What to expect when withdrawing
Posted , 2 users are following.
ive been on this med for many years and I have only just realised this is stopping me from losing weight! So for a few weeks I've been decreasing my dose and today will be the third day without any, and I feel like all my energy has disappeared (I didn't have much to begin with) it's an effect to move and when I do my heart rate is in the 90's, and I'm aware of my heart doing little irregular skips!
Could anyone tell me if this is to be expected, and will it improve with time!
0 likes, 5 replies
liz61542 kaye83979
Posted
Hi Kaye do you feel any better today? I've read a lot on these forums about withdrawal from various medications. I'm prescribed propranolol also and it seems to depend on what it is prescribed for how you respond to coming off it. I've also read that it can take a full two weeks for your body to relearn its responses when propranolol is fully out of your system. Can I ask what disease you were on and how you tapered coming off and how long it took? I'm wanting to do this myself shortly and the information is confusing with my doctor saying because I'm using them for anxiety I can just stop and people on these forums saying no way should you do that.
liz61542
Posted
kaye83979 liz61542
Posted
Hi Liz, I've been on this for a long time and I can't remember when I was prescribed them, which was slow release 80mg and then after a very stressful year I was increased to 2 x 80mg. After 2 months or so I was getting a lot of new side effects as well as more weight gain, so I decided to cut back to 80mg and when I next saw my gp I informed her what I had done and I then asked if she could prescribe a lower dose as I wanted to wean off them slowly, she said just stop! I said I'd rather do it slowly so she then prescribed 40mg x 3 times a day (tablet form) I then weekly dropped to 3 x a day and so on until I was taking a half of a 40mg tablet once a day and I am now on day 3 of none! However I feel awful all the feelings I had before I was prescribed have returned, Anxiety has returned in full force!
I started to wean at the beginning of March, so it's taken me 2 months!
I hope that's helped! In the meantime I'm just taking a day at a time, and if the trembling etc does not stop I'll have to rethink as to what I should do!
liz61542 kaye83979
Posted
Hi Kaye if you read through some of the forums on here there are some very real horror stories of people coming off ppl too quickly even though their gps have said as did mine that it's ok to just stop. For some people they are too sensitive to the effects of withdrawal and it takes a lot longer. One woman described how minutely she divided her doses over 6 months so that she only cut down by 5mg each time and waited until she had no side effects from that ( could be two or thee weeks she said) before cutting again. There are numerous studies about tapering off and if you do it too quickly your anxiety will return though it will eventually get back to normal if the cause you originally took the medicine for in the first place has disappeared. In my case i am wanting to replace the ppl by increasing the dosage of my anti depressants. I have been on ppl for about three months and you would think it would be relatively straightforward to stop but it hasn't been.
Also the amount of medicine in slow release tablets is not equivalent to the normal pink ones. Because of how it works the maximum amount ever in your body is 60/65% of 80 mg and so you are not comparing like with like when you replace one with the other. (Another study I read).
You might need to go back onto a smaller dose of the pink tablets if your symptoms persist and taper off very very slowly. If you still have the anxiety I would ask your gp for an alternative medication or try counselling/therapy/exercise etc. Best wishes
liz61542
Posted
Also forgot to say I really really hate this drug. It's given me insomnia and low blood sugar.