Its well known here that I had my fight with anxiety over 3 years ago. Well this past January , I made the decision to lower my dose to begin the process of coming off. Started with 20 and went down to 10 mg for 3 months. Now been on 5mg since april. Now my doctor has me taking the 5mg pill once every other day.
I know the withdrawals and the side effects are different for everyone. Also my doctor is monitoring my progress.
What I’m asking is a general question. What worked for you all when you came off of the meds? Maybe supplements or activities.
Sitting down for extended amounts of time and hunching is bad for posture and illicit a cortisol response.
Good luck!
Seems like your in good shape man. Best of luck.
I've been going thru hell cutting my prescription xanax dose down even just a little bit.
Just afraid of the unknown when it comes with withdrawals.
(Celexa is probably more or less the same thing, though)
Anyway - congrats! It's a good step forward. No one wants to take meds their entire lives for this, so if you feel you're in a place now where you can move forward without it - great!
My best advice is to just stay active, do things you enjoy, and don't put unfair expectations on yourself.
Anxiety is a normal part of living - those without disorders still experience anxiety from time to time. So it's important to remember that your goal shouldn't be to never feel anxious again because it's simply not realistic.
Don't get discouraged if you have a rough day here or there. It's part of the process. It's how you respond that matters most.
When you feel yourself tensing up or feeling anxious, just loosen your body up and use the 4, 7, 8 breathing method. When you feel relaxed physically, you're much more likely to feel relaxed mentally. When we get anxious, we tend to tense up. We clench our muscles, fidget around, pace, grind our teeth, etc. Just let all of your limbs loose and breathe.
The more you try to "fight" anxiety, the more you fuel it.
The key is always to swim with the current rather than against it. You'll find you have a much easier time.
Best of luck.
It's unlikely that you'll have much of a withdrawal period. I wouldn't worry about it.
Good luck!
But anyways - you did it the right way so you shouldn't have too many side effects. Try to be active. Go outside. Worst thing you can do is just sit around and dwell.
But if you start feeling the anxiety creep back into your life - don't be afraid to try a different medication. I didn't like the side effects of Prozac (dick didn't work), so eventually i switched to Zoloft and i've had almost no side effects.
Yup, Vitamin D is an important natural depression and anxiety reliever
As someone who has battled anxiety my entire life, it's a bitch and props to you for not being ashamed of talking about it. I waa for a while.
and to anyone else in the same boat, you can do it as well. You too can fight this thing and i know you can do it. Why? because i did it. You are strong and capable of fighting it and getting back to a normal life. Just work at it.