Help! Having severe brain zaps!

[BW2112]

I got off brintellix cold turkey 2-3 weeks ago, and today I feel like someone is tasering my brain. I cut one of my remaining pills in half and took that. Can anyone help with this?

 

[BW2112]

I'm feeling a little better now I think.

 

[Sola_Fide]

My own unprofessional opinion is that no one should take antidepressants. Depression isn't a disease. A person is supposed to be depressed in their life at times...sometimes really depressed. Antidepressants do damage to your brain, and they cause you to be more violent and more depressed.

 

[FindLiberty]

Yikes, I'm not sure if you can think your
way though it alone... mind needs love and
gentle care, lots of time to recover before
trusting it for important decisions again...

Look into nutrition and peaceful environment,
maybe some music or lite distractions.

Are you working this transition out with
a professional (supervised by a DR.)?

Please get help if needed!
I'm not sure from whom though...

I found this very interesting re: meds (from a former med pusher)
ONE problem probably turns into Two (or maybe Three with a 2nd med).
But that 1st problem never really get handled and now working
back from #2 and possibly #3 problems are difficult to say the least.

After a time (months?), the effects of the meds will leave you to be you again.
Then that 1st problem may seem like nothing, in comparison to the journey.

I hope and pray for your speedy recovery.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

there are natural foods you can eat that will get rid of depression...

 

[specsaregood]

My own unprofessional opinion is that no one should take antidepressants. Depression isn't a disease. A person is supposed to be depressed in their life at times...sometimes really depressed. Antidepressants do damage to your brain, and they cause you to be more violent and more depressed.

well that was certainly uplifting, thanks for sharing. it is sure to help the OP.

 

[Sola_Fide]

well that was certainly uplifting, thanks for sharing. it is sure to help the OP.

Well, I think antidepressants make any depression that you are going through worse.

 

[wizardwatson]

I got off brintellix cold turkey 2-3 weeks ago, and today I feel like someone is tasering my brain. I cut one of my remaining pills in half and took that. Can anyone help with this?

Well, that's what you get for going cold turkey goofball.

Just talk to your doctor and tell him you want to get off it. If you aren't going to do that you need to know what your dosage is and what the half-life is. Says the half-life for that is 66 hours or about three days. So if your brain is freaking out at 2-3 weeks you should be able to get an rough estimate of what level your brain is freaking out at (sounds like probably around 5% you started to notice severely) as opposed to steady-state concentrations. Taking that half pill was probably an incredible act of mercy to your noggin.

You gotta wean off that stuff, dude. You made right choice taking that half-pill, imo. I used to take bipolar stabilizers and I quit them but those are far less powerful than anti-depressants (which I also took for a short time and quit after a couple months when I realized how powerful and system-altering they were).

These anti-psychotics basically rewire your emotional system. That zapping is your brain rewiring back to whatever your "normal" is. Expect it. But if it gets bad take small doses when you need.

Anyway, hopefully you have a pharma doc who will tell you a safe way to withdraw. A lot of them (from my own experience) are lazy and are just reading charts and following protocol.

 

[HVACTech]

My own unprofessional opinion is that no one should take antidepressants. Depression isn't a disease. A person is supposed to be depressed in their life at times...sometimes really depressed. Antidepressants do damage to your brain, and they cause you to be more violent and more depressed.

sir, thou art suggesting.
obliquely.
that "drugs" are only useful for recreational purposes.
and ingrown toenails..

have you been listening to Aerosmiths first album?

 

[brandon]

Ask your doc man... I don't know anything about brintellix... but you're supposed to slowly taper SSRIs. Maybe you came off too fast?

 

[wizardwatson]

My own unprofessional opinion is that no one should take antidepressants. Depression isn't a disease. A person is supposed to be depressed in their life at times...sometimes really depressed. Antidepressants do damage to your brain, and they cause you to be more violent and more depressed.

To you and the few other people on this thread, yeah, that's great. Anti-depressants are bad. There might be better ways.

But he/she isn't dealing with depression. He's dealing with withdraws. Telling a person struggling trying to kick a heroin habit that you should have never did heroin in the first place isn't helping.

Anyway, I agree that some drugs can actually cause depression. I've actually experienced this when I was wrongly prescribed a tranquilizer that I thought was a stabilizer for two years. It was the only time in my life I legitimately got suicidal thoughts.

But I disagree that depression isn't a disease. Some people are wired differently. And what I felt under constant tranquilizer dosage some people experience as a normal state.

Even the bible talks about mental disease that Jesus cures. I get tired of people thinking that all people with mental problems are weak and just whiney. If the Lord ever decides to place me in an inpatient facility again, I'll give you a invite and you can come and see some of them for yourself.

 

[brandon]

My own unprofessional opinion is that no one should take antidepressants. Depression isn't a disease. A person is supposed to be depressed in their life at times...sometimes really depressed. Antidepressants do damage to your brain, and they cause you to be more violent and more depressed.

No offense but, I think that's a really naive take. There's a shitload of people with mental illness that have found great relief with anti depressants. There's also no evidence they make adults violent or depressed. If people take them and feel better, who are you to judge?

I don't care to debate the semantics of "disease", but I can tell you that for a lot of people their own mental issues are just as debilitating as many physical ailments are for others.

 

[HVACTech]

To you and the few other people on this thread, yeah, that's great. Anti-depressants are bad. There might be better ways.

But he/she isn't dealing with depression. He's dealing with withdraws. Telling a person struggling trying to kick a heroin habit that you should have never did heroin in the first place isn't helping.

Anyway, I agree that some drugs can actually cause depression. I've actually experienced this when I was wrongly prescribed a tranquilizer that I thought was a stabilizer for two years. It was the only time in my life I legitimately got suicidal thoughts.

But I disagree that depression isn't a disease. Some people are wired differently. And what I felt under constant tranquilizer dosage some people experience as a normal state.

Even the bible talks about mental disease that Jesus cures. I get tired of people thinking that all people with mental problems are weak and just whiney. If the Lord ever decides to place me in an inpatient facility again, I'll give you a invite and you can come and see some of them for yourself.

that's very nice Watson. however.
the Human mind is a very complex electro-chemical soup.
it is best not to fuck with it.
give it what it wants. a healthy body.
and see what happens.
Sherlock.

 

[wizardwatson]

that's very nice Watson. however.
the Human mind is a very complex electro-chemical soup.
it is best not to fuck with it.
give it what it wants. a healthy body.
and see what happens.
Sherlock.

Hard to believe your Sherlock when your "unknown" quote in your signature is attributed to Jefferson and inscribed under the dome of the Jefferson Memorial in D.C.

Try again.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

No offense but, I think that's a really naive take. There's a shitload of people with mental illness that have found great relief with anti depressants. There's also no evidence they make adults violent or depressed. If people take them and feel better, who are you to judge? I don't care to debate the semantics of "disease", but I can tell you that for a lot of people their own mental issues are just as debilitating as many physical ailments are for others.

What do you think of Dr Thomas Szaz's "The Myth Of Mental Illness"?

 

[brandon]

What do you think of Dr Thomas Szaz's "The Myth Of Mental Illness"?

I haven't read it so I don't have a strong opinion. I did just check out the wiki article. I'd agree that psychiatry is not the most developed science and still has a lot of room to grow.

There is one statement in the wiki that really pisses me off:

Szasz believes that the concept of mental illness is not only logically absurd but has harmful consequences: instead of treating cases of ethical or legal deviation as occasions when a person should be taught personal responsibility, attempts are made to "cure" the deviants, for example by giving them tranquilizers

Mental illness has absolutely nothing to do with "ethical or legal deviation " and to imply so represents a complete misunderstanding of basically everything about mental illness. There's almost nothing that offends me anymore, but reading this dipshits take on people with mental problems has me more spun up than I'd like to admit.

 

[TheNewYorker]

My advice is keep a record of everything, and go to the doctor for treatment of the brain zaps.

Cymbalta gave my wife brain zaps and now they are doing some class action lawsuit thing. Shes trying to get on it but they require a lot of proof.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Mother ship calling you home?

 

[erowe1]

I got off brintellix cold turkey 2-3 weeks ago, and today I feel like someone is tasering my brain. I cut one of my remaining pills in half and took that. Can anyone help with this?

Did you talk to your doctor about this?

Even if you're sure you want to get off Brintellix, it might be that weaning yourself off slowly is important. Don't make that decision without consulting your doctor to make sure you do it safely.

 

[MelissaWV]

I got off brintellix cold turkey 2-3 weeks ago, and today I feel like someone is tasering my brain. I cut one of my remaining pills in half and took that. Can anyone help with this?

Sometimes correlation is not precisely causation. It could be that the pills were masking something totally different going on in your head. Zaps can be a symptom of MS, uncontrolled high blood sugar, or any number of other things that can be ruled out by simple tests. I will also second the idea of going to your doctor, both to take the aforementioned tests and also to discuss this issue. Changing your doses on your own is never a good idea, and randomly splicing in a half pill can contribute to becoming more resistant to the medication in the future if you do it often enough.

* * *

As to the "everyone's supposed to be depressed sometimes" comment, depression is not just "feeling sad" or upset. It might or might not be in the OP's case; I don't know. I do know that a lot of people think of it that way, and use medication to cope. That's not to say that there's not also a whole bunch of people who are imbalanced to the point they cannot function. In the past, these people would have been labelled and excised from society in some way, possibly isolated or eventually institutionalized, so spare me the upcoming "this is a modern ailment" speech that's already forming at your fingertips. Without knowing anything about the OP, it's pretty coldhearted to assert that they should just chew on herbs, change their diet, or just suck it up, and all will be well.