Caution: A Reader's Personal Experience with Paxil
While I finish up touches on two related articles, I wanted to point your attention to a fantastic comment left today on my "Wary of Psych Meds? Here is My Personal Experience With Them." article from last May. (What a wonderfully productive month that was. Let me pause for a moment while I reminisce on what being productive felt like....ah, they call these the halcyon days of Summer. Mine feels more like a series of random squalls than a calm breeze. Fortunately, school starts in two weeks.)
Reader Cathy had a terrible time on Paxil and she shared some of the highlights with me. Here is a sample:
I don't want to make this too long because I have to get to work. To put it mildly Paxil turned my life into a living hell, especially the grueling two-plus year withdrawal that I've been through. I didn't even know the damage it was doing to myself, my family, the finances, everything until I was off and brain "woke up" seven months after my last pill. With the wakeup came intense insomnia, akathesia, crushing depression and intense anxiety, OCD, agoraphobia, claustrophobia -- things I had never experienced pre-Paxil. The physical problems are too numerous to mention here. The akathesia and intense insomnia period were the worst and lasted for a few months. I had uncontrollable urges to kill myself.
Please take time to read her heartfelt comment.
A small percentage of people find relief from their Depression with psychmeds, but a larger percentage don't. The meds either don't work for them, or they encounter side-effects which, in my opinion, are more debilitating than the actual Depression. Side-effects almost ruined my life. I lost a decade or more of time learning how to recover. The choice is yours, but I caution you to be wary of "magic pills" that might cure your ills.
Cathy passed along a site she finds help from. It is PaxilProgress.org. I've checked it out and can recommend it to my readers as a good resource for finding other ex-Paxil users who are trying to wean themselves off Paxil or find alternatives. I especially like their motto:
Freedom is in you...
You are enough. You are your solution.
If anybody knows of a similar site for Zoloft users (my particular poison) I'd appreciate a link.
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Comments
Wendy Aron, author of Hide & Seek: How I Laughed at Depression, Conquered My Fears and Found Happiness
http://www.wendyaron.com
~Douglas
If SSRI antidepressants "appear" to work in some people, it is because they are designed to numb the individuals emotions and feelings. For a large number of people they cause more problems than they help. One such drug is Seroxat (Or Paxil as it is called in the US) I myself was prescribed this defective and dangerous poison and I am lucky to have lived to tell the tale. Seroxat has become synonymous with increses in suicide, aggression and abnormal behavior. The risks do not outweigh any so called "benefits". It is an absolute disgrace that this drug is still on the market. The negative press it has received over the past 10 years is staggering, from reports of suicides induced by the drug to horrific withdrawal effects to birth defects in babies. Most of these risks are admitted now by the manufacturer, GSK , but still all the data about Seroxat has not been released into the public domain. This drug needs to be pulled from the market immediately. It is absolutely lethal .
For more information on the horrible dangers of Seroxat, please check out my blog :
http://truthman30.wordpress.com
I am 40 years old. Have been on Paxil for 5 years now. Please be careful if coming off, i started to wean myself with out doctors help couldnt afford it. I went from 20 mgs to 10 mgs for a month, then 10 mgs to 5 mgs for a month. Because the 20 mgs were way to strong took 20 for 5 years and was always on edge. After about 1 month on 10 felt a little better. I stopped for 7 days completly and man did I feel like shit man I didn’t want to leave the house , shop! I just started back on 5 mgs to get it back in my system. Who know what is the right amount you have to be the test subject on yourself!
I have experienced some of these side effects-
Headaches, tremors, emotional wreck, just the blah's when I 1st started takin wasnt bad, cause I also way taken klonopin.
I hope this information will be useful to others,
Michael Smith