Antidepressant discontinuation and Gad diagnosis.

[davietich]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone who has been diagnosed with GAD had previously come off an antidepressant

( for depression) and suffered bad withdrawal symptoms which led to a GAD diagnosis - which happened to me!

I had tried to convince my Doctor and Pschyciatrist that is was withdrawal but none of them believed me, now with the recent Royal College of Pschyciatrist's changing thier advice on antidepressants and admitting discontinuation can be severe and long lasting I am interested in anyone's views and experience's of this recently admitted phenomena. I have been suffering horrible Anxiety since I came off an AD far too quickly & was then diagnosed with GAD - I am currently on Venlafaxine and Diazepam.

Just to add that I was on various AD's over the last 30 years and can remember after coming off them each time I was fine until out of the blue - "Bam" I was hit with weird 'I can't carry on working' symptoms around a month or two after stopping them which I am now thinking was "discontinuation syndrome".

Just reaching out to all you fellow sufferers out there for opinions as I now feel my life was ruined by wrong diagnosis and over prescribing of AD's.

I wish you all the very best - health and happiness if you can find it & the strength to carry on day to day if not.

Good luck in your journey.

Davie

[lillyofthevalley37]

Hi I haven't been on AD but I just wanted to say that the rise in anxiety and panic attacks seem to have escalated and come out of nowhere

Especially panic attacks there was an excellent programme on channel 4 last year about young people on AD and the side effects one young guy developed panic attacks after coming off AD and I am sure this won't be an isolated case

[4fishylady]

With my diagnosis of MS my Neuro put me on duloxetine (Cymbalta) which I took for a couple of years. I did not like having no emotions what ever and be sexually numb, so I began weaning myself off of it ever so slowly over a very long period of time. When I got down to just a few of the little pellets a day, I finally quit. Problems came when I stopped. I went through the worst depression ever, even suicidal. I felt I was having a nervous breakdown and had to call my Neuro asking for help. He agreed to put me on Lexapro but it takes at least 3 weeks for that to take effect, so I had to ask for something more to get me through. He gave me Xanax to take along with the Lexapro and that worked. I had been on Lexapro 2x's previously and come off of it with no bad side effects, but this one was way different! I learned later that Cymbalta had been made to have the patient take it forever!!!! I am now not on any anti depressant. I take 1/2 of a .5 mg xanax only at bedtime. Stick with your program for now if it is working for you. I went through the most horrible time of my life and lived through it, so can you. Just be sure to ask for the help you need if this amount of meds is not working for you.