[HN Gopher] In SSRI withdrawal, brain zaps go from overlooked sy...
___________________________________________________________________
In SSRI withdrawal, brain zaps go from overlooked symptom to center
stage (2023)
Author : RicoElectrico
Score : 61 points
Date : 2024-10-11 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.psychiatrist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.psychiatrist.com)
| wil421 wrote:
| One of the worst experiences of my life was taking an SSRI, I was
| just starting and somehow my prescription was for 2 grams instead
| of 200mg, due to a mistake. Worst experience ever, brain zaps and
| something else I've never felt before. Once I figured out the
| mistake I stopped taking it.
|
| Luckily I was just a teen going through teen things and didn't
| really need anything, just a little time.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Damn, 2 grams? I had no idea the dose could get that high.
| kristianp wrote:
| That sounds odd. Were you taking 20 tablets at a time?
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| 2,000 mg is likely an unsafe dose of any SSRI. In the past I
| was prescribed one and the dosage was 20 mg and even that made
| me feel a little bit strange and uneasy for the first few days
| until my body adjusted to it. Sorry you went through that.
| tombert wrote:
| I did Prozac for about two months earlier this year, a
| relatively light baby dose.
|
| It was utterly terrible. I couldn't think about anything,
| basically zero focus on anything that took more than a minute
| of attention span, I felt completely detached from anything
| resembling an emotion, and I also seemed to completely lose my
| ability to feel hungry or thirsty, so there would be entire
| days where I would forget to eat or drink anything, probably
| making all the other symptoms worse.
|
| They transitioned me to Pristiq, which has been considerably
| less horrible, though not terribly effective either. I am
| actually undergoing TMS now.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| If you're not responding well to SSRI/SNRI drugs, you could
| give bupropion (Welbutrin) a try. Just ask for a small dose
| at first. You may even be able to take them together with
| Pristiq. It's worth a discussion with your care provider.
| mmsc wrote:
| (2013)
| dang wrote:
| Added above. Thanks!
| alaithea wrote:
| But the article says it was published in 2023.
| mmsc wrote:
| Sorry that was a brain zap. Indeed 2023:(
| dang wrote:
| Fixed. Thanks!
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I was lucky when I was taking Sertraline. Because I was only
| sleepy for the first two-three days and besides that I had no
| side effect. Only thing I noticed from that period is that it was
| genuinely harder for be to be in a very negative mood - like my
| mental state went from a range of 5 to -8 to 5 to -5.
| duncancarroll wrote:
| I started getting these post-Covid, but I'm not on any SSRIs. It
| feels like your brain does a "degauss" thing like the old CRT
| monitors; it's not fun.
|
| There's some evidence to show that long Covid is connected with
| low serum serotonin, and the zaps make me wonder if it's
| connected to cerebral serotonin as well, since I imagine it's the
| sudden reduction that causes the zaps:
| https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)01034-6
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Wow, now that's an interesting one! You described the feeling
| perfectly though, it's exactly like that. I wonder what would
| happen if you took an SSRI...
| mmsc wrote:
| >Physicians were initially unaware or dismissive of brain zaps
| due to limited information and a focus on downplaying the
| addictive nature of antidepressants.
|
| I don't know why. It's a pretty well-known effect of fucking with
| your serotonin levels. Someone I know took about 4g of MDMA over
| a 4-day period and what followed was about 2 weeks of these
| "brain zaps", sleep paralysis with demons in the room (feeling
| like you are laying in bed with a demon coming towards you but
| you physically cannot move). This stuff has been known about for
| decades but unable to be researched due to the US' drug laws.
| Those brain zaps are apparently like just doing whatever you're
| doing, when BAM, it feels like an electric shock has gone through
| your head into the back of your eyes.
| camgunz wrote:
| 80% of everything is crap, including psychiatrists, plus if you
| take away SSRIs that's a huge chunk of their business. Upton
| Sinclair and all that.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| I've gotten them from taking SNRIs, so I wonder if
| norepinephrine is involved somehow, or maybe SNRIs are not
| actually that selective.
| larve wrote:
| got them after weaning of SNRIs, for about 1-2 years I had
| random brain zaps. Not that big of a deal per se, but
| definitely annoying.
| jrflowers wrote:
| The S in SNRI stands for Serotonin, not Selective.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Wow, I did not know that. Good to know.
| asimovfan wrote:
| i used to get zaps when my body tried to feel good on normal
| occasions after 'fucking with my seratonin levels'. I remember
| i used to get them when I was reading something i found clever
| or funny, chugging cold water, biking etc.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Finally! Someone else with this. Reading Crime and Punishment
| gives me this feeling, I get zaps and it kinda hurts my brain
| to read. Only happened with that novel and some Shakespeare.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| So far only a certain episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm have
| given me this
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| > Someone I know took about 4g of MDMA over a 4-day period
|
| For anyone reading who's unfamiliar, this is a ridiculous dose
| of MDMA. A normal recreational dose would be 0.1g-0.2g once
| every few months. (I have no idea whether this dose is safe or
| not, just saying it's a common one for people to take.)
|
| A bad thing about MDMA is that you become tolerant to it very
| quickly, so people who do it too regularly need to take more
| and more over time to feel the effects. That's probably what
| happened to the parent comment's friend.
| morkalork wrote:
| I've seen someone do 1g over the course of a long evening but
| they were a seasoned user. That's the kind of dose that would
| send a average sized teenage girl to a hospital in
| convulsions. 4g over 4 days? It's not even about the
| tolerance at that point, by days 3/4 do you even have any
| serotonin left for it to be any fun?
| marknutter wrote:
| > sleep paralysis with demons in the room (feeling like you are
| laying in bed with a demon coming towards you but you
| physically cannot move)
|
| This gave me literal chills when I read it because this exact
| thing happened to me for the same reason as your acquaintance
| (but far, far lower doses). I was prone to getting sleep
| paralysis anyways, but abusing MDMA resulted in the most
| terrifying experience of my life two nights in a row. Your
| description was spot on.. I felt the covers on my bed being
| pulled off of me by some demonic presence the first night, and
| the second night the same thing happened but that time I was
| lifted out of my bed and slowly dragged away. Felt like I was
| awake and perfectly conscious the entire time and I literally
| frozen with fear to the point where I couldn't speak. I stayed
| up the entire night after that for fear of it happening again.
| I also got terrible brain zaps for weeks afterwards, too.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| > Someone I know took about 4g of MDMA over a 4-day period
|
| I am all for freedom of drugs and people experiencing one of
| the most beautiful states of mind one can achieve, but 4g MDMA
| over 4 days is literally in the attempted brain-damage
| territory.
| survivedurcode wrote:
| I think there's more to it than just messing with serotonin.
|
| There's something about Sertraline (Zoloft) that seems to make
| it quite reliable at causing brain zaps. 3 people I've known
| who stopped Sertraline all experienced brain zaps. 1 of those
| people also talked about stopping Prozac (cold turkey) and
| Lexapro (4wk taper) and did not have the zaps, but a 4-month
| taper of Sertraline was not enough to avoid them.
|
| In fact in the article they recommend switching to Prozac and
| then tapering that, as a way to avoid the zaps.
| karim79 wrote:
| Waaaay back in 2011, I withdrew from SSRIs (particularly,
| Seroxat). I had moved countries, had run out of it, and bravely
| decided to stop altogether. Brain shocks kicked in a couple of
| days later. They were not painful but they were definitely
| unsettling. They lasted for most of a week.
|
| I then decided to stop altogether, which led to an overall
| improvement to my quality of life.
|
| I'm sure not everyone is like me, but boy oh boy I'm glad I
| stopped taking those.
| ryanianian wrote:
| Obligatory warning that SSRI withdrawals can be extremely
| dangerous.
|
| I was on Lexapro for a minute. It worked for a bit, but then I
| started to not care about anything. A certain amount of
| anxiety/emotional swing is important for my humanity, as I
| found out. I really wanted to get off that stuff. But my doctor
| insisted that I ween off of it by reducing my dosage over a
| period of 2 months. I'm glad I listened. I could acutely feel
| each reduction.
| metadaemon wrote:
| Same with SSNIs, I get brain zaps if I don't take my medication
| early enough in the day. It can come with nausea too, so missing
| a dose can potentially ruin my evening.
| alaithea wrote:
| Would love to read this, but the site is down.
|
| I weaned myself off of Sertraline and pursued OTC options just
| because the brain zaps and the yawns/drowsiness were so bad.
| Didn't matter what time of day I took it, didn't matter that the
| dosage was low. The brain zaps made me lose trust in my own
| faculties. These momentary, split-second losses of consciousness,
| where after each one, I'd have to spend another split-second
| reorienting myself to the environment, got way too disorienting.
| It also got worse the longer I was on it.
|
| Finally weaned myself off and use SAM-e instead. No perceivable
| side-effects there. For anyone who doesn't know, SAM-e is an OTC
| supplement in the U.S. but the same chemical compound as one of
| the front-line antidepressants in Europe.
| ebiester wrote:
| BTW, I had some major heart palpitations on SAM-e. It may have
| been tied to Vitamin B-12 but that was a hypothesis. Just make
| sure to talk with your doc.
| alaithea wrote:
| Thanks, my doc knows about it, but I get the feeling they
| don't know anything about it. I'll keep that in mind.
| alaithea wrote:
| Site's back up. Good info, but I felt nauseous by the end of
| the article.
|
| This was interesting:
|
| > Perhaps the most disconcerting feature of the zaps is the
| jumpy lateral eye movements. "People actually hear their eyes
| move when they move their eyes from left to right. They almost
| feel a faint 'whoosh' sound in their heads," Papp explained.
| "Sometimes, people feel as if the brain stops for a moment and
| reboots like a computer."
|
| I wouldn't say I could hear my eyes moving (!), but I
| definitely noticed that eye movements or a turn of the head
| could trigger a brain zap. That was one of the most disabling
| things, as it eventually led to a feeling of restricted freedom
| of movement and exploration.
| ianpenney wrote:
| Had a friend with this problem. Wanted to say this story hits
| home for me after many many years. I tried my best to help, don't
| want to say exactly how because I'm not qualified.
|
| But frankly the doctor who prescribed larger and larger doses of
| Venlafaxine shouldn't have been qualified either.
|
| It's a much more potent norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor than it
| is for serotonin. My understanding is by the time you get an
| effective dose you've got some collateral negative effects.
| 1attice wrote:
| I have recurrent severe depression and I credit serotonin-
| modulating antidepressants with saving my life several times.
|
| I generally found withdrawal from high dose SSRIs to be painful
| without tapering, but tapering made the withdrawal symptoms
| negligible.
|
| SNRIs (Venlafaxine specifically), by contrast, were a horror; I
| spent eight months with a microgram scale 'tailoring' capsules by
| tiny increments every week, and I still got well-nigh intolerable
| withdrawal symptoms.
| math_dandy wrote:
| I echo your experience. Effexor/Venlafaxine are absolute
| poison. I tapered off of it slowly over the last two months
| under doctor's supervision. The day after I took my last dose
| -- small thanks to the tapering -- I've had constant brain
| zaps, wobbly vision, horrible perpetual nausea, cold sweats,
| and inability to sleep more than an hour at a time. It's been
| two weeks so far of lying in a dark quiet room waiting for
| things to resolve so I can go back to my wife/kids/job/life.
| Still no noticeable improvement. On sick leave for the first
| time in my life.
| zahllos wrote:
| I can also confirm brain zaps both when I tapered down and if
| I missed a dose. It was unpleasant but I put up with it when
| reducing my dose. I changed from it because it caused
| insomnia as a side effect badly enough that it was worse than
| the problem.
|
| My understanding (which may be incorrect, not a doctor) is
| that you need a higher dose to achieve the N part of the
| SNRI. I wonder if this somehow linked to the experience. On
| lower doses of SSRIs I never had any such experiences.
| nixonpjoshua wrote:
| I would guess it has more to do with the serotonin,
| Atomoxetine has small S activity and large N activity and
| relatively it can be discontinued much easier than any of
| these other drugs.
| ifj382jfueo wrote:
| I was on venlafaxine for about 5 years and had always heard
| horror stories about the withdrawals. About 7 or 8 months ago I
| decided to ask my doctor to start tapering me off. Took about
| two weeks in total and the only side effect I had was when I
| would turn my head I could "feel" my brain moving around. It
| was a very strange sensation. I was on 150mg and then 75mg to
| nothing. I feel extremely fortunate I didn't have any of the
| issues most seem to have getting off the stuff.
| temporallobe wrote:
| Not an SSRI, but similar - I was on an SNRI (Cymbalta) for 6
| months coming out of a nearly fatal bout of asthma. Basically I
| was depressed because I was constantly scared of dying and still
| felt unable to breathe despite all objective tests indicating
| otherwise after successful treatment. Anyway, the Cymbalta worked
| and I felt great for the first 3 months, but then I slumped into
| the worst pit of depression and suicidal ideation hell I had ever
| experienced. Even my personality and sexual preferences changed.
| One day I decided to just quit it cold turkey, and for the next
| 2-3 weeks I had non-stop brain zaps. Eventually they stopped and
| I was back to normal. My doctor wanted me to continue and
| increase the dose, which would have been absolute insanity. I
| learned later that Cymbalta had a black box warning for suicidal
| ideation. Fun times.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| > I learned later that Cymbalta had a black box warning for
| suicidal ideation
|
| Most of the drugs that alter neurotransmitters (ADHD and
| depression meds, some seizure meds) will have a warning for
| suicidal ideation that may occur at some point of the treatment
| (usually early on). It's a balancing act between the treatment
| and the "illness" and has to be taken with caution.
|
| Almost every doctor or psychiatrist I've seen or my family
| members have seen usually start off too strong and in many
| cases will advise cutting cold turkey. I always ignore it and
| taper on slowly over for about a month and if I need to get off
| the meds, I taper off slowly over 1-2 months. I was on Zoloft
| for 10 years and I was able to successfully got off the drug
| with minimal side effects that way. Although there was
| definitely a short period of brain zaps near the end, it wasn't
| as bad as the usual kind I'd get if I forgot to take the meds
| for a couple of days.
|
| EDIT: If you use the taper off method, make sure to understand
| the half-life/how long it stays in your system.
| dekhn wrote:
| I described this to numerous doctors and none of them had any
| idea what I was talking about (around a decade ago, caused by
| Paxil). I'd accidentally go a day or two forgetting my pill, and
| not only would I get brain zaps, but a fair amount of depression-
| like symptoms.
|
| Then some papers came out and a few of the doctors knew what I
| was referring to but didn't consider them particularly important.
| Eventually, I was able to find a therapist who helped me adjust
| my meds to somethign that works better and is more tolerant of
| forgetting for a couple days.
| dang wrote:
| With psychiatrist.com and archive.org both being down right now,
| it looks like there's no way to read the article. I'm going to
| temporarily downweight this thread, with the intention of re-
| upping it when the domain comes back.
|
| If anyone wants to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com when this
| happens, that would be great!
| alaithea wrote:
| It's already back up.
| dang wrote:
| Fixed. Thanks!
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/iH2oy
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| I'm really very ADHD and ASD, n I got finally got mental health
| relief on bupropion, after going through a fair gamut of
| serotonin affecting medications. It affects dopamine and
| noradrenaline (norepinephrine).
|
| It only helps me truly at 600mg, which I started taking
| accidentally, and that's double the UK max, which used to be
| 600mg but was reduced as there's a mildly higher statistical
| likelihood of seizures as side-effect with that dose. Afair USA
| max is 450mg.
|
| If I take any less, the depression causing emotional
| dysregulation and intrusive/automatic thoughts
| (hypermentalisations) come back (n I'm an utter mess at
| baseline), though it's said/known that ND folk can more often
| have hypo or hyper reaction to certain chemicals.
|
| I read it can have an amplifying affect on other drugs in one's
| system, so could be a causal part of serotonin syndrome if
| another medication is being taken, but I can't find that paper
| again, which in part regarded someone who started it for smoking
| cessation and found, apparently, that it worked in combination
| with some serotonin based med to lift them out of depression,
| though pinch of salt on the causality and reality of all that.
|
| It's also for ADHD, but it doesn't (really) help my attention or
| memory, though my psychiatrist noted that having space in the
| mind from not having bad thoughts certainly helps better
| attention..
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Bupropion + SSRI is a fairly common combination for treating
| depression! Back in the day I think people used to start on an
| SSRI alone and then would add bupropion if they needed an extra
| kick, but it may be more common now to start with the bupropion
| (not sure).
|
| And re. serotonin syndrome, I can anecdotally say that I
| accidentally gave myself mild SS by mixing imipramine,
| ondansetron, and NyQuil. I suspect that also being on bupropion
| at the time is what put me over the edge, but it's hard to say;
| even without the bupropion it may have been a nasty combo. Live
| and learn!
| wincy wrote:
| Alternatively, as someone with severe ADHD, bupropion at the
| lowest dose gave me a psychotic episode where I started hearing
| things. Felt like I'd been dosed with schizophrenia pills. The
| razor blades told me to give them a look see. I threw them
| behind my fridge to keep them away. I went to my mom's house,
| crawled in bed and cried for 24 hours straight. I've never had
| anything remotely like that before or since. This was nearly
| twenty years ago. Absolute worst day of my life.
|
| My daughter had a pharmacogenetic screening test a few years
| ago and I'm not sure what this means exactly, but they give you
| a number with 1 being baseline expected response (this was
| awhile ago) and bupropion was a 9.
|
| I'm extremely cautious about any sort of medication for me and
| my children because of this episode.
| symlinkk wrote:
| Doctors have no clue how the brain works, so any medicine they
| offer that effects the brain is useless at best and dangerous at
| worst. The only helpful psych drugs are the ones they won't give
| you - Xanax, Adderall. If something is addictive, that means it
| actually works.
| dathery wrote:
| How does lack of understanding of the mechanism by which
| something works imply that it is useless at best? I do not
| think that follows and can think of many counterexamples.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| "Helpful" is relative. I had to get off of Adderall due to bad
| side effects like hair loss on my scalp/body, and increase in
| prostate/urinary infections (turns out stimulants have a link
| to this - Vyvanse also caused the same side effects for me,
| it's how we found out).
| kristianp wrote:
| This is distinct from zaps felt in the body, which is quite
| common, at least for Sertraline withdrawal. I wasn't sleeping
| well on Sertraline, so am trying Mirtazapine instead. Sleeping
| better which may translate to having better alertness during the
| day.
| throwaway918299 wrote:
| I'm lucky. I was forced to go cold turkey after 6 years on SSRIs.
|
| Disclaimer: NEVER DO THIS WITHOUT PROFESSIONAL SUPERVISION
|
| I had about 2 weeks of extreme euphoria and insomnia. Then I was
| suicidal for about a month. Then about 8 months of rebound
| depressive symptoms on and off. Never had a single "brain zap"
| though I was told to expect them.
|
| I will never take that garbage ever again.
|
| Learning to cope with depression and having a good support system
| beats numbing my brain to zombie mode any day.
|
| Not medical advice. Just my personal anecdote.
| pajeets wrote:
| I recently had this discussion with a cousin who is depressed and
| seeking SSRI
|
| I brought up Psilocybin mushrooms and microdosing but ultimately
| it was written off as "voodoo" and "not enough data" aka
| "placebo"
|
| I'm convinced that modern science in the West is largely
| ideological driven. I cannot explain the number of times the
| arguments I've had with coworkers with acupuncture. When you tell
| them it temporarily relieves pain and even helps in the long term
| in some cases, they are very hostile as if I have criticized a
| religious figure.
| ok_dad wrote:
| It's funny too, because research doctors have been finding
| systems in the body that we didn't know about until very
| recently. I have no doubt that there are treatments like
| acupuncture that interact with these or other systems that
| we're currently unaware of. Heck, even gut bacteria affects the
| brain!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-11 23:00 UTC)