Lexapro Withdrawal Unwanted Side Effects (Page 8) (Top voted first)

I have been taking Lexapro 10mg once a day for about a year. I have had many unwanted side effects which according to my doctor there are very few side effects from Lexapro. He says it is a clean drug. Wrong. It did nothing to help me and I want off. My doctor refused to give me anti-anxiety meds to help with the withdrawals from Lexapro because once again, there are no withdrawals from Lexapro. Why do doctors lie about this. Why do pharmaceutical companies lie about this? I have read so much about people just losing it while trying to stop taking Lexapro. I have not taken it in about ten days after weaning off for about two months from 10mg to 2 mg a day. My nerves are a wreck, I am extremely irratable, and have slight headaches. This is a horrible drug with many long lasting withdrawal symptoms. The makers of Lexapro, Forrest Pharmaceutical, should be ashamed of themselves. Do not lie to so many people just to increase the market strength of your company.

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I'm sorry about how you are feeling but the first question which comes to my mind is - are you withdrawing with the support of your doctor? Could you not continue taking the medication until after your busy season? I know I should not be preaching to others but yoga and relaxation techniques are really helping me through my withdrawal. The yoga teacher is teaching us about ensuring that our minds are in control at all times. Wishing you relief soon.

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Can any of you fellow "travellers" tell me if you ever lost weight after stopping Lexapro? (with exercising of course). I have gained 15kgs despite exerice and correct diet whilst taking Lexapro. I am currently weaning off and am wondering if I will ever loose the the fat.

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I'm currently tapering off Lexapro and that's the key you have to go very slow...it's taken me two months to go from 20mgs to 10mgs. You also need to add serotonin into your body as you taper off. Rhodiola is recommended as a natural alternative. You can also take another ssri such as amitriptyline. Again if you make this transition slowly you can get off Lexapro and not become a basketcase in the process.

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an update, was doing great until about 4 days ago and started feeling really tired and run down, brain zaps, melancholy feelings. Trying to stay away from this junk....hate the relapse........

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Thanks J. I actually did alter how i'm weaning off a week or two ago and feel much better. I was taking the 10mg and now am taking 5mg a day....in the beginning I had night sweats, I was tired and dizzy, but now I think my body has adjusted to the 5mg. I'll keep it as is for a while and maybe cut again after my busy season. Thanks for the advice!

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I was on lexapro for 8.5 years. It has been a month since I stopped taking it with the help of trileptal (a mood stabilizer) for withdrawals. I am starting to get depressed and have intrusive thoughts that set off my anxiety. Do lexapro withdrawal symptoms last longer depending on how long the usage was? According to my doctor i should be over the withdrawals by now. Hmmmmmm! I meet with a new psychologist on Thursday and am hoping to learn better coping techniques because this is insane. Just need to know there is hope because I am 32 with 3 children and I want me and my life back!!

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I have been on Lexapro for 5 years. I came off it recently on my own volition.
Doctors don't know their arse from their elbow. How can you ever know anything unless you have experienced it first hand? Do you think the pharmaceutical companies who are making inexplicable amounts of money selling this product are going to let you or the doctors on to the side effects ! Or do they even know the extent of the side effects of the drug!!' there are very few studies into this as research grants go into other areas of medicine.. Like how to create more sinister drugs or how to mask someone's symptoms and make them live with it instead of curing them. We live in an incredibly sinister world and you have to help yourself. Look into yourself, be pure, eat well, exercise, do yoga, breath... I'm not going to drag on.
My side effects coming off this drug have been nothing short of absolutely horriffic.

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Ok, finally I have been drug free for over 2 months and feel pretty good, I have emotional episodes from time to time and some depression off and on but over all glad to be rid of the drug........even the brain zaps have pretty much disappeared......to those still working at this start slow and be patient. Excercise and take large doses of B vitamins especially B 12...........you will get through it.......

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I am still on Lexapro and take it daily, I actually had to start taking it at night because it made me insanely tired. If I go as much as one day forgetting to take it I get EXTREMELY irritable, think of it as PMS x 10. I also am extremely wired, but very sleepy. I get nauseous very easily and jittery. All just from one day forgetting to take it. I can't see myself stopping it cold turkey. I am thankful that it has not made me gain any weight, I've actually lost 12 pounds in a month in a half.

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I too have stopped taking lexapro (12 days now ) I didn't experience any effects the first week and now its living HELL..been nausea for hours a day and my head/eyes
nerves-you name it..seems like I stopped yesterday..WTH? I wonder how much longer I have before I feel normal..Doctors are full of crap..all of them..they know nothing except your pocketbook..They know jack crap about drugs.

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Please tell me what natural supplements I can take while withdrawing from 20 mg of Lexapro for 5 years. Thank you

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I have been on the generic version of Lexipro (5 mg) for about six months. The dry mouth, belly weight gain, fluid retention, and jerking legs at night waking me up finally made me quit last week. Thinking it was only such a small dosage (5mg), I quit cold turkey last Thursday. I felt horrible over the weekend and even worse on Monday. The withdrawal symptoms are awful. The doctors should warn you of these reactions up front. Odd how I searched the internet and nowhere does it mention weight gain and I gained 20 pounds in the six months that I was only on 5 mg of this medicine. I felt so bad on Monday, I thought I was going to have to go to the emergency room. I called and talked to my doctor's nurse and she said all of the horrible symptoms I was having - racing pulse, pounding heart beat, dizziness and extreme tiredness was related to withdrawal of the Lexipro. Apparently it takes several weeks of weaning yourself off of this stuff, even at a small 5 mg level. I sure hope it doesn't take me 3 months of feeling like this to come off of this drug. Odd how the doctors assume you will be on this for life once you begin taking it and never warns you of how hard it is going to be if you ever decide to stop taking the drug.

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Are you free from withdrawals now.
How long did it take.
Do you feel normal again.
What helped you most during withdrawals ?

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After years of being on this stuff, I finally realized the havoc that it was wreaking on my life. Killed my energy and motivation. I was really neither happy or sad and therefore just lost direction with things. I went from running 5-10 miles a day and running a businesses full time to a lazy glutton who couldnt care less about how things were going. Must have put on a good 50lbs. It was a complete 180 and definitely ruined my life. The dizziness also kept getting worse and worse to the point that I had a difficult time on ladders and keeping my balance. Uncharacteristic mood swings and mania also started. 2 years ago I tried tapering off a bit too fast and got really bad withdrawals including some strange bouts of hypoglycemia. I am tapering again much slower and it's going well. Very tired, but less dizzy than on the full dose. The first 2 few days of the taper felt AWESOME, but of course the withdrawals followed.

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How is it going for you now, almost a month after this post? I ask because I tapered off Lexapro over a month's time and now I've been completely off for 6 weeks. I'm still having the brain zaps. They are greatly reduced now but that's reduced from when they were nearly debilitating. Thank goodness that has improved to where I can get up and go into work. But they aren't gone and they seem to worse at certain times than others, with no identifiable pattern.

Also, I feel like I am SO emotional. My anxiety is through the roof and I'm wondering if this is going to improve as well. I did go speak to my physician about it and he was essentially useless and looked at me like I was crazy when I described my symptoms. I may go talk to a pharmacist, see if they had offer any suggestions.

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I know exactly how you feel! I've been weaning off for 2 weeks and feel VERY motion sick, tired, irritable and foggy! I wanted off so after 3uears on Zoloft, 3 years on lexapro at 10mg. I cut down 6 months ago to 5mg and 2 months ago to 5mg every other day and I'm sti feeling horrible. Hoping this goes away very soon. Does anyone know of something that could help? I thought of taking Dramamine for motion sicksickness, but I just dont feel like it would help. Any suggestions?

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I have been on Lexapro for almost 5 months. I gained almost 12 pounds. The drug helped me with my anxiety. I feel it calmed me to the sense that I felt good, so I started eating more. I also stopped my daily walking of 4 miles a day. This drug has also decreased my libido... and while having intercourse, it takes a very long time to have an orgasm or there will be none at all. I read all the posts of people who have been on this medication long & short term and the horrible withdrawals they are experiencing. I figured I would try to start weaning off. I was taking 10 mg a day. For over 2 weeks I have been taking only 3/4 of that pill, which I will continue to do for 2 more weeks. The first two weeks I was fine, now I am a little dizzy, light headed, & spacey. I also have fatigue & body aches. I will not taper to 1/2 a pill until I have been on 3/4 a pill for a month. Then I will take 1/2 a pill for a month & then 1/4 pill for a month, then maybe even an 1/8, depending on how I feel. It seems like you could be fine with a dosage decrease for the first 2 weeks, then the withdrawal hits you, so then you need another 2 weeks to combat that, so your body adjusts to the smaller dosage. I don't want to lower my dosage until my body adjusts to the new dosage. I will update this post next week.

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I found this article about successfully weaning off Lexapro. It involves as I mentioned weaning off very slow. This person also offers coping methods to deal with anxiety and depression. I have been seeing a therapist who is helping me work through my anxiety and learn to face my fears. Anxiety and panic are fears. There is usually a trigger and therapy has been helping me to look at my anxiety as a warning and not a fear. This link is for the website: voices.yahoo.com/quitting-lexapro-made-easy-11991123.html. It's not too lengthy. Just a good page of reading. My best to all!

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I am updating my post from last week. I was taking Lexapro, 10 mg a day for about 5 months. Since Feb. 18. 2014 I cut my dose down to 3/4 of that 10 mg pill. The first 2 weeks I was fine, week 3, I had headaches, fatigue, light headedness, sweats, a little dizzy, body aches & funny feeling in my head. I am on week 4 now and most of those symptoms have subsided a lot. I still have some of the symptoms, but it's at the point I don't notice them that much when I'm busy. If I think about it, I feel a little funny in my head. I think weaning off very slowly is the answer. I am hearing too many horror stories about people doing this cold turkey. I know a lot of people are anxious to get off this medication, because of weight gain etc. but just be patient, you'll get there.

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I had started to decrease the lexapro about 3 weeks ago. I began by taking only one half of a 20mg. tablet for about 4 days, then one fourth for about 4 days. After that, none. For about a week everything was fine. Then one morning I threw up. Following that and at the beginning of no lexapro I experienced brain zaps. If you have these you know what I mean. If the light was too bright, I experienced more zaps. Extra movement of my head icreased the zaps.
I mentioned to my co-workers about the zaps, not about stopping the lexapro. This was personal to me. Anyway, one suggested taking a med for motion sickness. The head zaps, also seemed as a swimming head. To make a long story short I did take a med for motion sickness. To my delight it worked. Only a couple of mini zaps occurred after taking the motion sickness meds.

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