The Last 5 Months
Tapering lexapro & ketamine update.
UPDATESWITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS
7/20/20262 min read
Where I'm At Now
I looked back and noticed that February was the last time I made a post. At that time, I was at 2.5 mg of Lexapro. Now I'm at 2.35 mg. I tried going from 2.4 mg to 2.2 mg, and that was absolutely miserable. I reinstated to 2.3 mg, but that wasn't enough, so last night I went up to 2.35 mg. At this rate, I'm seriously doubting I'll ever be off it completely. I'm definitely feeling the frustration. Only 0.15 mg in five months?
Getting Desperate
Going from 2.5 mg to 2.35 mg in five months would be okay if I were feeling normal while doing it. But instead, it's been five months of feeling 20% normal and 80% absolutely horrible. I can handle years of tapering, but not years of tapering while feeling miserable most of the time. The ketamine helps the day of and the day after, but then it wanes. So it gives me a very small amount of relief, but not enough.
I've been trying to figure out what my next steps are. Unfortunately, there just isn't much research on SSRI discontinuation syndrome or exactly what to do to manage it other than reinstating the drug. I feel like I'm my own case study and guinea pig, working my way down a list of ideas and hoping I get lucky and something helps. So far, I can cross off TMS and, for the most part, ketamine.
The Next Steps
I came across Josef Witt-Doerring's YouTube videos from the Taper Clinic and have been learning from them as much as I can. I also have an appointment with a local psychiatrist this Wednesday to discuss my options. At this point, I think adding something to help with the worst withdrawal symptoms may be in order. I refuse to add another SSRI or SNRI, though.
One of Dr. Josef's videos talks about adding a low-dose antipsychotic and/or a medication like clonidine to help with different withdrawal symptoms. I'm going to discuss this with my psychiatrist on Wednesday. For now, I'm going to hold my current dose until I don't feel awful, then reduce by 0.05 mg instead of 0.1 mg.
The Emotions Behind This
I honestly wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the moment I took my first SSRI as a teenager and simply decide not to. There's a lot of anger I'm having to face recently. Over 20 years of my life were spent being told a lie about some "chemical imbalance" in my brain that needed fixing. I was gaslit into thinking my horrible withdrawal was because my body wasn't getting what it needed to correct this imbalance, and that it was simply a relapse of my "disease."
From what I've read, more recent evidence completely debunks what I've been told. I don't necessarily blame the doctors—they were taught the same thing. But I'm still angry, and I believe financial incentives and/or the pursuit of power played some role in how that message became so widespread.