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Prozac Withdrawal Symptoms: Side-Effects & Treatment

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coming off of prozac

This is a meas­ure­ment of the time it takes for the drug’s act­ive sub­stance to reduce by half in the body. Drugs with a short half-life typ­ic­ally cause more with­draw­al symp­toms than those with a long half-life. These include get­ting plenty of rest, stay­ing hydrated, eat­ing a healthy diet, and exer­cising reg­u­larly. It may also be help­ful to seek sup­port from friends, fam­ily mem­bers, or a men­tal health pro­fes­sion­al. The dur­a­tion of Proz­ac with­draw­al can vary depend­ing on sev­er­al factors, includ­ing the length of time the med­ic­a­tion was taken, the dosage, and the individual’s over­all health.

How­ever, fluoxet­ine is less likely to lead to with­draw­al symp­toms as com­pared to oth­er anti­de­press­ants. This is because it has a long half-life, or stays in your sys­tem longer, which pre­vents a more abrupt change in levels in your body. When someone stops tak­ing Proz­ac (fluoxet­ine), they may exper­i­ence with­draw­al symp­toms. These symp­toms can vary in sever­ity and dur­a­tion, depend­ing on the indi­vidu­al and their situ­ation. It is essen­tial to under­stand the poten­tial risks of Proz­ac with­draw­al to pre­pare for what may hap­pen and seek appro­pri­ate med­ic­al atten­tion if necessary.

Con­tents

Changing Your Lifestyle

If you are hav­ing sui­cid­al thoughts, con­tact the Nation­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line at 988 for sup­port and assist­ance from a trained coun­selor. While these extreme reac­tions can be fright­en­ing to the per­son exper­i­en­cing them and those around them, they can be treated. These chem­ic­als are called neur­o­trans­mit­ters, and they include sero­ton­in, dopam­ine, and nore­pineph­rine. Get star­ted with our free assess­ment, which will tell you in minutes if treat­ment could be a good fit. If yes, we’ll con­nect you right to a clini­cian who can pre­scribe med­ic­a­tion and have it shipped right to your door. If you take Proz­ac but want to stop tak­ing it or switch to a dif­fer­ent med­ic­a­tion, let your doc­tor know.

Dosage (10 mg, 20 mg, 40 mg, 60 mg)

coming off of prozac

Instead, a health­care pro­vider can devel­op a plan to gradu­ally taper off the med­ic­a­tion to min­im­ize the risk of with­draw­al. Proz­ac, or fluoxet­ine, is a med­ic­a­tion com­monly pre­scribed to treat depres­sion, anxi­ety dis­orders, and oth­er men­tal health con­di­tions. It belongs to a class of drugs called select­ive sero­ton­in reup­take inhib­it­ors (SSRIs) that increase sero­ton­in levels in the brain. As an SSRI (select­ive sero­ton­in reup­take inhib­it­or), Proz­ac increases the amount of sero­ton­in in the brain, which may help improve men­tal health 1.

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coming off of prozac

People like this must inform their doc­tor about any sui­cid­al thoughts to adjust their quit­ting meth­od or the dosage of the med­ic­a­tion accord­ingly. Proz­ac belongs to a class of med­ic­a­tions known as select­ive sero­ton­in reup­take inhib­it­ors (SSRIs). These drugs increase the amount of sero­ton­in in your brain, which helps improve your men­tal health. When you quit tak­ing this med­ic­a­tion, it takes some time for your body to adjust.

  • How­ever, it’s still not recom­men­ded that you stop tak­ing Proz­ac on your own.
  • Anti­de­press­ants work by increas­ing the levels of cer­tain neur­o­trans­mit­ters in the brain, some of which include sero­ton­in, nore­pineph­rine, and dopamine.
  • If you have been on the med­ic­a­tion for years and are tak­ing a rel­at­ively high dosage, it may be more dif­fi­cult to quit than if you were only tak­ing it for a few months.
  • Proz­ac can be an effect­ive treat­ment for depres­sion, but oth­er anti­de­press­ants can help.
  • This is to pre­vent any with­draw­al symp­toms you might get as a reac­tion to com­ing off anti­de­press­ants suddenly.
  • Dis­con­tinu­ing an anti­de­press­ant can increase the risk of relapse of anxi­ety or depression.

Treatments and self-care

She is cur­rently the Nation­al Lead Psy­chi­at­ric Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er at Elean­or Health and her clin­ic­al interests include thera­peut­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion, evid­ence-based treat­ment and non­judg­ment­al care. Indi­vidu­als who wish to come off anti­de­press­ants should dis­cuss this with their doc­tor before mak­ing any med­ic­a­tion changes. People should not stop tak­ing anti­de­press­ants abruptly, as it could cause severe with­draw­al symp­toms. If you can­not man­age Prozac’s side effects, your doc­tor will cre­ate a safe taper­ing plan to help you switch med­ic­a­tions or dis­con­tin­ue anti­de­press­ants entirely.

With­draw­al timeline can be affected by dosage, dur­a­tion of use, how the drug was dis­con­tin­ued, and indi­vidu­al factors. Severe symp­toms of this kind of anti­de­press­ant with­draw­al can be avoided with the help of a licensed phys­i­cian to help you come off anti­de­press­ant med­ic­a­tion more slowly. This pro­cess involves slowly redu­cing the dosage over weeks or even months, allow­ing the brain to adjust gradually.

These indi­vidu­als can help you devise a plan for dis­con­tinu­ing your med­ic­a­tion while lim­it­ing or avoid­ing the neg­at­ive effects of with­draw­al. Com­mon Proz­ac with­draw­al symp­toms include dizzi­ness, naus­ea, head­aches, irrit­ab­il­ity, anxi­ety, insom­nia, and flu-like symp­toms. These symp­toms can vary in sever­ity and dur­a­tion depend­ing on the indi­vidu­al and their dosage. It is recom­men­ded to gradu­ally taper off Proz­ac under the guid­ance of a health­care pro­vider to min­im­ize the risk of with­draw­al symp­toms. If you are plan­ning to stop tak­ing Proz­ac or are exper­i­en­cing with­draw­al symp­toms, there are steps you can take to man­age them. By tak­ing these steps, you can min­im­ize the dis­com­fort of Proz­ac with­draw­al and work towards improved men­tal health.

  • Always keep your doc­tor informed about how you are feel­ing to avoid ser­i­ous com­plic­a­tions or side effects.
  • Addi­tion­ally, it may be help­ful to engage in activ­it­ies that pro­mote relax­a­tion and reduce stress, such as deep breath­ing exer­cises, yoga, or meditation.
  • Before final­iz­ing the plan for stop­ping Proz­ac, your doc­tor will make sure you are emo­tion­ally and men­tally ready for this step.
  • The with­draw­al symp­toms that you will exper­i­ence com­ing off of Proz­ac may not be the same as someone else.
  • There have not been enough stud­ies on humans to be cer­tain how the drug might affect a devel­op­ing baby.

It oper­ates as an SSRI (select­ive-sero­ton­in reup­take inhib­it­or) mean­ing it pre­vents the reup­take of the neur­o­trans­mit­ter sero­ton­in. It is thought to help with both depres­sion and anxi­ety, but it is also pre­scribed for a num­ber of oth­er con­di­tions. Although there is no spe­cif­ic Proz­ac with­draw­al timeline, Proz­ac dis­con­tinu­ation symp­toms typ­ic­ally begin around 2 to 4 days after redu­cing the dosage and usu­ally lasts for around 1 to 2 weeks. How­ever, in some cases, symp­toms can occa­sion­ally con­tin­ue for up to 1 year. How­ever, in some cases, symp­toms may last for sev­er­al weeks or months, or even longer than a year. One of the stud­ies in the review found that out of 95 people who abruptly stopped tak­ing fluoxet­ine, 67% exper­i­enced with­draw­al symptoms.

Most dis­con­tinu­ation symp­toms aren’t very ser­i­ous and go away with time as the body adjusts. How­ever, if there are severe with­draw­al symp­toms, com­ing off of proz­ac appro­pri­ate man­age­ment is neces­sary. Try­ing to adjust dos­ing or stop tak­ing Proz­ac can lead to with­draw­al symp­toms, espe­cially when com­pleted without the assist­ance of a men­tal health professional.

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Every 1 in 4 patients that take Proz­ac as a treat­ment has been tak­ing it for an entire dec­ade. Indi­vidu­als who wish to stop tak­ing anti­de­press­ants should work with their doc­tor to devel­op a plan that meets their needs. Those who wish to come off their anti­de­press­ants should ask their doc­tor how to do so safely with med­ic­al super­vi­sion. Care­fully con­sider the bene­fits and dis­ad­vant­ages of stop­ping anti­de­press­ant treat­ment. It may be that anoth­er anti­de­press­ant would be a bet­ter option or that oth­er ther­apies could help man­age some of the adverse effects of anti­de­press­ant use. Indi­vidu­als should only stop tak­ing anti­de­press­ants when they have dis­cussed it with a doctor.

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