Help Transitioning Off SSRIs

[walker_in_aus]

Hi Everyone,

I have a friend who has finally hit rock bottom with western medicine (I'm so happy she is finally wanting to look elsewhere, but also ******* angry on how much she is suffering). She has REALLY bad anxiety, despite being on SSRIs and SNRIs for many years, surprise surprise. She also has MS, not bad yet, only relapses every few years.

I want to help her but obviously I am not qualified and extremely frightened of making her worse, which is hard to imagine at this point because she is so so stressed and sad. Instinctively, she can only drink milkshakes, but she has still lost 6kgs in two weeks from lack of eating. She's not underweight yet but obviously in a bad state.

I'm going to direct her to my health practitioner but in the meantime has anyone got any advice on safely getting off SSRIs? The last time I did it, I took a week off and went to a beachhouse with my mother to keep an eye on me because of previous bad experiences of hysteria and complete body weakness.

I know since "peating" my anxiety has just evaporated and I want her to feel the same.

 

[Greg says]

Ray Peats email response to getting off antidepressant use.

[Weaning off anti-depressants] Keeping the metabolic rate and cholesterol up is important, so that repair and adaptation will be quick. Progesterone reduces pain and anxiety, and pregnenolone would be the most convenient supplement for men, but it's hard to find products without allergens. Combining progesterone and DHEA or testosterone can produce the stabilizing effect without suppressing the libido. Benadryl and cyproheptadine are probably both helpful. Withdrawal from morphine and SSRIs and migraine involve some similar processes.

I knew someone who had been addicted to morphine and alcohol for 30 years, who was drinking quarts of beer and wine daily when he didn't have morphine, who had an opportunity for a good job if he could get sober. Starting progesterone at bedtime (and stopping the wine), he said it was the first time he didn't have a hangover in the morning. He used enough progesterone to neuter most people, but said it didn't affect his sex function; he was taking a lot of Cytomel and magnesium, but wasn't drunk again as long as I knew him, and his general health improved.

It depends on how much pregnenolone you can assimilate. People would use progesterone in amounts needed to stop the withdrawal symptoms, but pregnenolone doesn't have the powerful effects of progesterone, even in multi-gram quantities, so it's just a matter of seeing what it can do. As I understand the mechanism (migraine, withdrawal, etc.), estrogen-histamine-serotonin rise on a background of hypothyroid liver malfunction, cytomel (and/or sugar, selenium, B vitamins) allows the liver and other detoxifying systems to lower them, and the lower they are, the less progesterone or pregnenolone it takes to block the symptoms.

 

[walker_in_aus]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for that, heaps of info for me to absorb. She doesn't drink but she smokes ALOT of pot as coping mechanism. Not ideal but the girl is suffering so much, you do what you can.

She's also got an Implanon (implanted birth control) which I'm also convincing her to remove.

She's such a sweet person. Honestly I need to take some paracetemol to reduce my empathy (recent study showing tylenol kills empathy YAY FOR PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES) because my heart is breaking. I think I'll just direct her to change to peat style of diet and direct her to my genius practitioner for the rest. She is not in a state to absorb and understand new info so rapidly.

 

[Cymatic]

In my opinion, not enough "wean" time is given for tapering off these psych drugs. Honestly, I'd double the standard time given and hopefully reduce or elimate some discontinuation effects.