Mirtazapine (Remeron) Withdrawal Experience

Treatment and medication
1

Hey everyone. I wanted to come on here and post periodically as I discontinue Mirtazapine. I’ve read a lot of horror stories on a lot of forums and I put off discontinuation for a long time because of that. This thread will provide you guys with some helpful info hopefully without scaring y’all from quitting.

A little bit of background first to let you know where I’m coming from. 6 years ago I had a health scare and it set off this chain reaction of events within me that I guess had just been waiting to surface. I’ve been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Panic Disorder. Mental affliction runs in my family. I thought I was one of the lucky ones that was spared from the mental illness, but nope… my symptoms decided to wait to rear their ugly head until I was in my 30s. Anyway, I tried just about every SSRI under the sun, and the Mirtazapine was the only thing my body would really tolerate. Though I never really felt like it did much for my mood, it helped with some of the severe anxiety symptoms I had. The major downside is it killed my creativity. I was a graphic artist in the music industry at the time all of this started, and unfortunately it seems my anxiety and creativity come from the same place in my brain. The Mirtazapine ruined my career because my creative spark absolutely tanked after I’d been on this stuff for a while. I’ve always been on the 15mg btw. Anything more and it made my back hurt so bad I couldn’t get out of bed.

So flash forward and I’ve been on this medication for 6 years. I’ve never felt like it’s been all that terribly beneficial, and really I wanted to ditch this stuff a long time ago to prevent potential long-term issues from taking it for so long. Diabetes, liver and kidney issues. I really don’t want to have to deal with any of that. I tried to drop this several times cold turkey. I always would get hit with shakes, hot flashes, sweats, and dizziness after about 5 days, then I’d promptly start taking it again. Then I adopted a new strategy. It’s not quite a traditional taper. Rather than taking smaller doses over time I started spacing my doses out further and further until I just didn’t take anymore. I did this over several weeks. Now I’ve been medication free for going on 5 weeks. For the most part, my symptoms have been mild. A little dizziness here and there. Occasional mild hot flash or sweating.

Starting in week 4 I started having some issues with my sinuses and dealing with histamines. I read that this drug has an antihistamine effect, and so after a little while being off of it your body begins to have trouble with histamines. I think this could account for a lot of the symptoms people continue to have after long periods of time being med free. Nausea, which I’ve started to get more frequently, because so many foods contain histamines. Then there’s the cold or flu like symptoms. I just got over a sore throat and runny nose that I’ve had for a week. I’ve also had a few headaches which is unusual for me. I can count on one hand the number of headaches I’ve had in the past several years.

So that’s the bad news. The good news is none of the symptoms I’ve experienced since doing my taper have been overwhelming. I’ve had no resurgence of panic or anxiety. I don’t feel any different at all in regards to mood and anxiety level. My creativity hasn’t really come roaring back, but I’m still hopeful. All in all, this hasn’t been nearly as bad as I’d anticipated. Some mild cold like symptoms, a few digestive issues, and the occasional spacey feeling or hot flash. A friend gave me some CBD oil that I’m going to try to ease some of the symptoms and I’ll let you all know if that helps at all. Bottom line, don’t fear coming off this drug. If you and your doc feel like it’s time, devise a taper strategy and tackle it head on. Know there’ll be some discomfort involved, but at least in my experience it hasn’t been anything earth shattering. I can get through my days well enough. I’ve been going through all of this with a new job and new baby, btw. So my anxiety should be off the chain, but it hasn’t been. Y’all have faith, be strong… take solace in knowing that folks have made it to the other side of this thing after long term use. It can be done, and you can do it :slight_smile:

2

Hi Jansell84

Good to know you are fighting it. Have you checked surviving antidepressants website? it has a lot of helpful resources. I was also on Mirtazapine cross tapered to Sertraline and stopped mirtazapine cold turkey after a few weeks. I never want to go on that drug ever again. I am also taking omega 3 fish oil tablets and it seems to help with the withdrawal quite a bit.

3

Thank You so much for posting this!!! What a great story. Best of luck to you & check in from time to time with us to let us know how you are doing.

Barb

4

Hey y'all, thanks for the replies. So I thought I'd give everyone a little update. Been almost a week since my last post. So far, so good. Most of my sinus symptoms have calmed down already. That doesn't mean that they wont come back, but for the past couple of days I've felt well. No edgy, uneasy feelings to report. I have had 2 bouts of dizziness this past week, but manageable. I think the hot flashes are over, finally. That's honestly been the worst part of this whole experience. I hate being hot, and am sensitive to heat anyway. I can be in a comfortable room and just start sweating out of nowhere. Very uncomfortable feeling, but I haven't had any more of that for several days. My brain and body seem to be adjusting well. I haven't tried the CBD yet because I haven't felt like I need it. When I do I'll report the effects. So that's where we're at right now.

5

Alright y'all! Another week down and I thought I'd give you an update. I'm doing really well! This is week 7 for me medication free, and the discontinuation symptoms I was experiencing are almost completely over. Again, I do still have some issues with certain foods due to the histamines, and I've noticed an up-tick in my sinus symptoms overall, but aside from that my brain seems to have adjusted nicely. I've read a lot of threads regarding the discontinuation of this medication and, like I said in the original post above, most of it was really scary. My experience, however, has been quite easy. We're all different. We all respond differently to different medications, as well as to the cessation of those medications. So I'm by no means telling you your experience will be like mine. But if you're like me and you want off of this pill but have been putting it off because of the numerous horror stories online, maybe take those with a grain of salt and try a taper to see how you do. Honestly, it occurs to me that many of the horror stories could simply be a severe recurrence of anxiety making people believe they're having severe withdrawal, and its brought on by reading other people's horror stories on these forums haha. Anxiety is a crazy thing to deal with, and it can manifest in a lot of ways, even very real physical ways. If you psych yourself out and are convinced you'll have a horrible withdrawal, your much more likely to experience a horrible withdrawal. Just a thought. If you're reading this and are about to begin this process, know that I'm rooting for you :) God bless.

6

Another week down and so far, so good. Ive been getting some headaches as expected. brain is trying to regulate after being on pills for years. But everything is going well.

7

Alright yall... this will be my last post in this thread. I think I'm at the 10 week mark and I'd say I'm totally over all of the discontinuation symptoms. Still having a little more trouble with my sinuses than I've had for the past few years, but my sinuses were terrible before I started Mirtazipine, so I think this is just me going back to normal. Other than that I'm totally fine. I haven't had any dizziness or anything like that in a good couple of weeks. Things never even got bad enough for me to try the CBD oil. So in closing I'll leave you all with this. There are a lot of bad horror stories about discontinuing this particular drug online. Those stories scared me to even try and come off of it. I realize everyone's experience is different because we're all different genetically and that effects how we metabolize and respond to these drugs, but my advice to you would be to put the horror stories aside and if you're ready to come off of this drug don't delay for fear. Your experience may be very mild like mine, or you may not have any ill effects at all. Be smart about it. Talk to your doctor first and devise a plan of attack. Taper down as slowly or as quickly as you're comfortable with. Your body will let you know if you're moving too quickly. And if you're on this drug for anxiety try not to obsess over all of the discontinuation symptoms. It's easy to fool yourself into thinking the discontinuation symptoms are some other physical issue going on and to become a hypochondriac. And of course this will cause an anxiety relapse. Take it a day at a time, listen to what your body is telling you, and motor on through. It can be done with minimal discomfort and my experience is proof of it :) Good luck, and God bless.

8

Hello I'm on week 3 of stopping mirtazipine cold turkey I'm having the worst headaches now and nausea and vomiting I'm also have a runny nose that continues . How long does it take for the body to go back to normal after this poison? I'm miserable at this point.

9

hi how long was you on it and how are you finding the withdrawals