Freedom: Day 275

World record for days between posts.

I have only had a couple of alcohol induced panic attacks since February.

Headaches went away after a couple MONTHS.

I feel not much different than I did a year ago.

I have lost over 25 pounds - which is not that good as I was always kind of skinny. The pic in my profile over to the side was me at 185, now I'm 160. If it dips much lower I may have to see someone.

Paxil can be beaten. I am walking proof. And it wasn't all terror and doom like I read about on the Internet. I'm sure those cases exist, but I'm told they are the exception, and thankfully I was not one.

Freedom: Day 7

"It's been one week since you looked at me.
Cocked your head to the side and said 'I'm angry'" - Barenaked Ladies
(I saw them in concert last night. Great show!! Lots of fun, lots of good music. Highly recommended.)

It's been one week since I last took a Paxil.

The only side effect that I can speak of is some pretty wicked headaches. Not, "oh, my head hurts" kind of headaches but more like, "God damn by head F*#&~ng hurts" sort of headaches.

Other than that, everything is fine. Still pretty irritable and the memory is crap, but I'm not sleeping too badly either, so that's an OK trade off as far as I'm concerned.

Freedom: Day 1

First day officially off Paxil. I've missed days before, even early on (see November's posts) I did it on purpose. I'll check in around day 3 or 4 and we'll see how that goes.

Ninety-six, 97, Ninety-eight, Ninety-nine

Last day on Paxil.

Insomnia, moodiness, irritability, forgetfulness (speling?). Not much else to report.

"99 Days To Become Paxil Free". Hitting book stores this fall.

Eighty-two to Ninety-five (including 83 and 89)

I have set aside four 5mg chunks to me taken this week starting tomorrow. Those will mark the last doses of Paxil I (hopefully) will ever take.

As of today I have only really experienced four notable side-effects (again, accompanied by my completely subjective 10 point scale of how annoying each one is):

• Irritability (8)
• Insomnia (6)
• Memory Loss / Forgetfulness (9)
• Emotional Wreckedness (7)

Interestingly enough, my last dose of the drug comes on day 99 of the journey. It's really not that intersing now that I read that again. I guess I could always write a book now, "99 days to becoming Paxil free". Sounds better than "100 days to becoming Paxil free" doesn't it?

Seventy-eight, 79, Eighty, Eighty-one, Eighty-two

Nothing to report except that I'm unusually emotional. I watched Extreme Home Makeover the other night and was basically a wreck. All I needed was that commercial with the kid talking to his grandpa on the phone ("Grandpa, I'm not in Paris... I'm in Dieppe") and it would have been the end of me.

The other symptoms are still going strong, but nothing worth worrying about. I plan on sticking at 5mg for this week and the next 2 after that, then nothing. I'm looking forward to it.

On a side note, here are a few things I think my wife has an unhealthy obsession for:

1. Shoes
2. Children's Clothes
3. Broth (both chicken and beef)

Seventy-two to Seventy-seven (including 73)

It's been about a week at 5mg now and everything is pretty much as expected. Much like NASCAR though people don't watch (or in this case, read) unless there's a wreck. I'm sorry everything's going so well and don't have any horror stories to report. I do however have a short list of withdrawl symptoms and their relative annoyance (on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is "barely noticeable" and 10 is "I'm going insane"):

• Irritability (8)
• Insomnia (6)
• Memory Loss / Forgetfulness (8)

The interesting part about that last one is that I hadn't really noticed it until recently. At least once a day I find myself just standing seemingly in the middle of nowhere wondering what the hell I was doing. The other day I actually had to call out to my wife and ask her why I went into the kitchen (apparently it was to get a wash cloth for the baby). Toady I was actually standing with the foil from the top of a wine bottle in my hand and I picked up a tin to read the label for whatever reason. After I put the tin down I turned to Jodi and asked her what I was just doing. The wine bottle was right in front of me ready to be opened!! Maybe I should have rated that last one a 9.

Sixty-nine, Seventy, 71

Started 5mg 3 days ago.

So far you can add poor sleep to the short fuse as the side effects of the reduced dose.

Actually, as it was with 15mg the biggest pain in the ass is trying to chop up a 20mg pill into 4 pieces. We lose more good pills that way... good thing I've got a decent prescription volume.

Fifty-seven to Sixty-eight (including 59, 61 & 67)

So (knock on wood) the baby appears to be sleeping with some sort of consistency. There was a brief lapse last week but we're all OK now.

I am still at 10mg and can see only the short fuse as a notable side effect. I didn't go down to 5mg as I wasn't sleeping and then I got sick.

I feel fine now and tomorrow morning I'm going down to 5mg. First time in over 7 years at a dose less than 10mg. We'll see....

Fourty-four to Fifty-six (including 47 and 53)

It's been a while, so let's recap:

Holidays went well even though Alex didn't sleep through the night once.
Christmas was entirely too excessive.
The detox is going just fine.

I did have one night over the holidays that I can only describe as "a moment of heightened anxiety". I awoke from a pretty good sleep to a screaming baby and after getting him settled I couldn't get back to sleep. Had I been drinking or more tired it most certainly would have resulted in a full-blown panic attack but as it was I was just uncomfortable and, for lack of a better word, uncertain. It lasted about 10 minutes and then I fell asleep.

Aside from that the only side effect I seem to be experiencing is a considerably short fuse. I've never been the most patient man in the world (thanks for that lovely genetic gift dad!) but I am surprised at how easily I get frustrated now. Apparently I'm supposed to breathe.

I'm dropping down to 5mg this weekend - probably Friday morning.

Thirty-nine, Forty, 41, Forty-two, 43

Another 5 days at 10mg and no ill/side effects to speak of. If everything keeps motoring along at this pace this will end up being a very boring blog. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing :-)

Thirty-five, Thirty-six, 37, Thirty-eight

Another four days at 10mg and everything is fine.  No headaches or any other symptoms of withdrawal and so long as the baby sleeps I do too.  The tentative timeline will see me finish out the year at 10mg and start the first week of January at 5mg and we'll see how that goes.

Twenty-seven, Twenty-eight, 29, Thirty, 31, Thirty-two, Thirty-three, Thirty-Four

Well the rest of last week carried on without incident.  I started feeling better on Thursday before I left for my company Winter business meetings at the Farimont Montebello Resort.  This weekend marked my last at 15mg and I waited another couple days just to be sure.  Today was my first day at 10mg and I feel great.  I've been at 10 before but not for at least 3 or 4 years.  I'm confident all will go well and the new year will see me hit 5mg for the first time.  All is good.

Twenty-two, 23, Twenty-four, Twenty-five, Twenty-six

Took the weekend and went to Toronto.  No ill effects from the reduced dose.  I thought I had the dreaded "Paxil Flu" as I went to bed last night and woke up at some point with a nice panic attack.  The morning brought other "flu like symptoms" and the 5 hour drive home was just wonderful.  I'm sporting a 101 fever now and have kept down toast, crackers and some soup.  I'm fairly certain this is an actual flu and not the Paxil one.  Part of me is relieved.  Most of me feels like shit.

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).