Posted by Abductee Wannabe on September 29, 2003, at 19:02:16
Well, at the moment I am in the middle of a nasty celexa withdrawal that has been going on for weeks. I was on 20mg of celexa for the past year or so after being at 40mg for a few months, and then decided to taper off, going to 10mg for a week, then 5 mg for a week, then 2.5mg for a week (yes I got the liquid form of Celexa for this), then off. The taper didn't help. SSRI discontinuaton syndrome symptoms are fairly well known so I won't bother listing them all here. The worst symptoms are the "brain zaps" and the suicidal urges and deep depression.
I am still taking klonopin. I have stopped taking wellbutrin for the moment in an attempt to reduce the anxiety the withdrawal is generating. Stopping the wellbutrin has had no noticeable effect one way or the other though.
The only interesting thing about this withdrawal is that now that I am getting to experience the infamous "brain zaps," waves of dizziness, disorientation and weird sense of unreality when I turn my head, etc. I recognize them: these are exactly the type of feelings I would get during a bad episode of social phobia, before I started taking klonopin.
I find it interesting that others only experience this during a ssri withdrawal. This was pretty much my normal state under any kind of stressful social situation before klonopin! So if you have had withdrawal "brain zaps," imagine having them every time you made eye contact with someone and you know what my world has been for the last 15 years or so until Klonopin.
Anyway, with nothing better to do I was doing some net research on discontinuation syndrome and I came across some references to the effect that it was caused, not by low serotonin levels, but by an anticholinergic rebound. I don't understand this, since I have taken imipramine in the past and know what anticholinergic symptoms (dry mouth, night terrors, constipation, etc.) feel like and they are nothing like ssri discontinuation syndrome symptoms. But anyway...
Some sites suggessted taking choline and B vitamins could be of help in helping the brain re-establish a healthy level of acetylcholine.
Well, most B vitamins don't have much choline at all (50 or 100 mg, in the form of choline bitartrate, and I am not a big fan of diarrhea) so I looked for something purer. I could not find any choline chloride liquid around here but I did find a "choline cocktail" powder made by Twinlab which has a bunch of ingredients including 1500mg of Choline Dihydrate Citrate per dose. As per the instructions on the bottle I have been taking two doses (the powder makes an orange drink) daily.
After 5 days of this, I can report it has had no beneficial effect whatsoever.
poster:Abductee Wannabe
thread:264315
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030928/msgs/264315.html