing 90% of the previous dose.  Even 1 mg would actually be 10 mg gross weight for my tablets.

I will caution you that the Gemini scale can be persnickety and so always calibrate it before weighing a dose.  If you weigh a bunch of doses, check the weight in between doses with one of the 10 g weights to make sure it is still weighing true.

Thanks betsy that was very helpful. I hope I won't have too much trouble with the taper. After 2 tapers, I'm a bit wearly from it all. But I am a very stubborn woman and no matter how hard the taper is I will succeed!

Good for you - I'm sure you will!  That's the spirit!

Hi Annie

Please come down slower than 2 tapers as most folk are very sensitive to the drops.  I have not long reduced from 7.5 to 6.8 or thereabouts, then 6.2, just thought you might like to know, that even at this low dose there are sensations with the drops, mainly fatigue hits me after 4 days, so maybe go nice and slow.

I hope you will be able to come off this without too much upset and wish you well.

Thanks Calmer. Oh yes definitely I plan to go slow. My first cut will be 5% just to "trial" the cut. The two drugs I tapered previously Ambien and Trazadone each took 11 months to taper. I'm sorry you feel fatigue when you make a cut. Yuck! I hope it passes quickly.

When do most folks feel a cut? How long before they're stable? I want to know what to expect. Thanks again.

Hi Annie, 

I just wanted to congratulate you on two successful tapers - wow!

When I did 10%, I felt the cuts very mildly between 5 and 10 days.  It would be tempting to cut again after a week or so of "stabilizing," but I think when you hustle it along the nervous system can't keep up and eventually complains loudly!  Calmer was doing 5% every two weeks and I adopted that strategy and hardly felt the cuts at all.  Some people do a slide, dropping 2.5% each week.  Get to the same place different ways.  The main thing is to calculate based on your previous month's dose.  The drops get progressively smaller, which is kind of annoying.  I know someone who did a cut from 5.5 to 4.5 mg and had big WD, so that was about a 20% cut and the his nervous system said "Whoa!"  He unsuccessfully updosed to 5.5 and is struggling with severe fatigue. Much better to go too slow :-)

 

Thanks for your reply Annie  I feel the cut 4 days in, it's fatigue mainly in the afternoon, it may last several days and then I realise I'm feeling much better. It's quite a common WD symptom but seems totally absurd that the lower you go the more fatigue, but hey ho.  As we all feel different sensations it's hard to know how it will affect you.

I think upping my liquid intake to around 3 litres has helped greatly.  Also cutting out sugar has made a vast difference in my mood and I am much more at ease.  I found I got real angry and twitchy after eating puds/chocolate so now I've cut them out, which is hard but worth it.

You did well to stick at the 11 months slow taper, you'll be able to do it with the Mirt' after that, sometimes for some people a voice inside tells them they can do faster tapers and that's when the trouble seems to start.

Best wishes Annie

Yes, many times I would get that voice to speed it up. Of course I wanted it to be over with. I am not a patient person! I've been tapering for 2 years now, so one more year of this and I'm done. Tapering slowly though you can compare how you were six months or a year ago and  realize how good you feel compared to then.

That's great that the fatigue passes in a few days. Good to know.

So Annie, what made you decide to come off of the three meds?  

 

I wanted to come off all meds for several reasons. Ambien was a very scary med with lots of side effects. If I didn't close my eyes immediately after taking it I would have hallucinations. I felt sick, dizzy, wired all the time, and I only got 3/4 hours sleep. Tapering it I also heard voices.

Trazadone made me feel like a space cadet. I was tired and hungover all morning. It also caused depression and muscle problems (tendonitis). Tendonitis improved once off the Traz along with mood.

Now that I'm just on Remeron, I feel it's side effects. I feel a little more hungry, I must watch that so I don't gain. My mornings I now have energy that I didn't while on Trazadone, but I still feel tired during the day. I notice that my muscle tone is affected from Rem. My vision seems off. I believe if I stay on Rem my health will be affected. I am concerned about high cholestoral and high sugar levels which Rem can cause along with other s/e's.

I'm sleeping fine now and I believe I can sleep okay without the Rem.

That is interesting.  We tend to get blinded to the negative effects.  The Ambien does sound scary!  I'm glad you were able to kick the others and feel better for it.  I think you will do well off these meds!

I received my scale and I've been playing around with it. It seems easy to use. I weighed my 7.5 mg pill and it weighs 75 mg. I weighed a bunch and mostly all of them weigh this amount. It should make it easy to go down slowly. My taper will have to wait a while though. I have a nasty stomach virus that I've had for over a week now. I hope it goes away soon.

That's great news that you have your scale and the math will be easy, but bad news you've got a virus - seems everyone does right now :-)  Wise to wait until you are healthy.  And always best to hold if big events in your life are about to happen, vacation, job change, anything that requires you to be on solid footing.  

Check often with the 10g weight.  I like to weigh out a batch of 14 days and put the doses in empty gel caps that you can get from the chemist/pharmacy, just keeps the weighing consistent and then you don't have to think about it for a couple of weeks.  Also, it keeps you from the temptation to cut more frequently than you should.  Good luck and I hope you feel better soon!  Keep notes in a journal, too.

I went to the Dr. the other day and he diagnosed norovirus of all things. Hopefully this won't last too much longer. Anyways, I was wondering has there been anyone on this site that has successfully tapered and feel well. I saw a few old posts and I think some have. I'm curious about that and I also wonder if most people can taper quick, Any thoughts about this?

Evergreen recently went off after a relatively slow taper, not 10% slow but slower than most.  She made a liquid to make micro-cuts easier.  Haven't seen anything from her since a couple of days since she came off.  

Me, I'm at 14 mg and have been holding there for over a month.  I tried to make my own liquid but made too big of a batch and caused WD anxiety due to the potency dropping off.  Went back to dry cutting.  Hard to believe just 1 mg below the minimum effective dose and I'm already having trouble.

It's hard to know how many out there get off quickly because we don't hear from them.  I guess you won't know until you start.   Just remember, it may take five or more days to have WD symptoms rise up after a cut, and if they are severe, you can updose to the previous dosage and then take it slower/smaller cut.  And don't cut when you are having WD symptoms.  If you listen to your body you'll be ok!