Introduction

[Sheila]

Hey, that was a very interesting link. Thanks! It's got a lot of useful info laid out nicely. It's interesting to see the differences among the SSRIs. It's weird, though, I hadn't realized Prozac was so broad-spectrum, yet it seems to be one of the easier ADs to w/d from. That's confusing. As you say, the whole thing is so complex. Oh, yeah, the insanity that you could possibly think of these things as only affecting serotonin the way you wanted them to....

[Sheila]

This board is so important because it provides the through line--the thread that connects the stories. That's another reason the vested interests use the label anecdotal to describe our experiences--to emphasize the disconnection between the stories -- to suggest a randomness, without clear cause and effect.
"Anecdotes" lack a through line--a connecting theme that binds them together to create a coherent picture. Like the way dreams are anecdotal--shifting from scene to scenario, without transition or apparent connection. In my dream, one moment I was in the jungle with tigers, then I was in a gymnasium, then quick cut to driving on the freeway--each tableau a little discrete anecdote.
By terming our AD experience anecdotal the goal is to keep our stories disconnected, each in its own separate box. divide and conquer.
This board allows the dots to be connected --for there to be a unifying thread. what we have in common --we all turned onto the AD freeway and we're all looking for the exit while trying not to crash.

Very nice writing -- excellent observations, nice style!

[Chris]

I am learning to be flexible about my own fears. When I tapered too fast before, I had many of the w/d symptoms in extreme forms--nausea, vertigo, general mental weirdness. But without a doubt, the rebound anxiety was the deal breaker and why I couldn't get off the meds before. I was so sure that I would be clobbered with anxiety this time and I really expected it. That has not been the case so far. I am very happy to be wrong in my expectations.
This time I'm going much slower and I'm getting the symptoms but much milder (knock on wood). At start of this taper, I was very afraid of the anxiety. Now I have been able to view it as coming back to life. Then again, it hasn't been of the harrowing nerve grinding variety that happened when I tried to taper too fast. to distinguish between organic and drug w/d emotions--that is the challenge and we are the vanguard.
Like benzos, zoloft blunts feelings; to cope with the w/d anxiety, I try to welcome the rebound as the return of feeling.
This is why the eggsperts can say w/d is the return of preexisting conditions. For me, the SSRI definitely masked my real feelings/self. The fact that reality returns with the w/d and some of the feelings are difficult does not mean that all the w/d effects are preexisting. It is not either/or. People are complex--more complex then ads on T.V. The media has reduced our world to sound bites. A famous politico said that a message that is nuanced and layered is not a message. We cannot accept the terms of the debate when set out in these black and white terms.

[stan]

Like benzos, zoloft blunts feelings; to cope with the w/d anxiety, I try to welcome the rebound as the return of feeling.
For me, the SSRI definitely masked my real feelings/self.

i agree, i feel the same

[Chris]

Season's Greetings around the world. Love to all at IAWP. So grateful for all of you.

[Sheila]

Wishing that the coming year be filled with gifts for you!

[Chris]

In college I took psychedelics a few times (peyote, psyllicibin mushrooms, LSD).

Later, when I first tried to w/d from SSRI, there weren't resources yet like IAWP or much info and the rapid w/d symptoms took me totally by surprise.
I checked out some books to figure out what the heck was going on. (Like Glenmullen and some others). One day, I was reading one of these books in the park while I was in serious w/d--major vertigo, ground shifting beneath my feet, total sensory altered state of reality (actually hard to read because the vertigo is like reading in a car and getting car sick)
Then suddenly I couldn't believe what I'm reading: "SSRIs act on same neuro transmitters as LSD." I was just incredulous because 1) it totally explained what was happening to me and 2) I couldn't believe that a doctor gave me some LSD (like drug) . (the fire wall of righteousness that demarcates legal and illegal drugs came crashing down)

Yesterday, I found something that may clarify the LSD-SSRI (serotonin) connection: "Too much serotonin action at the 5HT1A receptor can cause hallucinations." In w/d from SSRI, serotonin levels are randomly fluctuating as the system tries to readjust to absence of the drug --with result of periodically too much serotonin at 5HT1A. Too much serotonin at 5HT1A is also the way LSD causes hallucinations.

One reason I research this connection is that the neuro chemical explanation for SSRI w/d does exist ----and when chemical formulas can be shown to explain what is happening to us, it (should be) harder for estab. medicine to deny it exists.

[Sheila]

What a great epiphany you had that day in the park!

Mike has talked about having the symptoms of too much serotonin at times.

Yeah, that's a good idea to use chemistry to make the case. That's what my aunt did with the anthrax cover-up.

[Chris]

Not sure what these mean exactly but I like these quotes:

“Resignation, not mystic, not detached [. . .] open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham” (Joseph Conrad )

“The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water, make the deep, deep sea keep you up” (Lord Jim).

“You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done. In the final end [you] won the war,
After losing every battle.” (Idiot Wind)

[Chris]

I sent this email to someone (anonymous online) who seemed to know a lot about serotonin receptors. I just got a response which I have included below. I don’t know squat about this stuff, but this individual sure sounds like he knows what he’s talking about!! (note gender assumption). Actually, I'm way way over my head; but another way of looking at my lack of knowledge is that the science of neurons and depression is quite hypothetical (hence the Zoloft Ad BLOB is actually a good representation of the current state of knowledge), so even we total non-scientists may as well join in on the wild speculation . . . .

My Email: There are lots of reports of LSD-like visual distortions when withdrawing from SSRIs like Zoloft. Can you offer any suggestions for why this might be? Even if you doubt it, could you bear with me and speculate/hypothesize for a second?
It seems obvious that there is some connection between LSD and SSRIs since they both act at 5-HT.
("The psychedelic effects of LSD are attributed to its strong partial agonist effects at 5-HT2A receptors"?)
I’ve read contradictory info re. LSD: some say it’s a partial agonist at 5-HT, some say its an antagonist:

Do you agree with this: "The interaction of LSD with 5-HT receptors lowers the concentrations of brain serotonin. Research shows that LSD reduced the turnover rate of 5-HT in rats’ rate of discharge of raphe nuclei neurons located in the area of reticular formation containing most of the serotonergic cell bodies. LSD antagonizes the potentiating action of reserpine (the chemical involved with releasing large amounts of serotonin) thus lowering the levels of serotonin in the brain."

1. Is it true that actual levels of serotonin in the brain can't be measured?
2. Is it true that the actual mechanism of how SSRIs "work" isn't completely known? There seems to be alot of B.S. in the marketing re. "chemical imbalance in the brain."

REPLY to my Email : "Hey sorry for the late reply.
1. The levels of serotonin in the brain can be measured with techniques like microdialysis. This is unethical, however, in humans.
2. I would go much further than "isn't completely known" and say "isn't known at all." First off, serotonin is probably only relevant because it seems to affect, somehow, the release of a protein called BDNF. So the monoamine hypothesis of depression is probably pretty wrong. But there is a broader point to be made: We know that BDNF promotes the generation, strength, and survival of synapses, but what does that do? Why does it help? Ultimately we don't know why BDNF helps, or why SSRIs or any drugs that affects the mind work, simply because we don't know how the brain works; more specifically, we know which chemicals are involved in what, but we don't know how neurons interact as a system to produce behavior.

However, I have a chemical speculation to answer your original question. The interesting thing about the 5-HT2A receptor is that if you increase the amount of serotonin, the number of receptors and their sensitivity drops so much that there's actually less activation of the receptor. So, when you are on an SSRI (after your brain has adjusted to it) you have less 5-HT2A signaling. Perhaps the opposite is true in SSRI withdrawal, so that when your serotonin levels drop the number of receptors skyrockets and you have more LSD-like signaling than normal. There are some technicalities with 5-HT2A's functional selectivity, meaning the receptor can be activated in different ways (LSD and serotonin actually activate completely different signaling pathways through it) so maybe an endogenous chemical other than serotonin, maybe DMT, would need to be activating the receptor to explain this effect. But this is all wild speculation anyway, though I hope it helped.
All the best,
troll