My story- PSSD Luvox

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BlushingxLady
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2021 5:17 pm
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My story- PSSD Luvox

Unread post by BlushingxLady »

Hi!
I've been lurking on this website for quite sometime now (Over 2 years) desperate for answers and hope. I thought I’d make an introduction post just to keep track of my own progress alongside others.

My memory is foggy in some parts because when I first cold turkeyed my Luvox 200 mg I didn’t think anything of it and was quite fine without it.

But my rough estimate is I cold turkeyed 7/2020. I didn’t notice any symptoms regarding withdrawal until 10/2020 that’s when I relapsed in my OCD with the intrusive thought “What if I don’t love my partner?” And I spiraled into crying and anxiety.

I’ve struggled with HOCD for 6 years and it was the main reason I was put on Iuvox. Funny enough throughout those 6 years my sexual function and emotions stayed in tact. But as soon as it hit 10/2020 the symptoms started almost immediately.

i even developed depersonalization to the point I didn’t even feel like a woman (which I’ve never wanted to be trans or a man so it was strange to FEEL like a stranger in your own body) I started feeling so depersonalized that even talking or seeing myself freaked me out and made me feel like I wasn’t me. I think this is one of the scariest things a person can experience.

The following months I had impending doom because I thought me and my bfs relationship was in jeopardy - I suddenly didn’t recognize him even though we’ve been together for 9 years and I was always in love with him.

My family became foreign too and it was hard to connect with them alongside my depersonalization.

When this all happened I messaged my primary care doctor to up my dose but reinstating did nothing.

i stayed on 100 mg of Luvox.

Fast forward to 3/21-7/21 - I had massive panic attacks where I almost believed I was about to have a heart attack. It was hard to connect with people and cognitively I declined. Making basic conversation with people was hard. And then my fiancé proposed to me and I had a panic attack during only making me believe we weren’t meant to believe. Not thinking it was due to the pill I dumbly cold turkeyed. Who would think it could impact you so much? Not me. This was also the time my sexual dysfunction took place.

i realized I couldn’t feel anything during sex. My ****** became numb and even urinating felt different. It didn’t matter how much I touched myself I couldn’t feel pleasure - but scariest of all I couldn’t feel arousal. The natural feeling you get just by being kissed by my partner was gone. And then suddenly I coudn’t feel romance. And I know you don’t know me but I’ve been OBSESSED with romance my entire life.

I’ve written stories about love, watched only romance anime and movies, blushed over stereotypical romantic scenes. But suddenly without attraction or emotions I couldn’t feel romantic towards my fiancé. Which scared the hell out of me.

8/21 - I became emotionally blunted. I felt neutral, even the anxiety that always bothered me was numb. I didn’t care about my job, my family, my fiancé, my cats or what happened to me.

4/22 - Emotionally blunted, again the sexual dysfunction and romantic attraction are what worries me the most. I know it’s the medication because I feel no desire for anyone else. It’s hard to laugh naturally and connect with people.


i took a Thorne gut test and tested positive for gut dybosis and out of range bad bacteria.

Supplements Im taking:
• Fish oil
• magnesium taurate
•butyrate
•multivitamin
•liposomal vitamin c
• vitamin d
•Korean panax ginseng


I’m tapering by 10 mg every month. I’m at 62.5 mg of Luvox currently
6-Eggs!
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 6:38 am
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Re: My story- PSSD Luvox

Unread post by 6-Eggs! »

Sorry to hear that, it must be so horrifying to experience those symptoms.

I was on a completely different class of drug, but too also had a delayed onset of sudden symptoms.(stopped in Sep 2021, sudden symptoms in late Nov) Mine were predominately physical rather than mental but I feel the mental aspect is far more distressing than the physical so it must be hell for you.

I also had the drug reinstated in mid Jan this year, mainly to control the mental anguish. It did nothing to improve physical symptoms but seemed to put a brake on them getting worse as that was what was happening. Slowly over the last few months I have improved a lot but the recent taper made it somewhat worse but it's starting to settle down again.

With tapering, you want to reduce hyperbolically and not linear. Drug receptor/site occupancy is not linear(the mistake I made the first time). I am using the rule of halves, half every 3-4 months and aiming to go down to 1/128th of the dose before stopping again, maybe 1-256th depending on how I feel. Currently on 1/16th which is still about 25-30% occupancy where the full dose was about 80-90%.

From my research it is pretty well known that for the people who get long term withdrawals or withdrawal type syndromes, it happens regardless of tapering or not and reinstating the drug almost never fixes the new symptoms. It's is not known or understood why this happens in some people.

My partner stopped ecitalopram (ssri) last year around the same time I stopped Rexulti (an antipsychotic). She was on her's for 5 years and only had withdrawals for about 4-6 weeks and was completely fine since. I was on Rexulti for 2.5 years and all hell broke loose. But to be fair I started having delayed side effects from it 18 month into treatment which took me another year to pin point to the drug and is the reason I quit in the first place. With the drug reinstated I am having those delayed side effects again on top of the initial withdrawal symptoms. It really sucks!

I am not really having much mental issues other than mood swings and bouts of sadness for no reason atm, which I attribute to the reinstated drug as I had that when I was on it and was free of that for many months after quitting. Same with the low libido and inability to get aroused like you, another delayed side effect of reinstating.

My libido and ability to get aroused returned to pre depression levels after quitting so I expect that to come back when I stop it again. Quitting made me experience severe symptoms similar to a bad LSD trip. Messed up senses, numbness, burning, cold, non stop sweating in some parts of my body, high blood pressure, complete dryness in hands and feet that still somewhat persist now. Soft glans syndrome, totally numb glans, unable to walk or move hands properly, involuntary twitches and jerks and tremor, feeling of tongue, lips and jaw restless and moving/paralyzed but looked completely normal. Inability to swallow often and stuck esophagus, breathing stoppages when falling asleep and whilst asleep, inability to recognize sounds and location and visual hallucinations (fractals/geometric patterns, when sleepy, falling asleep or waking up, shimmering/trailing vision during the day), bladder and bowel control issues and extreme dizziness and buzzing/ringing in head and ears .

Most of these are gone but still get bouts of them every now and then and had a substantial increase in them lately when I dropped from 1/8th to 1/16th dose but it was nowhere as severe as the first time and rather short lived. Still feel a bit numb on the bottoms of my fingers and face and tummy, upper back feel like they have mint cream on them. Penis actually has continued to improve, I had 0-10% feeling in the glans in Jan, it's 80-95% now and getting better slowly.

No one really has any answers to what reliably helps, for me it's been staying positive and as active as my mood/body allows and just time which is the main factor. Best of luck to you and keep us updated.
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