Weaning off of Lexapro.
By red1976
@red1976 (92)
United States
February 7, 2007 11:57am CST
My Doctor placed me on Lexapro to deal with a lot of stress in my life at the time. He wants to wean me off of it in March. Has anyone ever gone through this? What can I expect?
4 responses
@chadd_atl (288)
• United States
21 Feb 07
Don't panic, Red. Follow your doctor's advice on the best method of weaning off of it. Usually, they will have you cut your dose in half for a week and the half again the next week until you come completely off of it. I've had patients do it many times and they come through it or they switch to a lower dose of another SSRI like Paxil.
@PacShady (32)
• Australia
21 May 07
Whatever you do, do NOT go off escitalopram cold turkey, especially from a high dose! I made that mistake, dropping from 40mg/day to nothing, and suffered hard core from SSRI discontinuation syndrome. It felt like my brain was being electrocuted and I had vertigo and was moody for about a week before I went back to my doctor and got something else to help settle the symptoms down. If you wean yourself off, it should be no problem, just don't stop them altogether!
@rarrimalion (674)
• United States
21 Feb 07
I agree, weaning off of it is hell at first. I was forced to go off of it because of insurance reasons. It was horrible...I wasreally moody and I would get "electrical pulses" through my body. I heard lexapro is one of the hardest to come off of. I actually ended up getting back on it before I was done weaning because I couldnt take the withdrawls. My insurance doesn't pay for it but the nurse at my dr's office gave me ~7 months worth of free samples. Not sure what I'm going to do when those run out. Good luck! It's good that your're working with your dr to wean yourself off cuz I definatly wouldn't reccomend doing it alone!
@rarrimalion (674)
• United States
21 Feb 07
I agree, weaning off of it is hell at first. I was forced to go off of it because of insurance reasons. It was horrible...I wasreally moody and I would get "electrical pulses" through my body. I heard lexapro is one of the hardest to come off of. I actually ended up getting back on it before I was done weaning because I couldnt take the withdrawls. My insurance doesn't pay for it but the nurse at my dr's office gave me ~7 months worth of free samples. Not sure what I'm going to do when those run out. Good luck! It's good that your're working with your dr to wean yourself off cuz I definatly wouldn't reccomend doing it alone!
