Had a follow up with my prescriber

I'm sorry your visit was not as you had hoped. You did a great job with trying to educate your doctor, so I'm very proud of what you accomplished! I hope you're able to get in with the new place. Keep us posted! We have to be our own healthcare advocate and keep persisting to get the care we need and deserve.

"he was very dismissive and told me to stay off the internet" — @B81

😆 Sounds like you've been on that poison for 20 weeks or so, and getting yourself off of it pretty successful. Maybe you could start a desubscribing training course for Drs like him I took it for 2 days and couldn't stop shaking or throwing up.

So, I just had a telehealth appointment with Refresh Psychiatry and got the exact opposite advice. They told me that I could just stop taking it tomorrow as I do not need the medication. I am at 0.8mg and I asked her about the 30-35% SERT occupancy and she said that no one really knows the real SERT as those numbers are based off of a small amount of PET CT scans and she said that I can go to 0.4mg for a week and then stop if that makes me feel more comfortable. She was saying that I was overthinking it and that I was using the taper as a way to distract from some deeper fears. Which she may be right about that. I was only on 5mg for 35 days and then spent the last 98 days tapering to 0.8mg. I did complete four processing sessions of EMDR for the main issue. I am on day 9 of 0.8mg. I have EMDR tomorrow and I will attempt to complete phase 5, the installation of the positive belief and ride out 0.8mg for another 5 days to get to 2 weeks and then see if I am ready to go to 0.4mg. I don't know who to listen to anymore and I know I am already on the nocebo mindset and looking for the worst...

@B81 You don't need to listen to anyone, you're doing great and have a great plan, but I'd consider the 10% taper per month if I were you, as a general rule. You feeling confident? Take it to 15-20% and if you're stable in 2-3 weeks, drop again! Feel rough? Hold awhile longer, or raise it 5% and hold until stable before retapering. The slow tapering advice you're getting here is plenty scientific and espoused by people who have actually successfully tapered off these drugs for decades. Not some piddly 3mo study Big Pharma did to reduce their liability - and your Dr - who also never has either, but just touts their official line

I was on 5mg for 35 days...if I taper off using the method of reducing my dose by 10% of the previous dose, starting at 0.8mg, it would take me a year if I held it for 2 weeks and 2 years if I held it for 4 weeks and I have already been tapering for 98 days. I was only on it for 133 days and 98 of those days were taping and I have another 1-2 years to get off. I think that time on the medication and the dose has to count for something... If I start on November 7th, 2026, and reduced my dose by 10% of the previous day and held it for 2-4 weeks starting at 0.8mg, how long would that take? If you strictly follow a mathematical 10% exponential reduction from your previous dose and hold each step for 2 to 4 weeks, it will take roughly 12 to 25 months to reach zero. This exact mathematical trap is why you felt so much dread earlier. Because exponential math never technically hits zero, reducing 0.8 mg by 10% over and over forces you into a massive, unnecessarily prolonged timeline. Here is how the math breaks down if you target 0.05 mg as a standard final jump-off point for strict micro-tapering: Hold Time Per Step Total Steps Required Total Time in Weeks Total Time in Months / Years 2-Week Holds 27 steps 54 weeks ~12.5 months (1 Year) 4-Week Holds 27 steps 108 weeks ~25 months (2+ Years)

@B81 , Yeah, you don't need to do the hyperbolic EXACTLY lol. And you can speed up if doing well. I can tell you if you go too fast and have terrible WD and relapse, it'll take much longer or never get off. Many of us here learned our lesson doing that and are on our 2nd or 3rd attempts at getting off these meds. I never tapered any of my ADs and suffered immensely and ended getting on zyprexa to get over it. It's an antipsychotic, a little different, worse for WDs probably Read this article, worth its weight in Lexapro Gold! https://taper.community/resources/blog/how-to-taper-off-lexapro

"I don't know who to listen to anymore" — @B81

Listen to yourself and your own body. It will tell you if something is doable or not. My opinion is that it's better to be safe than sorry. I've tapered too fast in the past and paid dearly for it. I don't think SERT occupancy is something to poo-poo. The greatest changes in the brain happen at these very low doses. That being said, though, not everyone is going to experience severe withdrawal symptoms. The problem is, there is no way to tell who will and who won't. Hopefully everything will be okay and things will go smoothly with whatever you decide. Keep us posted!

"Solo la tomé durante 133 días y 98 de esos días fueron de reducción gradual y tengo otros 1-2 años para dejarla. Creo que ese tiempo con la medicación y la dosis tiene que contar para algo..." — @B81

I have the same dilemma but with clonazepam. I was on it for 120 days and jumped from which I thought was a low dose 0,125 mg. Trying to reach 0 seems like undoable. I also feel that I don't know who to listen to. Most of my symptoms never dissapeared after reinstatement, I was told to go slow, but no matter if I go fast or slow, symptoms are there, I wonder if stretching the taper for more than one year makes me more dependent or my brain get more injury by staying longer. Many questions but no answers.