getting of LEX… (question and thoughts..)
hello everyone 
I am new to the list and although I do not take Lex, I do know
someone very close whom does take it and wants to get off of it.
Based on everything that I have read and been told, its obvious that
its a very difficult task to get off this drug once you been taking
it for a long time.
I was wondering if you can trick the brain and body??
Let me explain what I mean by that…
For example: If you take 10 mg….and in order to get off the drug
the doctor told you to take 5 mg for a month and then 2.5 mg for
another month…..is this easy task to do??
I already know that is not, since the person close to me is havcing
very difficult taks achiving this goal.
She claims that by the 5 th day…it becomes unbarable (the
dizzines, the shocks, etc…)…which causes driving very dangerous.
I was wondering, Why not take 5 mg for 5 days…and then trick the
brain and take 7.5 mg by breaking the cycle…then going back to
taking the 5 mg for another 5 days??? By repeating this cycle, it
may help ease some of the pain and side effect problems. Ofcouse
this may actually not be a good idea and may very well defeat the
whole purpose of what one is trying to achieve. Personally, I
rather just suffer for a month or two and be done with it…rather
than let it drag for a longer time period by lessening the pain, but
keeping it for a longer time period.
Has anyone tried this method in the past ??? Does it help or make
things worse?? Does it screw up the entire process when you take
that sudden higher dose??
***I am no expert and I do not know how it feels since I dont take
the drug, but I really want my girl friend to get off from it as
painlessly as possible and as quickly as possible. Its a horrible
drug based on everything I have been told and read. It seems to me
that although the drug seems to work well, it seems to have the
worst side effects and causes a major dependancy (addition if you
wanna call it).
March 27th, 2006 at 8:09 pm
I previously took effexor xr which has a very short life in your
system. If I missed my dose by even an hour late, I had a headache.
I have found Lexapro so much better with little side effects.
I am currently taking 7.5 mg/day in the evenings. From experience,
I found that decreasing it (I once went down to nothing), I felt
almost no reactions until about a week after changing the dosage.
Lexapro has one of the longest half-life’s which explains why it
takes several days to notice a change.
To taper, I would suggest a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks at each dosage
change.
I get the 10 mg pills, split them in half and then split one of
those in half again to get approx. 7.5 mg.
That dosage seems to have optimmum benefit with little side effects
for me.
John