| |
Symptoms |
|
| |
Here you will find a list
of symptoms which originally was culled from my personal
experience while getting off Paxil in 2000.
Over time, this list has
been augmented by symptoms which have been reported by others
going through the process. For a symptom to be included
in the "common' category, it had to appear at least
50 times in the letters which I have received.
If you fail to find a particular
symptom which you are currently experiencing it can mean
that a) not enough people have reported it to warrant inclusion,
or b) that it is unrelated to the withdrawal process.
Note, that of the listed
symptoms do appear in people who are in the process of reducing
their dosage as well as those, whose system has become acclimatized
to the drug.
Finally, the list only deals
with withdrawal symptoms. It does not include the side effects
that are commonly associated with Paxil , e.g. weight gain,
sexual dysfunction, etc..
In order to ad your own
experience, please send me an
e-mail..
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
Note: this section deals only with
problematic Paxil withdrawal. Although I have not
found accurate numbers, it appears that anywhere from
4% to 10% of users can expect some or all of the listed
symptoms. The rest of you should only experience the
touted " two to three days of flue-like symptoms".
First, the good news:
you are not going to die. Although, there is
at least one legal firm that specializes in wrong-full
deaths caused by Paxil and other similar drugs, my
research indicates that all of these were suicides.
As hellish as the withdrawal will be or is at the
moment, suicide is not warranted: there is an end
in sight.
Still, the bad
news is that the withdrawal process can mirror every
depiction of hell as I, a non-believer, had come to
imagine. Glaxo SmithKline makes no mention of these
on their Paxil home site , including in their prescription
information . Avoid it if you have the chance by
choosing an alternate drug, or, if you are already
on it, take a couple of weeks off from work, and hold
on. Here are some of the symptoms that might await
you, or that you might already have encountered.
| Common
Withdrawal Symptoms |
|
- intense insomnia
- extraordinarily vivid dreams
- extreme confusion during waking hours
- intense fear of losing your sanity
-steady feeling of existing outside of reality
as you know it (referred to as depersonalization
at times)
-memory and concentration problems
- Panic Attacks (even if you never had one before)
- severe mood swings, esp. heightened irritability
/ anger.
- suicidal thoughts (in extreme cases)
|
- an unconventional dizziness/
vertigo
- the feeling of shocks, similar to mild electric
one, running the length of your body
- an unsteady gait
- slurred speech
- headaches
- profuse sweating, esp. at night
- muscle cramps
- blurred vision
- breaking out in tears.
|
- hypersensitivity to motion, sounds,
smells.
- decreased appetite
- nausea
- abdominal cramping, diarrhea
- loss of appetite
- chills/ hot flashes
|
Whereas the symptoms in the right
hand column are a nuisance, and the ones in the middle
column are barely tolerable, it is the left handed
ones that redefine the term nightmare. Their nature
is such, that you will find yourself questioning your
sanity on a continual basis.
The duration of the withdrawal process seems to
vary from individual to individual. In my own
experience, the worst was over after the first two
weeks. Still, three weeks into it, I was far from
feeling ship-shape in Bristol fashion. It took
around six weeks for the symptoms to subside.
| Less
Frequently Reported Symptoms |
|
-fainting
-"scratching sound" inside one's head
- constant white noise in the ears
- tingling sensation in cheeks, lips, tongue
and surrounding areas.
- heart palpitations/ chest pain
- swollen and sore eyes
- fatigue
- extremely localized, bursting headaches
- lump in throat
- rash
/ dry, flaky and irritated skin
- grinding of teeth
- difficulty swallowing
- itchiness
|
- numbness
- speech problems / inability to use or find
the right word
- trembling
- seizures (reported once)
- involuntary muscle twitching
- hallucinations
- diarrhea / stomach cramps
- heartburn/ gaestric reflux
- semi-orgasmic state (in women) to the point
of irritation
- muscel aches
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
statistics/
Oct. 2002:
visitors:
14 396
visits: 20 958
page views: 82 891
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Donations will be used to
expand and enhance this site. Please be aware that Quitpaxil.org
does not have official charity status. Hence, no tax receipt
can be issued.
|
 
Site made in Canada
|
