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  #1  
Old 03-30-2006, 02:02 PM
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Default Going Crazy Over Here!!

Hello everyone- I'm obviously new and have been recently (well, today), reading your posts over Lexapro withdrawal. I am in shock! I'm experiencing a LOT of the same thing. I was in the ER all day yesterday. Here's my issue(s) in a nutshell-

July 05 I started taking Lexapro 20mg, as well as Xanax XR 2 mg daily for depression/anxiety/panic attacks. That lasted about a month until they up'd my dosage of Lex to 40 mg which is what I've been on since. Fast forward to a week ago, my "new" Dr. changed me over to Wellbutrin, telling me taper off w/the whole half dose Lex/half dose Well for a while, blah blah. He also said he didn't like Xanex XR and he put me on just Xanex as needed. (I should probably include the fact the I did have heart surgery 3 years ago for SVT). Ok, yesterday at work, I felt pressure in my chest, tightening, burning sensations, I had cold chills and I was VERY nauseated. I was of course worried it was my heart. I spent the day at the ER. Now I'll be back on heart meds and I have all that fun echo-cardiogram stuff scheduled for tommorrow to check my heart out.

Here's the question- Can Lexapro be doing this to ME???? The one HUGE thing I noticed since he swapped me over on the half dose of each is the nausea BIGTIME. Today, I'm having trouble keeping my balance and am having HUGE dizzy spells. I feel stupid when talking to anyone lately because I can't remember if I'm repeating myself or not (I'll probably have to read this twice!!).

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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  #2  
Old 04-17-2006, 09:37 AM
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Not only can taking Lexapro result in what you describe, it may contribute to even more bizzare behavior!

<center>Stay away from lexapro!</center>

Okla. Slay Suspect Joked About Cannibalism
- By SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, April 16, 2006

(04-16) 21:56 PDT Purcell, Okla. (AP) --

The man accused of killing a 10-year-old neighbor girl for an elaborate plan to eat human flesh joked about cannibalism on his online diary, discussed the effects of not taking his anti-depression medication and mentioned "dangerously weird" fantasies.

All he wanted in life, Kevin Ray Underwood wrote in his blog, was "to be able to live like a normal person."

People who knew Underwood described him Sunday as a quiet, "boring" and seemingly trustworthy young man. His mother who lived across town called him a "wonderful boy."

"This is something that I don't know where it came from," Connie Underwood said of her son through tears in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I would like to be able to tell her family how sorry we are. I just feel so terrible."

Kevin Underwood, a 26-year-old grocery store stocker in this small community 40 miles south of Oklahoma City, was arrested Friday. Investigators searched his apartment after he aroused their suspicions at a checkpoint, and found a large plastic tub in a bedroom closet. According to a police affidavit, he confessed that he killed Jamie Rose Bolin, telling FBI agents: "Go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up."

Jamie's unclothed body was inside the tub, along with a towel used to soak up blood, officials said. Police said that, while there were deep saw marks on the girl's neck, she had not been dismembered.

Kevin Underwood, who is to be formally charged with first-degree murder Monday, lived alone in an apartment downstairs from the one where Jamie lived with her father.

Authorities believe Kevin Underwood killed the girl Wednesday, when she disappeared after going to a library, by beating and smothering her.

Investigators found meat tenderizer and barbecue skewers that he planned to use on the body, McClain County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall said.

On his blog, an online diary that he had kept since September 2002, Kevin Underwood described himself as "single, bored, and lonely, but other than that, pretty happy."

He mentions cannibalism, asking "If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner?" and responding: "The skin of last night's main course."

In an entry dated Feb. 4, 2006, Kevin Underwood wrote that he struggled with depression and social interaction.

"Pretty much the only time I believe in God is when I blame him for something," he said. "Or, when I'm really depressed, to cry and beg him to make me better, to make whatever is wrong in my brain go away, so that I can live like a normal person.

"That's all I want in life, is to be able to live like a normal person."


He wrote that he rarely left his apartment for long stretches, except to go to work and to buy food. "I just sit here at the computer every minute of the day, when I'm not at work. A week or so ago, I spent my day off sitting here at the computer, barely moving from the chair, for 14 hours."

He said one of his main interests was the online role-playing game "Kingdom of Loathing," in which stick figures battle one another.

In September 2004, he wrote that his depression deepened after several months without taking the medication [u]Lexapro</u>, an antidepressant also used in the treatment of anxiety disorders.


"For example, my fantasies are just getting weirder and weirder. Dangerously weird," he wrote. "If people knew the kinds of things I think about anymore, I'd probably be locked away. No probably about it, I know I would be."


Kevin Underwood worked for nearly seven years at a Carl's Jr. restaurant, where shift leader Bill Berdan described him as a quiet person who kept to himself. "He did a good job," Berdan said Sunday.

However, he said Kevin Underwood, who quit about a year ago, was a "boring" man who rarely smiled.

"Just his tone of voice, he just sounded dull," Berdan said. "Trying to get a smile out of him took an act of Congress."

Berdan said he and his wife and young daughters never suspected anything unusual.

"He gave my wife rides home from work numerous times," Berdan said. "We never felt uncomfortable. I talked to my girls after this happened, and they said they felt comfortable around him."

His most recent job was as a stocker at a Griders Discount Foods grocery store in Oklahoma City, where he arrived early for his shift Friday, said a manager at the store, Jerry Castro.

"He was the same as always," Castro said. "He was quiet and kept to himself. He didn't interact with people. It just didn't dawn on you that this was something he'd do."
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  #3  
Old 04-19-2006, 09:45 AM
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Now, I have to ask, what tells us that he would not have done this, even if he were never on any meds?

How can you definitively blame the medication he was on?

Besides, as much as you decry medications, if you read his statements in that newstory, as highlighted by yourself, they are stating the worst stuff occured when HE STOPPED TAKING HIS MED! Not when he was on it.

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Old 04-19-2006, 10:02 AM
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zippysgodess:

Again, who knows the degree to which Lexapro contributed to his bizarre behavior? One can make even a grizzly bear tranquil w/ the proper does of psych meds, but once the bear is off them, he/she is still a bear.

Miles
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  #5  
Old 04-19-2006, 10:55 AM
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Exactly, so why are you trying to blame the drugs? There is nothing to show the med had anything to do with this, and nothing to prove he wouldn't have done this, even if he had never taken them.

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  #6  
Old 04-19-2006, 03:59 PM
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Dear Live2smyle,
I hope that your meds are being prescribed by a psychiatrist and not by a general practitioner. Mixing these type meds in particular should not be done by a GP but by a doctor well versed in their side effects. My psychiatrist led me to believe that 20 mg of Lexapro is the maximum recommended dose, although they could have changed that I suppose. I have taken Lexapro for several years and it has been helpful for me to cope with depression and stress. I am now withdrawing from it cold turkey with no noticalbe ill effects.

I doubt seriously that Lexapro would cause anyone to do anything they were already inclined to do.
Good luck. B
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  #7  
Old 04-19-2006, 04:01 PM
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Correction:
"That they were NOT already inclined to do." Sorry. B
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  #8  
Old 04-19-2006, 08:04 PM
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Hey There...Actually I am doing MUCH better..it was my GP who originally prescriped Lexapro/Wellbutrin at the same time. I went back to my original psychiatrist who put me back on my lowest dose of Lex (20 mg) and I have been doing MUCH better. I'm hoping that NOW I can actually lose weight since the 40 mg made me continue to gain, although I was trying to lose. That IS the depressing part- I gained 50 lbs in 9 months on Lexapro. That part alone can make a person depressed!

Since he took me off Wellbutrin, I have had zero issues or complications with lowering the dose of Lex. I think it was the Wellbutrin, looking back now, that caused so many problems.

As for the article, that was a person who was not ON Lexapro but obviously needed to be. I do admit, I had strange side effects (mental & physical) while going off of Lex and adding Wellbutrin but those have subsided. Now if I could just sleep- But hey, if that is the worst of my problems right now, I'm content. There is always Ambien.

Thanks for all the info!
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  #9  
Old 04-20-2006, 08:44 AM
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Thank you live2, that is exactly what I was trying to point out, his worst actions had nothing to do with the med, but rather, they happened after he had been off it for a period of time.

I am glad you are doing better. Unfortunately any drug, even if it isn't a narcotic, can cause our bodies to experience dependence on it, resulting in withdrawal symptoms when you take it for an extended period of time and then try to stop taking it.

Your body becomes accustomed to anything that you eat, drink, use, for a long period of time, be it your morning coffee, that can of diet coke on your midmorning break, or that orange you eat after dinner everyday, and when you take it away from your body, you will experience some symptoms. Some more mild than others, and therefore less bothersome, but it does happen and that is just the way our bodies work.

Have you ever known a heavy coffee drinker who suddenly decided to, or maybe for health reasons had to, cut down all of the sudden? They get nauseous, shaky, achy, experience headaches and etc.

verwon@gmail.com

My information is not guaranteed correct. I do not get them right all the time, but I do enjoy the hunt~
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