Posted by lil' jimi on May 19, 2003, at 10:57:33
In reply to Re: side effects :(, posted by dizzy lizzy on May 19, 2003, at 9:53:26
hi liz,
sorry to hear you are suffering the dizzies there:
> Does anyone know about side effects when coming off Lexapro altogether. I been off for about 2 weeks after being on just 5mg for a long ime. I'm so dizzy all the time. Does anyone know how long this will last?
first, let me emphasize how little i actually know about your situation and encourage you to contact your doctor about your symptoms to see what he/she says, suggests ....
after all, somebody put you on lexapro; they should help you get off of it or at least offer warning(s) about, and support for, how to quit....
well, they should have anyway.(that's going to be my new disclaimer here..... we want to have these doctors earn their money! Heh!)
that said (and i do mean it), now i may offer a few (very few) suggestions:
try drinking more water and/or that electrolyte-balancing sports drink stuff .... besides fighting dehydration, it is helpful to give your electrolytes support during a transition to or from an SSRI like lex.... generally, pushing fluids should benefit your intersynaptic environment and help you to metabolize residual lexapro from your system.
suggestion numero two-oh:
while checking in with your doc, ask if it might help you to use some of those scopolamine-based transdermal patches to help control your temporary vertigo .... definitely want to get your doctor's feedback on this one because we never know what drug interactions might be possible ..... of course checking with your pharmacist is a smart move here too ... doing both gets us more of that confirming validation that we can all use as much of as we can get.suggestion tres:
although with just 5mg to start with, this approach would be uncommon, but you might ask your doc about what is called "titrating down", which i take to mean weaning us off our medication by decreasing the doseage by small progressive steps.
... so maybe you would take 2.5mg for a week and then 1.25mg for a week, et cetera ....i wouldn't think you should have much more of these vertigo side effects to go, after only being on 5mg and having been off for 2 weeks already ... i would be surprised if it lasted another week, but this thread on lexapro is, if anything, a testimony to the wide range of individual variation.... as has been said here many times, "Your Mileage May Vary"!
i hope that some or any of this helps (helped) .... good luck! and thank you for coming to our little lexapro party ... sorry you won't be staying .... hope you are doing better and everything works out for you ..... come on back by anytime and give us an update when you can!
TAKE CARE!!!! (hey, wayne?)
~ jim
poster:lil' jimi
thread:109458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030514/msgs/227630.html