Withdrawl Symptoms from Nortriptyline

[benjsteger]

I started trying to get off my antidepressant back on February 4. I went down to 100mg on the 4th, Feb 13th went to 75mg, March 6th went to 50mg. Then, on the 19th of March, I tried just stopping it completely for 3 days. That led to a lot of withdrawal symptoms like nausea, dizziness, anxiety, and insomnia, which caused me to go back on 50mg. Since then, I have been on 50mg. I had tried to stop because being on the 125mg was making me feel sick (I think from previous changes up until that point, with other drugs). So I say all that now to say that since the 19th, I have had various changes in my symptoms. These include moments where I feel extreme anxiety, weird, extreme urges to binge eat or do other impulsive behaviors, distressing sensations/emotions in my chest without a cause, vivid dreams, extreme fatigue, early awakenings, and adhenoia. I have had in the past these types of symptoms from withdrawal, and sometimes they took many months to calm down. The weird thing is, it's really hard to tell if it's improving this time. Every time I began to feel more normal for a short time, the waves came back into these same symptoms, which caused fear and hypervigilance. These are experienced in "Waves and Windows" as they are deemed by other communities like Surviving Antidepressants. So it has been 37 days since the 19th of March. I have had over a dozen TMS symptoms over my years, and the biggest doubt around this is when to know when "acute" withdrawal/adjustment has stopped, or when this is more of a TMS or "learned" state of my nervous system. Some seem pretty "physical," like the vivid dreams or early awakenings that correlate with fatigue. I don't know if this just requires more time to pass, for the physical adjustment answer to seem less believable. Some sources say it can take a few weeks to feel better (past that) or maybe a few months at most. There is also this thing called protracted withdrawal, which seems like pure TMS to me. These are reports where it takes many years for these withdrawal-like sensations to stop. I try to tell myself the brain heals, but every time I try to treat this as TMS and move on to the "realness" of it, and the weird, vivid dreams/early awakenings (I never remember my dreams) make me think it is physical. I don't really want to wait all this time until it no longer seems believable physically, but I have some doubts every time I try to take a TMS mindset to all these different symptoms, whenever a wave comes over me. I try to have a rule that if a symptom doesn't go away, just from my history, the chance there is a physical issue is so low versus TMS, but this time it just seems different. Any suggestions, comments on my experience, or help? Much needed. I also plan to go off the medication completely, but paused at 50mg, waiting for these symptoms to go away, which they don't seem to be changing or improving. (or if they do, they go back to how they felt originally)

Thanks, Ben

 

[Rabscuttle]

*assuming you’ve been checked out by a doctor and all labs are normal*

ignore the years long withdrawal thing, almost certain it’s total nonsense and those people are just dealing with TMS/nervous system dysfunction. You likely just shocked your nervous system and hyperfixated on the sensations and now have scared yourself into fight or flight.

I don’t really understand the realness/physicalness comment. TMS pain and sensations are real, all are created in the brain. I have various tension related symptoms that produce real physical symptoms-I can touch an area on my body and feel a muscle knot and reliably produce pain. That doesn’t mean the underlying cause isn’t in my brain. I’ll have symptoms during sleep and right when I wake up, again that doesn’t mean it’s not TMS.

don’t let the symptoms dictate you wanting to get off the drug, do a slower wean ideally under the guidance of a doctor.You stopped cold turkey when you shouldn’t have, but that doesn’t mean you’re screwed or anything. The body is very resilient. This sounds 100% like TMS especially considering you have a history. I would start a TMS program if you haven’t. You need to believe in the TMS diagnosis enough to get out of this.

 

[Cactusflower]

"I don't really want to wait all this time until it no longer seems believable physically" Ah, the self-pressure to magically be perfect after getting off anti-depressants.

The thing with the anti-depressants is that they have been created to help us manage feeling hard and big things. We come off them, and deep down know that the big things will need to be felt. Some people have gotten to a stage in TMS recovery etc. that they are OK with that space and others might feel it is still to "scary" to feel them. Add to that self-pressure, wanting to feel better now and/or not feel anything (emotionally or physically) and you simply get stress/anxiety and symptoms.

You have clearly been in a space and place that needs some tender care, some time and space to process tender emotions that you might not have felt you wanted to face awhile back. The brain starts clinging onto anything that might catch your attention and direct it away from those emotions or sensations.

Gently giving yourself some time and space and the place to feel it all might be needed.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

TMS pain and sensations are real, all are created in the brain.

@benjsteger: Never ever forget this. It is the first key to understanding the nature of our TMS mechanism. This is a neuroscientific fact.

The TMS mechanism is not an illness, it is a feature of survival that is very primitive and which simply doesn't work well in the modern world.

Your job is to embrace a rational understanding of this fact, and take control.

You've received two seemingly different, but in fact complementary responses, which are both highly relevant to what you need to do next. This is totally doable.

 

[Dorado]

Hi! I just posted this a few minutes ago in another thread - I thought it may be relevant here as well:

My medical team was unaware of how to discontinue Cymbalta safely, so I stopped cold turkey after a very short taper. Over a year later, blood testing showed that my liver cannot process the medication correctly, so I was already dealing with symptoms before antidepressant withdrawal.

I'm alive and I made it through, but I don't recommend going cold turkey. After quite a few months, Steve Ozanich met with me and believed that I was dealing with TMS. I still agree with him. While antidepressant withdrawal is very real, the body can heal. I wasn't healing as quickly as I could have due to fear and cortisol from stress further impacting my serotonin and neuroplasticity.

Stay off antidepressant withdrawal communities and forums. Many of those people are never getting better - even after 15 years - but not because of antidepressant withdrawal. They truly believe they are permanently damaged, thus creating that reality for themselves without realizing it.

I was that person who spent hours a day on health forums, begging for answers. I haven't done that since 2017. I truly hope those people are able to move on one day as well. Anything is possible.