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GETTING OFF PROXAC

HI.I have been on prozac and wellbutrin sr for over a year..recently found out my problem it thyroid and hormones.Anyways im going off prozac and Im down to 10 mg and 150 mg wellbutrin sr 2 times a day.after a few weeks of cutting ftom 2 prozac i feel funny so i go back to 2,my dr wants me to instead of going back to 2 proxac to up my wellbutrin to 2 150 mg in am and 1 in pm..which makes 450 mg/she said it is abit over normal amount of wellbutrin sr..when i finish the bottle i have she is putting me on wellbutrin xl///her plan is that by upping the wellbutrin i will finally be able to get off prozaci have gone from 60 mg prtozac to 10 mg but cant seem to get off it and i hjate it,its killed my sex drive. Has anyone else tried this or beem a bit over normal amount? Thanks
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Avatar universal
is it because i used to complain so much for years that noone answers my quedtions ..i am doing great since last march...im taking the wellbutrin sr 150 mg 3 times a day now instead of 2 in am and 1 in pm..but still wonder if anyone has beeen abble to get off prozac by wellbutrin
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I was taking 60 mg of Prozac and went down to 40 mg for a couple weeks then started Wellbutrin 150xl and was able to get off the Prozac. They had me take 20 mg for 3 days along with the Wellbutrin then quit the Prozac. I felt depressed for a few days after I didn’t take Prozac for about 5 days but that was the hardest part of it
I just want to put in a word of caution.  Many people quit a drug without problems.  That is no protection for those who don't, and while it may have worked for you this time, it might not next time.  You can't generalize this stuff, which means, stopping a med must be done in the safest possible manner for everyone because when bad things happen your psychiatrist, and especially a general practice doc, may very well not be at all versed in how to do this safely and properly or know how to respond if things go wrong.  Always remember, official doctrine is that it's not hard to quit these meds.  It's not true, but that's mainstream psychiatry.  It's you, not the medication is almost always the first response no matter what med you take.  This is how docs are trained and they have to become wiser as they get more experience to be better than their training but most of us don't actually work at getting wiser.  That's just human life.  The shortest recommended taper schedule I have seen by a psychiatrist who actually has researched and thought about and written about this is 6 weeks, and that is often too short for many many people.  Now, Prozac is one of the easier meds to stop taking because it stays in the body quite a lot longer than most antidepressants, and that allows the body to naturally taper off of it.  That too however is no consolation to those who have trouble doing this.  Taking wellbutrin is no substitute for Prozac unless your only problem is depression.  If you have anxiety problems, wellbutrin can be very problematic, as it is perhaps the most stimulating of all antidepressants other than taking speed, which is used for depression.  For anxiety sufferers this can be a big problem.  I would personally not start a new drug until I had successfully completed my taper, which should last as long as the particular individual involved needs it to, not some generalized schedule a doc uses for everyone, off of the one I was already using.  The only exception would be if the new drug were being introduced specifically to try to deal with an out of control withdrawal, as Prozac sometimes is used because its long half life in the body makes it easier for most to quit so sometimes when someone is having a terrible withdrawal Prozac will be tried to get the person on Prozac, hope that does the trick, and then they can taper off the Prozac.  This generally only works for serotonin-affecting meds, and wellbutrin isn't one of those.  So while I am really glad the above poster had an easy time of it, that is not any guide to how anyone else will fare, and wellbutrin isn't a good choice to help one quit a drug because it can be so stimulating, and because it doesn't target serotonin, it probably wasn't of any help at all in quitting the Prozac.  You just didn't have a hard time with it, and that's how we all want it to be.  Peace.
I meant to explain the reason I would not personally start a new drug until I had safely quit the last one is, when you do that you have no way of knowing if you do get some bad effects whether those bad effects are the result of withdrawal from the drug you are stopping or the result of the new drug you are starting.  
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