tried to CT off Olanzapine

[Chip (OP)]

I thought that I could just stop this drug.

it took a while to kick in but it was awful. like opiate withdrawals but hard to describe.

cold sweats, severe agitation, stomach issues.

went straight back on. very unpleasant.

[OpiXPO]

How long did you take it for? I'm doing my best not to think about seroqul that I'm going to have to wd off of eventually.

[Chip (OP)]

over 15 years. I think a few months on Seroquel wouldn't be too bad.

so much easier to just take it.

[OpiXPO]

so much easier to just take it.

Story of my life right there.

[makita]

I tried to CT off low-moderate doses of lamictal (a mood stabilizer) and celexa (an SSRI) about a year ago.  The WDs took almost 2 weeks to kick in but when they did they were fucking terrible: severe panic attacks that were clearly biochemical rather than emotional (can't describe why, but you just know when it's not "you" that's panicking, it's your gaba system).  Has to dose w many rescue benzos right away and it still took me 4 days to feel ok again.

Now I'm slowly tapering off them one at a time, celexa first, and I'm almost totally off it.  I'm microdosing cubensis every 3-4 days to help w any anxiety, at the suggestion of my friend who is a psych nurse.  Very doable so far, we shall see what happens when I start tapering the lamictal though, as that is typically harder to get off of (it works on glutamate, so it might be similar to tapering benzos or related drugs...wish I knew that 3 years ago I would have never gotten on it, not to mention the metabolic side effects). 

Moral of the story is psych meds are no joke and there is not a widespread understanding of how difficult they are to get off of.

Antipsychotics in particular basically just work by "quieting" the brain (in slightly different ways depending on whether they are the standard or atypicals). They don't actually make psychosis go away organically (we still don't know how to do that, and the excess dopamine theory is just a theory)--they just chill that part of the brain out, making the psychotic symptoms either get less severe or stop.  In the psych hospital this can often mean people are still experiencing psychosis but too fucked up to be agitated about it...or in some horrible cases with old drugs like Haldol, people are still completely aware of psychotic thoughts yet they feel trapped inside their bodies stuck on slow mo.  Therefore it's not surprising that coming off these drugs is similar to coming off any type of downer, in that your brain and body's excitatory systems get all spun up and out of whack. 

[Chip (OP)]

... and I was told that old nugget "it's not addictive" but I knew that this novell drug, a thienobenzo, just had to be. I got a few months of good sleep and then you find that they stop working and you're left with another bloody serious habit.

what I have been doing with OLZ is taking 5 mg every other day because their half life gets longer as you get older.

I might have gotten off opiates but these pills are no joke ... it's such an understated addiction because they give you no high -- it's a double standard.

Having said that, I once was caught out without a script and thought that I'd be cool -- yeah right -- it started getting very uncomfortable and scary as i went into withdrawals so out of desperation i begged my local pharmacy for a couple then and there. no money or script furnished and to my glee, they got a packet out and gave me a few.

they knew that I was not an anti-psychotic fiend because they dont really exist, in fact they usually have to MAKE you take that shit because there's not much to like about them at all.

thanks for sharing, makita - you know how difficult it is.

good luck for the both of us !