Weaning off of SSRI, specifically, Zoloft

Hi Super20Dan-

Thank you for your reply. You surely have come a long way without the medication. That is wonderful. I am glad that you feel as though being med free far outweighs the feelings you sometimes have. I feel the opposite here recently, and am feeling that my quality of life is diminished.

Hi Scaredy Cat-

I do go to therapy twice a week, to which she is always suggesting I utilize a "pause button" when I have heightened moods of anger, or that I take time to meditate doing breathing exercises 2-3 a day. Unfortunately, there are not enough hour in my day to squeeze in 3 sessions a day of breathing exercises. I work full-time all day, right from work I am either running to the hospital or nursing home (whichever she is in at the time) to see my mother then I don't get home until 8pm or so just to shovel my dinner down my throat and then try to get to bed. On the days I am not running to the nursing home or hospital I am running my son around to his sports as he wrestles 3 times during the weeknights and then on Saturdays. I have terrible OCD, lately I haven't been sleeping well at all, I have numerous times where I am awoken for no reason whatsoever at least 2-3 times a night and then can't get back to sleep for the longest time due to racing thoughts. As for my OCD affecting my moods lately, I tend to be a bit obsessive about my house being cleaned and things being done a certain way (my way) I am a typical "***** & moan" on a regular basis, however here recently, I totally lose my mind and the anger I feel within myself is ridiculous. I am so mean most of the time and the ones that are suffering the most aside from myself (because I am truly hating who I am recently) my children and my husband are suffering from dealing with me. I am such an angry person. I hate it!! I hate that I have never been this way before. it is just terrible.

Having been on medication for so many years, maybe it is just the way it needs to be for me. Maybe I do need an SSRI to be able to handle day to day life. I called my doctor office today to proceed with this genetic testing that is now offered which tells which mental health medications will work best for your chemical make-up. The testing is approximately $300 and not covered by insurance but I am hoping it is well worth it for my doctor to possibly prescribe me a medication that will work long term for me. I was on Lexapro for so many years and it worked so well for me and then suddenly just wasn't working anymore. I assume the same thing can happen again even if they do find a new med for me and put me back on something. But this testing is supposed to avoid the whole trial and error and be able to just find the right med immediately that works. So I won't have to take a year of trying different meds before finding the correct one for me.

So, ultimately I feel like I am on the path of going back to the medications in order to make adjustments to my life. I can not keep living so unhappy within myself and hating myself so much. I want to look forward to things, I want to find happiness in things, I don't want to feel nasty all the time.

I am thankful for you all being here for me.

SC-

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement!

I will surely keep you posted as to how things go. I have an appointment today at 4:45pm for the swabbing and they say results take about a week. Once the results are back, I will have an appointment with my Psychiatrist and move forward from there with what she feels will work best for me.

You seemed to know what the testing was, which surprised me. Have you also done it?

Hello to all of you-

I wanted to give you all an update regarding my medication situation. The genetic testing came back stating that the family of medications that would work best for me are SNRI's. With this information my Doctor has prescribed me 30mg of Cymbalta. I am wondering what, if any, experience anyone has with these type of medications? I have only taken it for two days and this morning I am having a bit of a headache along with a mild case of anxiousness. I am aware of side affects with any new medication and that it may take about 10-14 days for those to pass. Just wanted to reach out for some input from all of you. Look forward to receiving your replies

Hi S.C.-

Thank you so much for your quick reply. Thank you for the words of encouragement. I think I will take your advice and post a new thread about the Cymbalta and see what input I get.

Sure, I can do that for you.

Hi who am i I just got here so please put up with me. I've been on about all the ssris and all of them dumped me eventually. There isn't a med for my cod. Give it more time before you waste your money. They only want your 300$. You sound like a fighter.personally I will never ever take another pill from my legal drug dealer. There is no medical test for a "chemical imbalance". If I didn't have one then I do now! I know my brain is rebooting but my God I'm not sure I won't die in the process