I had a health scare at the beginning of the year and it made me anxious. I was reluctant to take an SSRI. I am in my mid 40's and read that TRT could improve my mood. I tried it for 6 weeks and it only made my mood worse as it threw off my hormones. I stopped cold turkey on June 10th and went to my doctor and I told them that a coworker of mine said that Lexapro helped them. I told them about my health scare and TRT but they didn't seem to think that would be a reason for me to be anxious, so they gave me 5mg of Lexapro and said call them in 4-6 weeks and let them know how I felt. By weeks 4-5 I had become completely emotionally blunted and was just numb inside. I went down to 2.5mg and after a couple days I felt better. I messaged my primary care doctor and they said to take 2.5mg for two weeks and then every other day for two weeks and stop. I did a quick web search on tapering and it was clear that the every other day dose was not recommended. My care team is my primary doctor and two nurse practitioners, one of the NPs prescribed me the Lexapro and the other NP gave me the improper tapering instructions. I had a check up with my main doctor and he told me to just stay at 2.5mg for a month and see how I felt. I have messaged them asking for guidance and they did send me a big bottle of liquid Lexapro, but no advice on what to do. I reached out to a psychiatrist and they were like, yeah, the science of the SERT is there, but in the real world I have never had to drop someone below 1mg when tapering them off. I have only been on the medication a short time, but my year has made my nervous system sensitized. Cancer scare from late Feb to mid April, TRT mid April to early June, Lexapro mid June to late July and tapering off since late July.
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