Remeron (Mirtazapine) Withdrawal Support Group

[[Be...]]

Hi anxious user. I take mirt 7.5 and I healed significantly from benzo withdrawal and AD withdrawal. It's not completely gone but it's getting there. Your husband is probably going through benzo withdrawal still. It can be a very drawn out process. He might feel some s/e's from the rem, but since he's at the same dose for a while he probably isn't feeling that much w/d from it. Most of it is bz withdrawal.

 

I agree it's best to be off all meds. He should taper it really slowly. I'm going to taper rem in a week or so since I just had some oral surgery.

 

Becky

[[ja...]]

Hi Jack, glad it was negative. I couldn’t agree more about the doctor and rep. All these doctors swear it’s not the drug. How on earth would he know that! It’s very frustrating to say the least.

 

Hi anxious, I can only speak for myself but I feel the Remeron helped me through a cold turkey off Lorazepam so I’m glad I took it. Now I’m tapering it at 5% a month. I don’t believe it has hindered my healing. I was told from others not to taper the Remeron until I felt better from coming off the Lorazepam so I waited until I wasn’t feeling much withdrawal. Good luck to your husband.

 

Hi Becky, I hope you feel better from your oral surgery. I dread dentist appointments but love my dentist so that helps. Have you decided how you will taper yet?

 

Jackie 

[[Be...]]

Hi Jackie. I plan to dry cut since it's what I've done on the other two tapers. The darn rem pill is so tiny though. I see you are dry tapering and doing well. How do you trim off the pill?

 

Becky

[[Pt...]]

Popping in here since it's been a while. Down to 0.5mg. So far no change in symptoms, no additional symptoms on top of what I've already had from benzo withdrawal. When should I jump? Maybe I'll play it safe and jump at 0.1 just in case.

[[ja...]]

Hi everyone, hi Becky, I am dry cutting and counting by grams. Yes the pill is getting smaller but thankfully my scale is still weighing good. I use a exacto knife and that actually works really well. I usually cut 2 weeks worth at a time.

 

PTSD, yay you! Play it safe though.

 

Withdrawal was rough again today. This happened at the end of last month too. Hopefully I get better over the next couple of days. Plan to cut again Sunday night.

 

Jackie 

[[ju...]]

Hi everybody, i was trying a ct yesterday, but at 12 pm i took the signal of weird heart issue and went back on rem i dont know what to do. After my cut for 11 mg, my anx has raisen. Could it be interdose wd of it? This is the 7th day  of cut and i didnt feel a relief after that, my allowance from work for 3 weeks ends at the end of the week and i am curious how this mess will it go through during work?

[[Ja...]]

June,

      I want to preface this by saying that I feel really bad for you. I really do. I also know firsthand how these meds can mess with your head and cause you to spiral. However I feel like a little tough love is in order here. I hope I am not out of line. But anyway here it is. Reading your posts, it sounds like you are torturing yourself. Please stop doing this to yourself. You have CT'd so many meds your CNS must be reeling. You are asking for a lot of advice but taking none. I know reading this it probably sounds harsh and I can't put a loving and understanding tone into text but please try to hear it when you read. This support group and forum in general firmly suggest a no more than 10 percent taper. You started your taper on 7/19 and you SHOULD be at 12.15 mg 7 days into your cut and holding for 30 days. But you have ignored this advice and gone from 13.5 straight to 7.5. Then tried to reinstate at 12. Then everyone told you to hold until you stabilized and you again ignored this advice and tapered to 11. You should not be at 11. Also, the 10 percent cut is a rule of thumb to follow. It does not mean that you can handle 10 percent. I mean ask Jackie Brown what would have happened to her if you tried to cut 4 mg of Remeron in only 9 weeks. She said before she cut 5 percent and is still getting her ass kicked 24 DAYS OUT! I am writing this in hope that if you hear it and read it back to yourself you will see and realize what you are doing to yourself. I am not judging you, nor do I feel better or more enlightened than you. We are all different. Also, just because you were able to CT other drugs does not mean you can do so with Remeron. Remeron is a very unique antidepressant. The key to stabilization IS STABILIZATION! How can you expect to feel stable when you have yet to follow a stable plan. Now, forget about what you should have done differently leading up to this point. That is in the past and can not be controlled. You can control what you do from here. The way I see it you have 2 simple choices. The first is to just Cold Turkey at this point.(And no, I am not suggesting that you do this.) There was a woman early in this thread whose name escapes me who did what you did. She did not follow the plan tried to cut too fast/CT and reinstated and could not stabilize and she decided to CT. You should know that her SEVERE withdrawal lasted for almost 5 straight months before letting up. The second choice is to take a deep breath and commit to the taper plan. This means YOU WILL NOT CUT AGAIN UNTIL YOU STABILIZE. I am not sure you were ready to be without Remeron in the first place being that I can't even begin to imagine the agony you must be in from all of those CT's. And if I read correctly your last CT was earlier this year. Are you sure you have even healed from this? Remeron is evil BUT for some of us a necessary evil while we heal. Coming off of it before healing does us no good at all.

 

I'm not sure if this is too harsh. I have thick skin so feel free to blast me if I am out of line. I know my intentions are good but as we know the road to hell is paved with those,lol. I can't stress enough that even though I have clearly analyzed your situation and judged it I am not trying to be judgmental. I am just not sure it would be any help to give you soft canned advice for fear of hurt feelings.

 

I really do just want to see you get through this and get better. I know you are scared. I think all of us here understand what you feel like right now. It is hard if not impossible to make rational decisions when we get to the deep dark places that these withdrawals drag us through. You can do this. Please slow down, take a deep breath. Give your body and mind time to heal.

Hang in there.

[[ju...]]

Hi jack and everybody,

First of all, i want to thank especially to you with feelings from my heart. Because, you are finding my posts worthy to give answers and block a time.

Jack,ct of in early this year, was because of no knowlodge of tapering. The other ones in hospital were also like that. But this time is different. After  quitting hospital i found myself in a mess and i discovered BB. Things were going bad and i started to remeron, the mistake here was to start on such high dose. Then i made a plan for 100 days, of course it didnt. Then you know the whole process. I strongly tied on 12 mg and applied it for four weeks although i complaint about it. But, looking for the process Jackie, Dave and others lived so long with also suffering, i was disappointed and i thought that if i do, it must be at starting period, but as you know this time for remeron, things dont work like that.

The problem that make me think about tapering and ct steadily, i dont see a stabilisation and the things get harder,anyway. Did i start remeron just for apetit and sleep, how about the anxiety? If it calms  a little and i will be happy after that. Now, i am on 11 mg and thinking to stick it for 4 weeks. Am i wrong? But a question comes in ones mind, if it doesnt get steady, how this 3 year will pass? Although living such a mess, i think my program started to settle a bit compared to first trials.(in spite of not feeling settle)

When tapering a benzo goes around 1 or 2 year, why does it go to 3 or 4 year although using 2 months?

I see your posts very well and dont get wrong absolutely.

Thank you and all of you very much...

[[Ja...]]

June,

      Unfortunately because we are all different there is no guarantee that a CT will shorten the duration of your suffering. I have been tapering at a relatively fast rate. I have been dropping .6 mg per week. I am doing so because my mind and body are allowing me to. I honestly feel I could go even faster but I am working a lot and need to be functional for my long commute and long days at work. I notice I can taper faster if I microtaper. It seems to be more gentle on my CNS. I might even start doing .1 mg per day or every other day at some point since the .3 every 3-4 days seems to be agreeing with me so well. Maybe the same could work for you. Maybe you can hold for a while and then drop to 10.9 then 10.8, 10.7 and so on. When it starts feeling rough you just hold until it calms down. I find I can exceed more than 10 percent in 30 days. However, this may change as my dose lowers. I have not been symptom free. I’ve had some pretty rough symptoms. It’s just that in comparison to the benzo withdrawal I went through this really isn’t bad at all.

i also find that while making smaller more frequent drops that my mood is unaffected. When I made a ten percent I had anxiety, anger and depression. Making smaller frequent equivalent cuts I have actually been in a pretty good mood overall. Since I started tapering I find myself laughing a lot. I did not laugh at all while on 15 mg Remeron. I felt so bland. It is nice to start feeling some gappiness again even if I do have a lot of symptoms making me physically ill.

[[ju...]]

I saw my pdoc few minutes ago and she suggested that i should take electroconvulsive treatment while seeing me anti drug persistent because of getting so mich depressed. I said her i must search. What do you say about that?

[[Ja...]]

It is certainly extreme. However, I am not anti-extreme. Lol. I will soon be going for EMDR therapy to help with my PTSD night issues. It’s not nearly as extreme as electroshock therapy but is certainly on the fringe side. Will it help? I don’t know but I hear good things and am willing to do the work. I met quite a few people when I was in outpatient psychiatric care who had tried this and claimed good results. And for what it’s worth the counselors there who seemed to do be drug cautious and impressively “benzo-wise” seemed to think it was a viable option in certain individuals. I would encourage you to do your homework on it but I have not heard any horror stories about it.

[[Ja...]]

June,

      We are all in this mess in the first mess because we opted for the quick fix. We have a mentality in this modern world where we are trained to get instant gratification in everything that we do. If we have anxiety we don’t mediate, or exercise or figure out what the issue is and slow down. We just pop a pill and keep on going. If we are to have success in living medication free we have to first break free of this mentality. You are tapering too fast and jumping all over the place. You went back to the pdoc asking for another bandaid/quick fix and they will keep providing them. ECT can help or it can be very damaging. There is no easy/fast/instant way out of this. It is a long drawn out miserable process. And unfairly more so for some that others. I personally think that these meds do more long term harm than good. But getting off them is tough. Staying off them is tough when we are looking for instant gratification. If you need to be better right now then just stop tapering and stay on the Remeron for a while. If you are ready to suffer through the withdrawal and heal then do a careful, methodical super slow but successful taper. Make a commitment and stick to it. You do not want meds. So why did you go see a doc that you know only prescribes meds? It seems like you are not sure what you want. And that is key because this getting off of these drugs is likely the most difficult thing any of us will do in our lifetime. You can not do this and be half in. It’s just too hard to do half-heartedly. It’s okay if you are not ready to come off of this med. It isn’t something to be ashamed of. Just remember a pdoc can not help someone who won’t take meds. That’s all they can do for you. As far as electroshock, I would not do it. That is me personally. If I was off meds for 5 years and still depressed despite trying everything rlse then maybe. Because if your problems are from your CTs and Rem withdrawal then it will not work. Remember your doc thinks you are not in withdrawal. Remeron withdrawal is not a real thing in the medical community. There is zero supporting literature on it and therefore it does not exist except to those of us who are living it.

[[ju...]]

Jack, looking at your last message, i think you totally got me wrong.

Because,i didnt go to her for quick fix,as i said in previous messages i have started to see her for theraphy regularly every friday or saturday. So this was the day i should see her. I had explained my arguements last week and declared that i was totally opposite of the drugs. In fact, i said it in pre messages psychologist directed me to her because of no knowledge for drugs and couldnt help me. Anyway, this was not a visit to beg her for new medication, but she said that you must try ECT and i said i should search. I just asked you what you think about it. If the cond. was like that you said i would accept this proposal without questioning it. Just asked for information, but i saw that you dont defend it Thank you...

[[Ja...]]

June,

        Sorry, here in the US you can not see a psychiatrist for therapy. It might be a difference in our medical system structures. I might not understand the terminology either. I thought that pdoc and psychiatrist were synonymous.

[[ju...]]

Hi fellows,

i have started to experience a bad kind of anx. and some panic attacks also started two days ago. It came hard to breathe and my wife is asking me to go a psych. service. What could you suggest? Updosing to 12 could solve the problem? I am fearful to go there and getting prescribed benzo or new meds.

[[Ja...]]

June,

        I wish I had an answer for you but I just don’t know. I thought all day about your predicament and I just can’t seem to formulate any good advice. There is just too much at play here that I don’t understand. I didn’t want to ignore you or leave you hanging. I just don’t have any answers.

 

 

[[Ja...]]

Hey all,

          I been at 12 mg since wednesday will be going to 11.7 tonight. This pace has been agreeing with me so far. I am wondering if my chest pains and palps were from reflux as I have had palps in the past from reflux. I started coating my esophagus with gaviscon at night and controlling my diet and the pain and palps seem to have subsided for now. A lot of gastro stuff but nothing unbearable. Overall I am doing surprisingly well. The 10 percent cut really knocked me down but these closer .3 mg cuts seem to be minumizing my symptoms drastically. I know I am tapering fast but will continue until my body tells me to stop.

My symptoms so far:

Morning dizziness(mostly when talking for some reason)

Mild anxiety(comes and goes) most of the time I’m fine with this

Mild short lived nausea every few days for an hour or two no big deal

Flu like symptoms - this was bad with the 10 percent cut but extremely mild and occasional now

Parasthesias - numbess in my face and weird spasms ans stuff - these are scart because it is kind of like stroke symptoms but then they just go away after 20 seconds or whatever.

Air hunger- I feel like I am not getting enough air though I am breathing totally normal

Fluctuations in heart rate and blood pressure - I’m like 140/90 so I am restricting sodium and seems to be helping - got 115/82(my normal bp) yesterday morning and was excited about that!

Resting heart rate sometimes is 50 and other days is 80-90. I have found a correlation between this and anxiety - High anxiety when heart rate is low and low anxiety when heart rate is high. (Complete opposite of what you would expect)

Sometimes winded when climbing stairs other times totally fine, so strange.

Appetite fluctuations although I have actually gained weight since started my taper so that is a nice difference from the Xanax withdrawal I had.

Ocular migraines - I am lucky in that I never get sever head pain during migraines, just mild head pain but severe visual and sound disturbances. Lost my hearing in one ear for a few hours last week and my vision gets so blurry and I gave to sit down and wait it out. They last about an hour.

Unfortunately I am in the bathroom constantly, not to be gross, but I had ibs before this and now I have super ibs. No pain though so I can deal with it.

 

So, as you can see I am far from symptom free but I am in good spirits. Even with all this I still feel 10 times better than I did in acute Xanax withdrawal so for that I am grateful. I just pray I can keep that chest pain and palps under control because that would be the thing to slow me down. Fingers crossed.

 

I hope everyone else is doing okay.

[[Ja...]]

Hi all,

        I've been communicating with June a lot but just wanted to check in with everyone else. So I am at 12mg since wednesday night and am going to 11.7 mg tonight. My original cut was 4 1/2 weeks ago to 13.5 and it honestly kicked my ass. I also switched to liquid at the same time so maybe that had something to do with it. I was functional but miserable. So after about 2 weeks I stabilized and thought I would start sneaking my way towards the next cut to minimize my misery. So I started making a .3 mg cut every wednesday and sunday night. This has been SO much better for me. It reduced my symptoms so much that they are sometimes unnoticeable. When they are severe they are short lived. We're talking like 15 minute windows of severe symptoms.

I do seem to experience some sort of interdose withdrawal. I feel a tiny bit rough about an hour before my dose and then super calm and relaxed within about 15 minutes of taking it at night. It seems to be developing a pattern.

 

In the past 4+ weeks I have experienced the following symptoms:

 

Head pressure/dizziness in the morning - It especially bad when I have to talk for a while during the morning job site meeting. It's manageable though and I am kind of just getting used to it. It's gone by noon everyday,

Mild nausea - Nothing serious, but I get mild short lived waves of nausea. We're talking minutes not hours so no bid deal.

Air hunger? - I get short waves, seconds (maybe 5 - 30 seconds) where I feel like I am suffocating. Like I can't breathe even know I am breathing totally fine. Weird.

Chest pains/heart palps - These might actually be reflux/gerd related because I have gotten this in the past from reflux and since taking gaviscon to coat my esophagus at night this has gone away the last few days.

super IBS - I already had IBS and now I have super IBS, don't mean to be gross but my morning commute is planned around gas stations and stores with public restrooms. It was never like that before. Also goes away by noon like the dizziness.

Paresthesias and weird nerve stuff - Pretty much all of it you can imagine. Electrocution sensations, weird muscle twitches and spasms.

mild anxiety - I get mild anxiety here or there and I have to be VERY careful in managing my stress because my CNS does not like it any more. Imagine if you had a electroshock collar for every time you get mad about something. Lol. Every time I start getting upset about something my body starts telling me it will have none of that. Lol. This is probably related to the benzo withdrawal as well.

appetite fluctuations - This hasn't been so bad as I have actually gained 5 lbs since started this taper which is great because it took me all this time just to regain the weight I lost from my benzo withdrawal. But I do sometimes force meals that I have no interest in.

stamina - I get winded some days walking up the stairs and other days I can run all day long. It is very strange and unpredictable or at least I have not found a pattern yet.

heart rate and blood pressure fluctuations - I have developed high blood pressure 140/90 which is not super high but high for me. I have drastically reduced my sodium intake and yesterday scored a 115/82! i was super excited about that. The heart rate stuff is weird, some days my resting heart rate is 50 (pretty low) and other days is almost 90! I also noticed a correlation between this and my anxiety levels and they are opposite of what you would think. Low heart rate equals high anxiety and high heart rate is low anxiety.

 

I am already starting to feel feelings again which is awesome! and it sucks. lol. I am laughing again and truly feeling it for the first time since I started this med. I was always forcing laughter for the sake of appearances but now I actually feel happy and I joke around more, but conversely I also feel my other feelings more deeply too like anxiety, sadness, anger. I have been emotionally muted for a year now and forgot how feelings feel?! Haha. I expect this to get better as I get out of the antidepressant dosage of Remeron.

 

So despite all of this my symptoms are usually pretty mild and sometimes non existent. I am tolerating this withdrawal 100 times better than the Xanax withdrawal I went through. I do have my bad days but I am thankful that it hasn't been too bad.

 

I hope everyone is doing okay. Please cross your fingers for me that I continue to fair relatively well as I get to the lower doses.

[[ju...]]

Hi everybody again,

My pdoc insisted on ect today, i think i change her or not to go anybody because nobody knows wd in my country. Also, she suggested hydroxizine(atarax) to get some relief from anxiety in these, but i didnt take.

How can i overwhelm this bad anxiety, please give me some moral. How long does it continue?

[[Ja...]]

I took hydroxyzine early after jumping from benzos. Thing is it’s an antihistamine just like remeron. I am not sure if anyone else has experience with taking Atarax/Vistaril during Rem taper. It didn’t donmuch to help with the Xanax withdrawal that the Rem wasn’t already doing.

[[Po...]]

Im now at 1.8mg of Remeron. People takes doses of this stuff as high as 45mg, so how can being on only 1.8mg still make a person fell so crappy while they are tapering off.  I do feel crappy with each cut. There are lots of stories here that such low doses still can make a person feel miserable while they are getting off. But can anyone explain the pharmacology/physiology of why this happens at such a low dose still. I am at almost 1/45th of a common therapeutic dose. Id like to know why the misery hangs on at a crumb of remeron??? thanks

 

Pokey

Aka Paul

[[Ja...]]

Because the drug is classified as an antidepressant. When you use the term therapeutic dose that is the dose determined for it to be effective as an antidepressant. But as an anxiolytic and antihistamine which is not it’s main purpose it doesn’t require much at all. It is understudied. There is a lot of ignorance in the psychiatric field. In fact this whole experience made me realize that most psychiatrists are not intellectuals and have no clue what they are doing whatsoever. You ARE on a therapeutic doae of remeron for sleep and appetite. It is just that the doctor’s that prescribed you the drug are so incompetent and willfully ignorant that they don’t know this.

[[...]]

Im now at 1.8mg of Remeron. People takes doses of this stuff as high as 45mg, so how can being on only 1.8mg still make a person fell so crappy while they are tapering off.  I do feel crappy with each cut. There are lots of stories here that such low doses still can make a person feel miserable while they are getting off. But can anyone explain the pharmacology/physiology of why this happens at such a low dose still. I am at almost 1/45th of a common therapeutic dose. Id like to know why the misery hangs on at a crumb of remeron??? thanks

 

Pokey

Aka Paul

 

I was on 30mg of Remeron for about 9 months. I decided it wasn't helping me with anything except getting fat so I talked to my Dr and discontinued. I was supposed to cut to 15mg for a week and then jump completely. After about 3 days I had extreme anxiety. I tried a very gradual taper and still had lots of WD issues. I was eventually able to stop completely by replacing it with 20mg of Prozac. Prozac has such a long half life that it was fairly easy to discontinue once I stabilized. I was surprised by the level of anxiety that stopping caused. I'm very familiar w/AD withdrawal and this was considerably different. I hope it gets better for you very soon. My symptoms were fairly similar to Benzo WD.

 

1211

[[Ja...]]

This is not the first I have read about using Prozac to get off of Remeron. I wouldn’’t do it personally because I already used Remeron to get off of Xanax so I have to decide to end the cycle somewhere. Also with thos taper I seem to be doing well. The symptoms are a lot like benzo withdrawal but for me a lot less severe. They sound like they are worse for others here. And I don’t want to speak to soon either because i don’t know how I will fare at these low doses like Pokey is struggling with right now.

 

Pokey,

        Were the symptoms bad the entire taper or are they worse now at these lower doses?

[[ea...]]

This message is for juneight.  You can ALWAYS find me on my blog, Eastcoasts Trip." I will bump it up for you.

I am not a fan of SSRIs. I am also not a fan of most supplements. IMO, the only thing that WILL help you is staying off benzos and other "brain altering" drugs and let yourself heal. Benzo wd CAN be really awful for some. Was for me. I tried several supplements and teas and other stuff but none did a darn thing for me. I gave up and placed my hopes in natural healing, plus I began to employ techniques I learned in CBT therapy AND on the job as a Psych Nurse. I began "faking it" almost immediately, despite feeling SO crazy and out of control, I somehow sensed this would help me in the long term. It sure did. If you go to page one of my Blog, you can read a lot more of MY journey.

None of it has been easy, but I am here to tell you that by healing from benzos, I changed just about EVERY single negative thing in my life. In some ways, I truly AM a miracle.

east

 

 

edit: moderation decision