# Lexapro withdrawal = tiredness??



## jakejohnson007 (Jul 27, 2006)

It's day 3 of quitting Lexapro cold turkey and I am so tired! I expected insomnia, not tiredness. Has anyone else experienced tiredness as a SE of quitting Lexapro?


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## lady_hawak (Sep 9, 2008)

if you take green tea it will help you out.


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## jakejohnson007 (Jul 27, 2006)

I'm sipping on some right now, but even after two cups and a 200 mg caffiene tablet, I'm very drowsy!

I am looking to confirm that this could still be the Lexapro in my system or the withdrawal that is causing this.


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## mcnabj (May 21, 2005)

how long were you on lex? IMHO I would not cold turkey and ssri. You will crash very hard in a few weeks. A proper tapering plan is needed. SSri's are addictive and need to be tapered when ceased.


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## jakejohnson007 (Jul 27, 2006)

3.5 months - I understand the justification for tapering. However, I have quit paxil and even Klonopin cold-turkey before. The increased anxiety I can deal with, but this tiredness is significant!

It's day 5 of quitting cold turkey and after 150 mgs caffeine I still feel very sluggish.


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## jakejohnson007 (Jul 27, 2006)

I also had Mono about 4 months ago... I don't know much about Mono, but I thought it should have worn off by now.


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## mcnabj (May 21, 2005)

jakejohnson007 said:


> 3.5 months - I understand the justification for tapering. However, I have quit paxil and even Klonopin cold-turkey before. The increased anxiety I can deal with, but this tiredness is significant!
> 
> It's day 5 of quitting cold turkey and after 150 mgs caffeine I still feel very sluggish.


you really need to tapper off slowly. I had a doctor tell me I could tapper of paxil in four weeks after I had been on it for years. What a ****ing idiot. It took me 8-9 months to get off that poison. I would get back on he lex and stable then tapper off over a month or two. Your lucky that you have only been on it for 3.5 months. Good luck.


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## KurtG85 (Sep 19, 2008)

I have been on lex up to 80 mg a day and have gone cold turkey off it many times including since two days ago (40mg to 0-mg). 
I really dont experience much of any withdrawal coming off lexapro. I am back to my old patterns of high anxiety and increased depression of course but thats obviously not withdrawal. I actually find lexapro to be very activating in terms of wakefulness so its only natural to feel more tired when coming off of it for me. In any case, I imagine about a week should be the longest you feel the withdrawal symptoms. Two weeks if your real unlucky. 

Also, I'm not saying that you are, but be carefull that you aren't just feeling the same level of wakefulness you felt before lexapro but you just didnt recognize the boost in wakefulness you felt while on it. It took me a few times off it and back on it to precisely recognize that it slowed my cognition speeds a bit while on it but that this was different from its effects on my wakefulness which it increased.


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## Noca (Jun 24, 2005)

KurtG85 said:


> I have been on lex up to 80 mg a day and have gone cold turkey off it many times including since two days ago (40mg to 0-mg).
> I really dont experience much of any withdrawal coming off lexapro. I am back to my old patterns of high anxiety and increased depression of course but thats obviously not withdrawal. I actually find lexapro to be very activating in terms of wakefulness so its only natural to feel more tired when coming off of it for me. In any case, I imagine about a week should be the longest you feel the withdrawal symptoms. Two weeks if your real unlucky.
> 
> Also, I'm not saying that you are, but be carefull that you aren't just feeling the same level of wakefulness you felt before lexapro but you just didnt recognize the boost in wakefulness you felt while on it. It took me a few times off it and back on it to precisely recognize that it slowed my cognition speeds a bit while on it but that this was different from its effects on my wakefulness which it increased.


80mgs of Lexapro???


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## KurtG85 (Sep 19, 2008)

Yup. This was not everyday, was not doc authorized and I didn't know at the time it wasn't supposed to be safe but occasionally while working as a server I would take that amount. 

I would take 40mg in the am (about 10:00 usually) and 40mg in the pm around 8 or so because my shift would end at 1 am and I still had plenty of stuck up, drunk people and the general insane amount of stress of the serving industry to deal with and I often was at the point of breaking down around that point. I have never had even the slightest hint of serotonin syndrome. That also includes then going out, having a few beers and smoking some of the finest weed available by means of very well connected friends. 
As has been mentioned on this board I found lexapro to be much more helpful with depression than anxiety but this improvement in depression correlates with a natural decrease in anxiety to a limited degree. I would say it helps with anxiety mainly because people don't look at you as nastily and try and take advantage as much when they see that you aren't a depressive mess. People sometimes being the immature bastards they are however, will still pick up on someone with high anxiety and be more difficult towards them in all manner of ways.

P.S- NEVER disrespect your servers. Firstly because if you havn't served at a restaurant that places high demands on its servers (most but not all of them) you have no idea of how hard they are working (intensely), the stress level they are working under, as well as a ton of other BS it would take me 20 minutes to go through. Secondly, because if you do choose to be that un-empathetic rude a-hole, there is a good chance there will be things in your food that would traumatize you for life if you knew they were in there. I have seen this first hand on countless occasions and gladly contributed because while you will come on the job for the first time thinking that this sort of thing is "below" you, once you stand in that servers shoes you will only then realize that such acts are 100% justified. Only if you watch your server sitting on his or her *** doing nothing do you have justifiable reason to complain about that server directly.


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