19, Twenty, Twenty-one

OK, well overall I'd say 15mg is going just fine.  I'm not feeling sick like the past weekend and am generally not feeling any dizziness or noticing any problems with my sleep.  One thing I have noticed however is I have a really short fuse.  Not that I was a pillar of patience in the past, but lately I appear to be annoyed or frustrated all too easily.

 

About 10 more days at 15mg and then I'm going to drop it down to 10.

Sixteen, 17, Eighteen

I figured daily updates weren't necessary seeing as I had nothing to report.

 

Over the last few days though I have started to experience mild nausea and headaches.  I haven't been sleeping well either, but that could be due to a number of factors.

 

So it's been more than a week at 15mg and overall I'd say it's been going really well.  We'll keep this up for 2 more weeks and then drop it down to 10mg.  I'll really enjoy that simply because I'm tired of having to quarter a pill every 4 days.

Fifteen

Hello.

Another day at 15mg and nothing to report. Seriously, I feel fine. Great actually.

In other news, the baby breast fed before bed last night and work up at 4:30am screaming. We went back to a bottle after tub time and before bed tonight so we'll see how that goes.

And finally, I'm posting via email (which is really cool) and I'm about to see if adding this picture works. It's a photo of our fine country with my current place of residence proudly displayed as the capital city.



(FYI... the image didn't work from the email, so I added it afterwards)

Fourteen

Another day at 15mg and nothing to report.  I had a couple glasses of wine tonight so we'll see how that works out.

 

The baby has been sleeping well lately and as a result so have I.  Sleep is good.  Very good.  I love sleep.  Speaking of which...

13

Another day at 15mg. Honestly, over the past few days I have felt better than I have in a long long time.

Nothing to report today other than I've been really thirsty lately. I've been trying to combat that by drinking lots of fruit juice, which I love, but my wife informs me that even tough the sugar in those juices is natural sugar, it's still quite high; so maybe water is the better option. She drinks like 3 or 4 litres of water a day so she would know. I'm trying to get in 2L but it's hard 'cause it just makes me want to piss all the time.

I was at a seminar last week and the dude mentioned that it takes 21 days to form a habit - or to break one. So, sounds like my 3-week plan to drop the dose is right on target :)

Thirteen is my favourite number.

Twelve

Third day at 15mg is in the books. I feel fine. I slept really well last night, but I'm certain that correlates precisely with the amount of sleep the little one gave us. Not a perfect night, but headed in the right direction (knock on wood).

11

Day 2 at 15mg. I actually feel pretty great.

Slept OK last night. No headache or dizziness either.

Wish I had more to report (I guess no news is good news, eh?)

Ten

First day at 15mg and I feel pretty good. The toughest part about it was getting the pill cut. It snapped in half easy enough to give me two 10mg chunks but I pretty much butchered the second cut to get me a 5mg chunk. I'll go to the clinic right beside work to get a doc to transfer my current script from 20mg pills to 10mg ones, or better yet, liquid.

I'm pretty tired as it was a late night last night after curling but that should improve as we switch up our carpool to save a few of us that extra 30 minutes or so.

Nine

Despite potential objections by my new physician, and possibly my wife, I've decided to switch my plan. Rather than this on-again off-again business I'm going to try a gradual reduction in dosage over a period of weeks.

I subscribe to one of the many message boards on this topic and there are countless numbers of people who swear up and down that the on-off method is completely terrible, at best. Add to that the advice from a physician who is a close friend of the family also suggesting a slow wean off the drug and I've pretty much made up my mind.

It's true, many many people come off the drug with minimal fanfare, but we can't ignore the possibility of some strange, adverse and even quite serious affects occurring. It is with this in mind that I will begin to taper starting tomorrow.

The new schedule:

Weeks 1 - 3, 15mg
Weeks 4 - 6, 10mg
Weeks 7 - 9, 5mg

This amounts to 2 weeks longer than the originally scheduled 7 weeks and I would also assume that I could go from 5 to 2.5 if I can find a knife sharp enough to eighth a pill (quartering will be tough enough as it is).

If life starts to become hell I can always stick on a level for longer until I acheive some sort of balance again. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Anyway, today was the 2nd of two days at a seminar. With no pill I was skeptical but it went alright. Dizzy as usual. Headache as usual. Grumpy (as usual - pill or no pill). I went curling and after the carpool guys dropped me off it was already late. I'm not tired but I feel like crap.

Tomorrow I'll take a pill, only it will be 15mg instead of 20. I'll take another one (technically 0.75) on Sunday and do this for 3 weeks and see how it goes.

Eight

Pill today.

Was in a seminar on how to be a "more effective team lead". I'm liking it so far and was not struggling to stay focused, so that's good. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Due to the almost guaranteed dizziness tomorrow (no pill) I'm getting a ride downtown. I have to go curling from 9-11pm tomorrow night too, which doesn't get me home until well after midnight, so it'll be a long day.

My wife asked me why one can't just stop Paxil. It's a good question. All I've read about it seems to indicate that even if you taper the dose really really slowly the withdrawl symptoms will still kick your ass, so why not just stop? I mean, if it's shit one way and just as shit the other, then why not? Well all I've read and been told by Physicians indicates that the symptoms are infinitely worse if you just stop cold turkey. The brain is a hard thing to figure out. I'm going to solicit advice from a friend who also happens to be a neuro-psychologist.

Either way, I'm skeptical as to who know what, why, and for what reason.

What I now know is that this drug is completely and totally 100% pure evil extract, in a nice pink oblong pill. I will forever curse the doctor who put me on this damn thing.

7

No pill today.

Alex was up at midnight and again from 4:30 to 6:30. I'm actaully too out of it to feel anything...

No dizziness today, but I did struggle with a pretty nice headache.

Now someone on a Paxil message board says they've tried this method of getting off the drug and it didn't work for him. Said it was too traumatic as it essentially forced your brain into and out of withdrawl (as you started and stopped the drug).

One thing I have seen written many times though is, "As everyone's reaction to the drug is different, so to is their reaction to coming off it". Based on this and the following two reasons I'm content to stick with this method:

1) It's the one my physician recommended
2) If I were to have chosen a method, this is the one I would have come up with

If it's not working I'll know soon enough, and I can always switch to a dose-varied method as opposed to a time-varied one.

Six

Took a pill today and I'm not convinced it did a damn thing.

The baby woke up a ton last night again and started the day already in a bad mood, still dizzy and extrememly tired. It didn't get much better from there.

Some details shouldn't be told, so let's just say I spent some time sitting down with a book in a quiet room with a fan. Apparently this is normal.

I don't take a pill tomorrow, then I take one on Thursday and begin my first 72 hour stretch.

I expect to sleep a little tonight. I also expect the baby to wake up a lot. I suspect I'll be dizzy tomorrow again. Good thing half the company is out at our User Group conference in Toronto - fewer people around to notice I'm completely out of it.

5

No pill today.

Jodi went up to bed at 10 and I wasn't tired so I stayed up. Now, about 2 minutes ago it felt like a train hit me. Time to try and sleep.

All day I felt like I just got off the tilt-a-whirl. I drank lots of water and ate well, but still... it sucked rather badly. I'm hoping that it was mostly due to the baby waking up Jodi and I all night last night and it's made me extra tired.

Tomorrow I take a pill and then I go for my first ever 72 hour stretch without one. If the tilt-a-whirl feeling is as bad as that gets I'll count myself lucky.

Four

48 hours came and went with no pill. Sleep last night was shitty. Partly because Avery was in our room and her sleeping bag as loud as all hell. Next time the in-laws visit she gets a blanket instead of the polyester Dora bag.

Much of the day I was really tired and in a bad mood. I get to miss a day tomorrow - with my boss and half the company away in Toronto at our User Group Conference, on top of it being a Monday, I'm expecting it to be quite a blast.

Good times.

Until tomorrow evening then.

3

First time in 7 years I've missed more than one pill in a week. On Thursday I didn't take one, yesterday I did, and today nothing.

So I'm about 36 hours into my second 48 hour stretch and right on cue the headache has started. Dizziness is more prominent now but I've been drinking lots of fruit juice today; so I'm not dehydrated. I've no choice but to blame the lack of Paxil for that.

We'll see how the night goes.

2

Hours between pills: 48

As mentioned last night, a small headache started after 36 hours or so and sure as God made green apples went to bed at 11:00 and woke up at 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:45, and 6:30 (my alarm went off at 7:21). A couple of those may have been the baby, but overall I didn't sleep too badly. Was a little dizzy this morning, but I'm certain I was just a little dehydrated.

One

Yesterday pill.

Today no pill.

No surprises as I've missed a day before but the headache has started (expected) and even though I'm exhausted I'm sure I'm in for a restless sleep (also expected).

I hope I don't lose my appetite as all of this goes on. Sleep is good. Food is better.

One down, 48 to go.

The Zeroth Day

... so here we are.

Seven years ago or thereabouts I was placed on 10mg a day of Paxil a day to combat anxiety. Roughly three and a half years ago, after a particularly horrifying and temporarily debilitating panic attack, my dose was upped to 20mg a day and that's where I've been ever since.

Until today.

I have just recently met with a clinical psychologist and a new physician and it has been determined that it is time for me to experience my life as the world presents it to me. No chemical rose coloured glasses.

Now, if you click the links over to the right you'll find two very good websites devoted to assisting people with their struggles of getting off Paxil. As either of these sites will tell you, and as one quick Google search will show, ridding the body of any trace of Paxil is easier said than done. Both my physician and therapist agree that there's no reason to assume that my journey to a drug-free existance won't go smoothly, but at the same time those two doctors - as well as many others - have laid it out quite clearly: Paxil is one of the hardest SSRI drugs to get people off of and sometimes the experience can amount to hell on Earth; or worse.

So I have to hope for the best and plan for the worst. I'm told that most certainly I will experience insomnia, headaches, nausea, irratability, lack of concentration and short term memory problems. On the upside, when I do sleep I'm also told that I will have the most vivid dreams, so I have that going for me.

In all seriousness, I'm taking it one day at a time. My wife is here to support me, as is my boss, some of my friends, my cellmates in the "QA Grotto", and the company HR director. They will all have access to this blog and I hope they will be reading it often. I may not always want to talk or express what's going on but I am told that I must chronicle this experience and therefore every day (sometimes more) I will post something just so people can check in without actually having to check in.

I'm nervous.

The plan is simple:
Today I took one pill, tomorrow I will take none. The next day I will take one, and the day after that I will not. For one week I will keep skipping a day and then after that I will take a pill one day and then skip two. I repeat this week after week, each time adding a day to the skipped column. After 7 weeks I'll only be taking the pill once every 7 days - and then I stop. And wait.

I've missed days before. Since Paxil has a short half-life the effects of missing a day are almost immediately felt. If I miss a day I'm almost guaranteed to wake up that night every couple hours with cold sweats. Headaches follow that. Too long into the 2nd day without one and I've been hit with a migrane, but I've never gone more than 36 hours without. Weeks 2 and 3 on the schedule are looking quite unappealing right now but let's not get ahead of myself. One day at a time.

One day at a time.