anybody else have horrible withdrawal from anti-depressants? (quit smoking, refill, trigger)

[cmacf1]

A few weeks ago, I was almostout of my anti-depressants (combination of Lexapro and Wellbutrin) and I decided I felt great, so why not just not refill the prescription? So, I just stopped taking them. About 2 weeks later, I started getting these weird dizzy spells that are hard to describe. It felt like I was having little electrical explosions in my head 1) whenever I moved my head, 2) whenever somebody moved too quickly near me and 3)whenever there was a loud noise. Since I have 2 young kids (4 and 6,) noise and lots of movement goes with that territory AND I work in a preschool so I was dealing with even more of that all day long as well. The only thing that made me feel ok was being absolutely still in a cool room with no noise at all. I was miserable and getting more miserable as every day passed. Since so much time had passed since I quit the anti-depressants, it didn't even occur to me that they might be the culprit.

Last Friday night, feeling sure I was going to die any moment from a tumor or some strange neurological condition, I read somewhere that somebody had similar sensations in their head when they came off anti-depressants cold-turkey. Fortunately, there were a few of each of the drugs left, so I took them. Within 6 hours, I was totally back to normal.

Has anybody else had this experience? I was pretty much totally debilitated for several days because of this. Ten years ago, I went through a similar thing with the same symptoms and my doctor put me through weeks of tests and found nothing. THen it went away gradually. Nobody ever thought to ask if I'd come off anti-depressants then (I had, at the urging of another doctor.)

My suggestion is that if you're coming off anti-depressants, listen to you doctor when they say to taper off. They really mean it!! I was stupid and just stopped cold-turkey (which is how I quit smoking.)

[Modena04]

Paxil withdrawl has been hell for me. It has been 3 months since I quit/tapered off. My Doctor said Paxil has a trigger that will create new anxiety symptoms when quitting it

[skhimmelreich]

There are very few antidep. that you can quit cold turkey. You need to ween to avoid withdrawal symptoms. You are not alone in those. I have had some symptoms(fairly minor) even when I have weened, can only imagine how bad it would have been if I just stopped. Good luck!