Posted by pellmell on June 19, 2004, at 13:26:52
In reply to Re: weird dizziness ANYONE??? » hugo, posted by Notaliseliz on June 15, 2004, at 12:27:47
> Went to my doc today and he said the SSRI (called entact here) i was taking shouldn't cause withdrawl symptoms but then suggested I take half a pill to see what happens. I feel alot better today than I did yesterday so I don't know if I'll just go with the flow or not.
You're taking escitalopram (branded Lexapro in the States). I agree with Hugo -- what you're feeling sounds a whole lot like SSRI withdrawal. I've gone through it probably half a dozen times, so I'm pretty familiar with the symptoms. (Fortunately I've never gotten the "electric zaps" some people describe...)I imagine your brain started, uh.. wobbling.. somewhat less than a week after quitting Entact? Maybe like four or five days after your last pill? Escitalopram has a half-life of ~30 hours (take a peek here:
http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/lexapro_cp.htm ), so from my quasi-informed knowledge of pharmacokinetics and the like, that would make more sense: enough of the drug would've left your system to cause withdrawal by about then.For what it's worth, I've even experienced mild SSRI withdrawal coming off of *Prozac*, which doesn't happen to most people 'cause it gets eliminated from your body so gradually (it has a half life of 4-6 days).
So yeah. Not all docs are clued-in about the prevalence of SSRI withdrawal. If I were you, I'd keep taking a small amount of Entact (half a pill or less) whenever the "wobbling" gets bad. It might take a while, but eventually it'll go away.
Good luck &c.,
-pm
poster:pellmell
thread:356598
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040614/msgs/358106.html