Mirtazapine withdrawl

Update: now 13 days completely off Mirt. Still feel quite well! Sleep seems to be improving slightly. Haven't had to take a zopiclone for last 4 nights and have slept upto 5 hours each night. If I can just get another couple of days over with, say onto day 15 I will dare to start believing I am pretty much throughout it without any major withdrawl. Still darent believe it just yet! 

Katie 04237

It sound like you are doing well.  It's so good to hear a good result  I want to start getting off Mirt.  I have posted yesterday.  I have been on Mirt for 11 weeks at 7.5 and I am wondering how I should do this without much pain and suffering.  Do yo have any ideas.  How do you get the 7.5 pill cut into 3.75 and then to 1.87.  Please get back to me.  Glad you are doing so well.

Hi Mary yes you can just cut the pills. I managed without a pill cutter even at 1.87. Probably not accurate, but I could managed to cut a 15mg tablet into 8 fairly even pieces. If some pieces looked a tiny bit bigger than others then I would just make sure  I spaced out the bigger and smaller pieces evenly over the 8 days if that makes sense!! 

Onto day 15 now without any mirt and still feel ok. This is the day I wanted to get to as I had heard so many people say withdrawals can start at around 1 to 2 weeks after stopping completely. I did have a terrible nights sleep last night, only got around 3 hours I think. But still ok other than that. Still no anxiety apart from a few random hours of mild anxiety one day last week. Still feel calm, stable, capable. Still feel a bit foggy but keep getting patches of feeling better, like Friday when I had a really good day. 

Well done on getting down to 3.75 kirsty! You can do it!! I just spoke to my phyciatrist this morning who said it was highly unlikely that there would be any further major withdrawals to come. He has said that all along but I have feared this process so much I didn't believe him. He said mirtazapine was usually one of the easier ADs to come off. He really should know his stuff as well cos he the most senior person of the whole of our local NHS trust. 

I am daring to believe him now!! He knows that I check things on the internet a lot and keeps telling me off for doing so. He reckons the internet is very negative and biased towards the most negative stories of Withdrawl and creates fear. I really really feel for those people who have had a nightmare coming off tho,, clearly quite a lot of people do have a very hard time so idk. 

17 days off now and feeling very well right now. Calm, stable, energy and clarity. Smiling. But did have a bad 24 hours or so yesterday and this morning, with a return of depressive feelings. I honestly don't think it was to do with mirt withdrawal, more like just a blip that I seem to have now and then. I got those blips just the same whether on mirt or off it, it seems. Still not sleeping well. 

Well  sorry to have to let u know kirsty and anyone else who has followed this thread, I have had to reinstate Mirt back to 15mg. Had a very bad sudden return of depression and felt very ill. So much so I had to ring the crisis team. It came on very suddenly. It may or may not have been due to the withdrawl process, idk. I did get these bad spells anyway but it was a particularly bad one. I guess I panicked and felt I  had to follow the advice of the crisis team and my doctor. 

Anyway the good news is after taking 15mg x for just two nights I appear to have stabilised and feel much better now. So at least there is that safety net for anyone worried about how long they might have to wait before reinstating that you can apparently get back on an even keel quickly and it only takes a day or two. 

Bit gutted that I am back to square one but maybe a lesson learned. Also the timing of withdrawl with hindsight may have been not the best as so close to school summer holidays which I always worry about. I may have been sub consciously worryingly about the school holiday season and that may have brought it on idk. 

Will keep posting to let u know how I am getting on and if and when I decide to go for it again

Should also add that I have slept very well since going back on, full 8 hours sleep. I also really don't wanna put anybody off that is currently tapering. The nature of my illness means I get these bad spells regardless of what's medication I am on. Meaning I got bad spells before Mirt, while on it, while tapering, and while off it, no difference. It's just cos this was an especially bad one that I really did feel I needed to take docs advice this time. It won't put me off trying again but I think I need to be more well in general before I try again.