My Accidental Victory Over Depression

I was first diagnosed with depression at around the age of 23. Prior to that, I had exhibited all of the symptoms beginning at 17 years old, at the time of my father's unexpected death. That began my more than 32 year history with various medications for the treatment of anxiety and depression. I went through most of the "old" drugs, like Valium, Doxepin, Meprobamate and many others. Most recently, in the past five years or so I have been using various Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) medications. SSRIs, unlike the old depressions treatments, really work well at alleviating many of the symptoms of depression. However, what most physicians may not know or do not communicate to their patients is the problems encountered when a patient tries to discontinue the medication. I ran into this with my own physician, when I expressed a desire to taper off of Effexor XR. I had been reading about many of the problems others have had with discontinuing SSRI treatment. It even has a name. SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome. If you Google it, you'll find hours of reading about symptoms SSRI users have encountered while trying to get off of this class of drugs. These are not drug company sponsored web sites, these are real people experiencing real problems with SSRI medications. Some of the withdrawal symptoms are bizarre and frightening. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, quite by accident, I found myself in a situation where I felt I could finally successfully discontinue SSRI treatment.

One of the unfortunate side effects of SSRI use is weight gain. I found myself in a position where I had to make a choice of buying a new wardrobe, or going on a diet. I chose to go on the Atkins Diet, since I liked the idea that I could possibly lose weight AND eat at the same time. I started the diet immediately with the induction phase, which limits you to no more than 20 carbohydrates per day. By it's design, the induction phase of the diet essentially eliminates all flour, sugars, both natural and refined, and milk. You also add lots of greens and proteins to your diet. About the second week into the diet, along with losing weight, I experienced an increase in energy and motivation that I can only describe as surprising. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I am by nature a sedentary person. But I found that I couldn't keep still. I would get up in the morning looking forward to what I could accomplish during the course of the day. Along with that, I was waking up refreshed and ready to go, instead of groggy and ready to go back to bed. I hadn't felt like this since I was 15 years old. As a result, I decided I would try once again to taper off of the Effexor, since I felt better than I had in a long time. I cut my dosage from 150 mg daily to every other day. I did this for 2 weeks. Then I did every third day and so on until I was off completely During that time, the withdrawal symptoms were intense. I experienced nausea, dizziness, upset stomach and a symptom that others have described as "brain shivers". Brain shivers is such a weird symptom that it almost defies description. It is most prominent when you turn your head, and it feels like your brain is loose in your skull and it takes a few seconds to catch up. At times it also feels similar to an electric shock. It is this withdrawal symptom than concerned me the most and motivated me to continue my quest to get off of SSRIs. I had read where others who experienced this bizarre symptom found some relief by taking Benedryl, so I bought some and took it only when the symptoms were most intense. It did take the edge off of the withdrawal and made the symptoms manageable. I also started taking a good multivitamin and added a twice daily dose of 400 mg of SAMe along with 1200 mg of fish oil. Now prior to this attempt, I've tried unsuccessfully many times to taper off of SSRIs. If I could get through the withdrawal, which is a major accomplishment in itself, the underlying depression and anxiety would return almost immediately. Not this time. Once I got through the month long process of withdrawal, I felt good. This time, even during the withdrawal phase, the symptoms were tolerable and I still had a considerable amount of energy and motivation. I now feel better than I have in 32 or so years, and I believe I have won a major victory in my lifelong battle with depression and anxiety. I'm not saying my depression symptoms won't return at some point, but I believe that I have gained valuable knowledge of how to deal with the symptoms without having to go back on SSRIs.

What's the difference this time? I'm no longer eating any sugar, flour or milk. Without going into a lot of detail here, it is suspected that refined sugars and grains have a negative effect on some people who suffer from depression. It is also suspected that people who suffer from depression may be deficient in many of the B vitamins. Also, there is a good deal of clinical evidence that SAMe relieves depression symptoms in many people. It has been one of the leading treatments prescribed in Europe for many years with good success. Now I know that anxiety and depression if a very complex disease, and I know that everyone's genetic make up is different. What works for one may not work for another. What I wanted to achieve in this article is to let people know the dangers of SSRIs and that there are other alternatives out there that work. I have provided links to much of the information I used, in the hopes that someone else will find it helpful.

http://heartspring.net/depression_symptoms.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor

http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Depression/treatment/antidepressants/article_withdrawl.asp

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/11/181448/245http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/11/181448/245

http://depression.about.com/cs/venlafaxine/a/brainshivers.htm

http://depression.about.com/od/copingskills/tp/withdrawal.htm

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20060801/449.html