Paxil long term side affects

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply re: my message not appearing. Don't know why that happened.

Anyway I'll summarise what my message said.

I was on paxil for about a year, started 20mg as per usual and then was taking

up to as much as 80mg (yeah probably not a good thing I was only prescribed the

max 60mg). Anyway I was having some bad reaction to it where I was getting

uncontrollable shaking in my legs and also the whole loss of libido thing.

I went off it aruptedly and experienced what I'm now pretty sure was SSRI

syndrome. It wasn't that bad although I was unbelievably tired to the point

where I could not wake myself from a sleep despite having alarm on loudest

setting and missed a lot of work which severely affected my reputation. Anyway

this was a while ago now (end of 07).

The reason I joined this site is that I believe that Paxil as affected my brain

functioning.

These are some of my symptoms that I'm pretty sure started when I came off paxil

but have yes to disappear despite being off the drug almost 3 years now.

- Interrupted thought processes ie. difficultly finding words that I know I know

(this sounds wierd but its as if I can't access some parts of my brain).

- Saying or writing the wrong word without rational explanation (ie. often it

isn't even as close as to the one I was intending to say/write).

- Difficultly in completing tasks at work which were previously very easy to me.

- Memory loss (kind of like the interrupted thought processes) ie. unable to

remember things I used to remember?

- Persistant and constant headaches

- Major difficultly maintaining concentration

- Constant tiredness/ not feeling alert/ general lethargy

All I really wanted to know is if anyone else had expereinced symptoms similar

to these and whether you think that is is related to the Paxil..I have been at a

loss as to why this is happening, it started around the time my father died and

it was only recently I made the link between that period and going off Paxil.

The reason I don't think it's related to the death of my father (ie. depression)

is that I have had depression for a long time (hence going on paxil and many

ssri's before that) and haven't expereinced symptoms such as these before.

Also I do take seroquel and ambien (at least one or both nightly to sleep) and

while i am prepared to accept that some of the symptoms may be related to these

I'm not sure they are all a result of this.

Do you think these symptoms will go away? Will I ever get back to my 'old' self

(personally would rather be deathly depressed as opposed to these feelings I

have they are affecting every area of my life and are constant, at least with

the depression there was SOME good days).

I did bring up these long term affects from the Paxil with my psychiatrist and

suprisingly he didn't just 'brush it off' as if it couldn't happen....he offered

to arrange for me to have some 'Neuropsychological tests' which sounded good and

it was nice to be validated but upon reflection I realised they were kind of

futile because likely my functioning is within normal ranges (ie, i'm not

mentally impared, although I AM for me, if that makes sense but it's not like I

am disabled or anything) and since there is nothing to compare it to from BEFORE

I took the Paxil I Don't see what the benefit would be.

OK sorry I'm a bit all over the place but that's the nature of me unfortuantly

...hence unable to have coherent thoughts.

I look forward to some support and advice from you guys.

Thanks a lot.