Withdrawal Symptoms

What is the longest any of you have gone without medication? How long did your withdrawal symptoms last? I've now been over 2 weeks without Depakote, which I discontinued due to the effect it had on my concentration and motivation at work.

There are days when I feel normal, but it feels like it still hasn't worn off. Out of nowhere, I'll feel panicked looking at my to do list, and then I lose motivation and just want to sit at my cube all day. I also forget little things and have to ask questions a lot since I've only been at this job for 2 months. Not to mention the random anger attacks that hit me during the day.

I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. I either need to take some time off, which is not ideal for my reputation since I'm new. Or, I have to surrender and go back on a different medication, which I'm not ready to do yet either b/c I would always wonder if I could have made it if I had given it more time.

Thanks

Did you taper, or just go cold turkey? Your brain is used to having the medication. It is hard to know whether your symptoms are rebound due to the meds or relapse due to illness.

I hope you tapered off. Depakote is in addition to a mood stabilizer an antiseizure medication and stopping suddenly can cause seizures even in people who don't typically have them. Best person to ask would be your doctor

I was on the starting dose, so there wasn't really a way to taper. My doctor told me there shouldn't be any issues with stopping it cold turkey based on the dosage.

My suspicion is these are withdrawal effects because I didn't experience these issues prior to taking the medicine; makes me wish I'd never started it and makes me afraid to try something else if this is how hard it is to come off.

Knowing that, I'd give it some time. It looks like the most common withdrawal symptoms of Depakote are irritability and anxiety. That could explain the panic you are experiencing. How are your coping skills? You may need to lean on them hard for a while.

I just weaned off the starter dose of Geodon about 6 weeks ago. My doctor gave me the same advice as yours. I asked around here though and did some additional research and it became apparent that cold turkey might not be a good plan despite the low dose. I couldn't cut the pills, so I tried every other day for three weeks and then every third day after that. I had some withdrawal symptoms, but they were minor.

Essentially I learned that all of these meds eventually change the way our brains respond to certain chemicals. The brain then compensates over time by making more receptors for the these chemicals. We take the drug away and our brains are at an ultra sensitive state to said chemicals. We then experience something situational and the neurons go into overdrive.

A slow taper allows your brain to balance itself back out over time so that you don't experience this hyperactivity period. My best guess would be that your brain is in this hypersensitive state and it is reacting to situational stimulus accordingly. It will balance back out, but it can take weeks.

I had planned to use a supplement of Holy Basil if I began to experience anxiety during or after my taper. My therapist swears by it. Maybe that could work for you?

At this point I don't feel like there is enough evidence to show you are experiencing relapse and need to go back on meds. If you want to be med free I say work your coping skills hard and white knuckle your way through this for a few more weeks. Of course, if it all becomes too much or if the sympyoms become dangerous you should always consult with your doctor. I am certainly not an expert, this is just my take given my experiences and the research I did before tapering.

Thanks, that's very helpful! I may have to bite the bullet and ask for some time off to buy some more time, regardless of how I'm perceived.

Since I started bipolar medications, the longest I was without any (meaning not even one) was probably a week. By the end of that week, I was hospitalized. I'm referring to quitting all meds at once, cold turkey. Not one by one. Obviously, doctors in the hospital or my private psychiatrists have taken me off a medication abruptly, but there was always a replacement immediately. When possible, my psychiatrist has weaned me off certain medications gradually when withdrawal or illness relapse was a major risk. For example, I was still on a mighty big cocktail when my psychiatrist started weaning me off of Lithium. So I wasn't "unprotected". There wasn't a replacement for it, but still (despite kidney damage), he weaned me off over the course of a few months. In that particular medication's case, the quality of my life only improved as I was taken off. That has not always been the case when I've been weaned off other medications, while still on some.

My youngest nephew quit his bipolar medications cold turkey. He never complained of any major issues. He believed it only improved the quality of his life. He felt more alert and lost a lot of weight, but was lucky enough not to experience a mood episode immediately. However, after a "Honeymoon Period", as I called it, his bipolar illness came back with a vengeance. It was so violent and quick that the illness itself took his life. He had been hospitalized less than a week before for suicidal threats. He only stayed in the hospital for three days. He "feigned wellness" to get out. The stupid doctors let him go (he was an adult of 24 years) on a non therapeutic dose of Lithium. It was maybe 400 mg. He was a 6'5" tall stocky man. The Lithium never even had a chance to start working in time. Some medications are like that. What if Lamictal had been his previous "wonder drug". Lamictal is not a medication you can get to therapeutic dose on in three days. You can barely even get to 50 mg of Lamictal in a week. This is a real issue for people. Time can run out waiting for relief.

I am sorry you are struggling right now. That said, I am not surprised. Before we decided to discontinue all my meds in 2012, I first found and read basically every relevant paper ever published in English on discontinuing mood stabilizers in bp1. What I found was very scary. To sum up, if one actually has bp1 and then discontinues their mood stabilizer either quickly (over less than a month) or cold turkey, the chance of a big recurrence happening over the next 12 months is virtually 100%. Maybe someday I will explain more about this, but for now, that story is too long and this thread is about you, not me. The punchline is, we stopped my lithium and Abilify over three weeks. I did great for 11 months, then had a massive mixed state recurrence. Hospital. It was horrific.

I don'r ever want to go through that again. I would prefer to die prematurely from a side effect than do that again. Truly. You seem committed to doing this and so, I wish you all the best. But I would be misrepresenting myself if I didn't briefly communicate to you that I am very, very concerned about you. I hope everything goes well.

I suppose if there can be a silver lining here, it is this. Based on the literature, if you don't have a significant recurrence in the first twelve months, well then, you probably don't have bipolar disorder. Obviously, that could be important information, for a variety of reasons. Wishing you well.

I’ll give you an example

I decided to quit Lithium. I’m am all or nothing type. I had quit many AP’s and didn’t so much as have a hiccup

Anyway stopping Lithium cold turkey,, good grief I was so freaking sick for weeks.

You have to factor in half life into stopping meds , just because you quit Med X on Monday doesn’t mean it’s totally out of your system by Friday.. some meds have a few weeks half life.

Then your brain has to learn how to function sans meds.

It took about 3 months off Lithium to where I actually felt ok and my brain was truly back.

Thank you, I really appreciate your concern. To ease your fears, I have bipolar 2 and OCD, so I'm not considered as much of a suicide risk as someone with bipolar 1. In fact, the first time I really had suicidal thoughts was when I started taking these mood stabilizers since they depressed my mood worse than it was before I started them.

On a side note, I see in your signature line that you are on Wellbutrin. How does that work for you? I've heard some say it is less likely to trigger mania than SSRI's, so I am curious about it since I had a really good result from Zoloft in terms of curing OCD and depression, but it caused too much hypomania for me to stay on it.

Thanks

I was off all meds for 9 months then started becoming psychotic again....luckily I was able to restart meds before it became too bad. I looked at the literature for psychosis as I had only one episode before and wasn’t considered bipolar yet....a huge percent relapse within a year(at least 80%)it isn’t right away. My pdoc tapered me off meds mostly to see if I had had a single episode of psychosis and would be ok or if I had something more wrong. I mean why stay on antipsychotic forever if it’s a one off thing right? My new pdoc is much more conservative and feels messing with the meds can make them stop working all together....her specialty is bipolar where the previous pdoc had a psychosis specialty.