I have been on citalopram for 8 years then put on sertaline for 2. I was advised by my doctor to half my 100 mg dose 2 months ago. I'm still on the 50mg and have been suffering on and off from extreme anxiety, panic attacks, mild anxiety, dizziness, electric shocks, bouts of crying, heart palpitations. These symptoms change every few days and I can can have a few good days. I'm currently signed off work. I worried about going back up as been on this does for 2 months. Just want to know how long it will last. And then I can start the 10% tapering. Doctors don't understand or help. I am extremely lucky to have such a supportive husband and family.
Thank you for reading x
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This is the reply I got from the lovely betsy
★5
betsy0603 emily81526 about 14 hours ago
Hi Emily,
I'm sorry you are suffering so much from that 50% cut your doctor had you do! I wish they would get educated on these matters but they are in denial! Ok, so your nervous system is in chaos from such a big cut and I really can't tell you how long this will go on for. The way tapering should be done is as you now know to make small cuts that the nervous system hardly registeres, and then letting the system get used to that new level before making another cut. The recommendation is 10% of the previous dose every four weeks, sometimes even 6 weeks. It is very individual with some people finding they can cut a little more often, such as 3 weeks, while other may only be able to handle 5% cuts. It's a harm-reduction plan with the aim being to keep you functional and comfortable as you come off.
You are still in the time frame where an updose would alleviate your suffering, but you wouldn't want to go all the way back up to 100 mg because your system has done some healing.
My recommendation is to go to the forum where the 10% thread came from and sign on there, because the mods know far more than me about how much of an updose to do. What I can say is that this 50% cut could cause reverberations for months to come since you were on this med for a long time and your system is very unhappy right now and being slow to adapt back. The brain and nervous system actually change physiologically in the presence of that 100 mg for all that time, integrating the drug's action into the operation. Now it is freaking out trying to figure out what to do now that half the drug is gone!
Most folks resist the idea of reinstating part of the dose because they don't want to go backwards, but this is probably your best bet, followed by stabilization and then resuming a very slow taper. So, see the 10% topic in this thread and sign on over there; they'll help you if you havne't made your way there, yet.
