What You Need to Know If You Want to Stop Taking Antidepressants [updated]
Antidepressants work well for many people and can literally save their lives. Because of the way your body gets used to them, it is not easy to start and stop taking the drug: once you start taking a prescription, you know it can take weeks for them to take effect. And in the event that you and your doctor decide it’s time to stop taking them, it can also be difficult to stop taking antidepressants.
After the New Yorker recently published an article about the challenges one woman faced when switching to and stopping psychiatric drugs, I began to hear from people who came to the conclusion that it is difficult or impossible to quit antidepressants, and that they were afraid that doctors do not know how to safely guide people through this process. Fortunately, this is not the case: psychiatric professionals understand that this is a question and it is possible to stop drugs, but you will have to do it slowly, carefully, and with professional help.
Not only is this process requires working with a professional, but also a question of whether you should opt out of medication. Just because you are feeling well at the moment does not mean that you can or should change your medications. Likewise, if you are concerned about the side effects or any potential risks of taking the medicine, you should talk to your doctor about whether the benefits outweigh the risks in your particular case.
Why it can be difficult to stop taking antidepressants
If you stop taking cold antidepressants or even reduce your dose over the course of a few days, you may experience “withdrawal symptoms”. UptoDate , a guide to healthcare professionals, lists the most common ones such as fatigue, dizziness, headache, and nausea. But you may also have agitation, anxiety, chills, tremors, or other unusual symptoms, such as feeling like an accidental power outage.
Jenny Chen writes in Elemental about what ending might be like . She also notes that there is no clear-cut process for drug withdrawal because symptoms and time frames vary from drug to drug and from patient to patient.
Paroxetine is the most difficult to refuse, and, paradoxically, this is due to the fact that the drug is very rapidly metabolized. When you stop taking it, your brain will suddenly abandon it. On the other hand, fluoxetine stays in the body longer, so you can lower it more smoothly.
How Your Doctor May Want to Reduce Your Medication Dose
If you have only been taking your medication for a few weeks, it will probably be easier to quit; if you’ve been taking this for years, you may have a harder time. Usually, the time to stop taking antidepressants is two weeks to four weeks or more. To get an idea of what this process might look like, this diagram shows typical gradual dose tapering patterns for several common drugs. Some psychiatric researchers argue that this process should go even slower than these recommendations suggest, gradually tapering over months or even years.
But don’t just start cutting back on your doses. The key is to go through this process with your doctor, and not in spite of him. Some of the withdrawal symptoms can be very similar to the return of depression, and you will need help figuring out whether you should take more or less of the drug.
UptoDate suggests that if a patient has mild withdrawal symptoms, their doctor should reassure them but continue to reduce the dose as planned. If your symptoms are mild, you may need a more gradual reduction. For severe symptoms, it is often best to go back to the last dose you had no symptoms at and taper it gradually.
Another approach might be to switch to another drug that is easier to avoid, such as fluoxetine. In general, the process is subtle and difficult, but doable – if you are correct that you no longer need medication to control depression. It is all the more important to take this journey with the help of a professional you trust.
Updated 04.24.2019 in response to concerns that people might read this article as advice to change their medication on their own. We originally published this article under the heading How to Stop Antidepressants. The material has been updated to provide more information about the issue and to clarify that we do not support self-replacement of your medication.