Zoloft Withdrawal Part 2

And so the saga continues.  If you didn’t read the first part of my saga then you might want to check it out.

3 days after taking my last 25mg tablet of Zoloft I hit rock bottom.  I was running a fever off and on, severely constipated, nauseas, emotional and barely able to string two words together.  I was seriously freaking out.  I believe I have now sat on the edge of sanity and stared over the edge.  It was the scariest thing I’ve been through. 

Thank god my husband was off of work, so between clenched teeth, struggling for every word I begged him tearfully to please take me to the doctor.  He quickly called his dad to come over and watch our 2 year old and off we went.  I was barely able to walk and so cold that even layered down I was wearing a blanket in the 70 degree fall night.

It was evening so we had to go to the Catawba Valley Emergency Room; they have an Express Care there that works a lot like Urgent Care, but send you a bill.  Luckily we weren’t waiting long.  My symptoms had died back some, as they had a tendency to come and go in waves.  I was half asleep from the horrible ordeal of constantly shaking, clammy from my sweating and fever and generally disoriented. 

Within an hour we were sitting in a room in Express Care and had seen a Nurse.  Not too long after a doctor came into the room.  He asked me what the problem was.  I did my best to articulate the problem to him, my accidental cold turkey release from my medication, not being able to taper off and my horrible withdrawal symptoms.  I told him I was on it for PPD, a diagnosis from almost 2 years ago.

This man looked me right in the eye and said that he didn’t think I was suffering from withdrawal.  When they taper someone off of Zoloft the bring them down to 50mg and then just drop them off (errr, wrong, yes I have looked it up) and that I was suffering from depression, not withdrawal.  If this is depression then I am actually insane dude and you need to commit me.  Well, that is what I wanted to tell him, but all I could do was sit there and stare at him open mouthed. 

He said I’m suffering from depression.  Not PPD, which stands for Post Partum Depression.  For those of you who don’t know, PPD is something that a woman sometimes gets after she has a baby.  20% of women are diagnosed with it, but a believed 30% goes undiagnosed.  PPD is not the same thing as depression.  I’m not going to get into the debate here, but it’s kind of like saying that bi-polar disorder and depression is the same thing.  So, he wanted to diagnose with something that I wasn’t even on the medication for in the first place after meeting with me for about 5 minutes.

I finally recovered enough to explain to him that medicine does affect me a little stronger than other people.  I was trying to be nice, the last thing I wanted to do was tell this doctor that I know more about something than he does.  After all, he’s the doctor, but he is wrong!

He completely ignores what I’ve just said and replies that they don’t even make a 25mg dose (errr, wrong, I was taking the 25mg for almost a year).  He doesn’t feel there is anything he can do for me; he thinks I need to see a physician to get proper help.  He offers to give me 10 pills of 50mg if I want, but he doesn’t think that’s going to help anything.

I tell him fine.  At this point I just want away from this horrible man that I’m feeling doesn’t even deserve to be a doctor.  He says he’ll be right back and leaves.  I stare at my husband and find myself begging him again.  This time I’m trying to convince him that I’m not insane and that he has to believe me.  This doctor is wrong about everything.  My heart is tearing apart, worried that now my husband thinks I’m having a psychotic break.

45 minutes later (right back my a**) a nurse comes in with my script and paperwork.  Here I thought since it took so long I was going to get a bottle handed to me.  But no, now I have to suffer the rest of the night.  The state that I was in at this point I could have launched myself at that doctor.

So, we set out for home.  I looked at my paperwork on the way to car and almost started to cry again.  Diagnoses depression.  Instead of streaming every swear word in creation here I’ll just let you be inventive.  String at least 5 together.  That’s how I feel.  I know, I know, I had PPD on my record and depression from a really long time ago.  But now depression is on there again.  And it’s not even true.  I wanted to kick, scream, run in and delete my entry in their computers.  The last thing a person, especially a woman who has recovered from PPD, wants to be falsely diagnosed as depressed.

After a harrowing night of 12 hours of exhausted sleep, I filled my prescription.  I’ve taken my 10 pills and cut them.  I plan to take 25mg for 5 days, and then continue to cut the pills down until I’ve successfully tapered off of them correctly this time.  Most sites I’ve reviewed say that you should try to get down to 6 or 3mg.  When I have done so successfully I plan to post on here again regarding my withdrawal, it will be called part 3.  It’s going to take about 2 months, so keep checking back to see how I do.  I’ll be sure to list some tips.  Please send me tips if you have any and wish me luck.

What else do I plan to do?  I plan to write to the hospital after I have successfully tapered off.  I will file a formal complaint again that doctor, once I’ve proven him wrong.  I will also request for them to delete my record of depression.  I know it may be petty, but it matters to me.  Of course the most important part is making sure they know how I was treated.

As a side note I want to say that I am an understanding person.  I know it can’t be easy to be an ER doctor.  Maybe he had been working too many hours.  Maybe he sees too many drug seeking patients.  I don’t know.  But if he is that over worked or jaded, then he needs to be moved out of the ER and they need to hire more people.  I know there are doctors seeking work in this area, they should not be understaffed.

I’m happy to report that day 2 of being back on the meds, I’m back to being me and I was able to clean my whole house (which sorely needed it).  I’m looking forward to tapering off correctly, but am honestly scared of ever getting as bad as I was.  I now wonder what my mom’s day to day life was like.  If she lived everyday that way, then maybe I can forgive her for ending it.  At least a little.