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Mirtazapine withdrawl and anxiety

HI, I'm hoping someone can help.  I was taking irtazapine 3.75mgs for 3 months,I was on it for bad anxiety that came back after getting a vertigo disorder. I began to have swelling in my feet, ankles and knee's and it scared me so I decided to stop the meds.  I called my pdoc about it and he said no problem just stop, well I read the horror stories about stopping so I tapered to 1.88mgs for 2 weeks and felt ok so just stopped.  I'm on day 9 of no mirts and starting 3 days ago I felt awful, so nausea's and aches through my body, and 2 days ago woke up with anxiety so bad i couldnt get calm.  This moring woke with an awful dream and this horrid anxiety, my chest hurt and my left arm ached, I know its withdrawl from the meds.   I saw my GP lasat week about all this and during the visit he of course checked my blood pressure and it was 140/80 which he said is high, I don't know if the cause was all the pain i was in with my legs aching so bad I Could hardly function.  This morning when I woke up in this awful anxiety all I could think was, this is probably causing the blood pressure to go up and now I'm going to have a heart attack.  
I saw the psychiatrist last friday and I was feeling ok, but the day before I felt awful body aches, chills, headache and anxiety.  He said he didn't want to  go back on meds but start CBT.  I don't know what to do now.  Waking up with anxiety the past 2 days, not sleeping so well, aches, nausea, headaches, no real appetite.  I've taken the 1/4 of .25 xanax the past 2 mornings as the psych said it was ok if I needed it.  Now I'm worried about getting stuck on the xanax.  I'm wondering does this all sound rght for withdrawl from mirts only after a week?  Has anyone take benzo's during withdrawl and been able to get off of the mirts by doing this?  How long can this go on only after 3 months of taking it ?  Thanks for any help.  I'm now waiting to here from my pysch today about this worsening anxeity this morning.
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Avatar universal
This drug isn't known for having as bad of a withdrawal problem as ssris and snris, but any drug that affects brain neurotransmitters can have this effect.  What you're describing is pretty classic withdrawal symptoms except the anxiety, which if it's the same as you had that got you on the drug means it's just back again but if it's a lot worse, that's withdrawal.  Now, you can tough this out and hope it all stops and usually eventually it does, but some people can have a very long and hard time of it.  To prevent this as best as can be done, we taper off these drugs at a schedule that suits the individual -- this isn't how most doctors do it, but it's how it's supposed to be done because we react differently to this stuff than others do.  My advice would be to go back on the drug at the last dose at which you felt fine.  If in a couple of days everything feels fine, then it's withdrawal, and you can taper off more slowly until you can hopefully stop without so much difficulty, keeping in mind that some people just have a very hard time stopping certain drugs.  Again, this isn't usually one of them, so I think you'll be fine if you go back and do it right.  And no, the benzo isn't likely to do anything at all for your withdrawal process, but it might make you not care about it as much and not be as anxious.  The withdrawal process is caused by the brain trying to reactivate the natural way it processes neurotransmitters, which is altered by taking a drug that affects them.  As for the benzo, if you take it regularly, it is an addictive drug, but even if it weren't, as you've discovered with the antidepressant, you'd still have a withdrawal problem potentially because it's targeting a neurotransmitter.  If you just take it when absolutely necessary, you won't get addicted and it will be easier to stop taking, though you are taking a tiny dose which should make it pretty easy to stop.  Those are basically your two choices -- tough it out and hope it goes away quickly or go back and do the taper that's always recommended for these meds.  It's unusual to get a bad one after such a short time, but you're the only you and it happened, so it doesn't really matter what usually happens.  My own experience with withdrawal is that it's going to be pretty useless to do CBT while you're in withdrawal -- it's hard enough to do when you're not.  And I would probably not see that psychiatrist again, as I would never trust him given he told you to quit one of these drug cold turkey despite the advice that is probably on the manufacturer's website to taper off, and know that regular docs aren't very well trained in this stuff.  Some get that training, but most just don't have the time to focus on anything -- they see people for so many things that they are somewhat informed on everything but masters of only the most basic things.  
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