Hi, I'm JoD

Hi, I’m Jo and have been on Lexapro for almost 2 years. I tried tapering earlier this year and had a lot of strange anxiety symptoms and I mean super embarassingly strange symptoms so went straight back on them. I thought I’m trapped and will never get off these things. Started trying again with liquid drops and following some of the release tapering programme from University of Queensland. Unfortunately my lovely GP was not able to help much but gave me the liquid prescription. I think the chemist also felt it wasn’t a common request. I am here because I have just embarked on a lactose free diet because I could no longer cope with the bloating wind cramps and diarrhea and then happened to mention this to google ai who threw up GI as some of the symptoms of coming off antidepressants. Then it all clicked. I just thought there was something wrong with my diet. The symptoms have reduced after one day after pushing my dose back up and returning to my normal quite healthy diet. So I’m here because now I realize I got confident and ignored the advise tapering drastically because it is likely I didn’t recognize symptoms. I feel foolish for going on them because of relationship problems although they were wonderful and I feel foolish for not researching the possibility of problems coming off them. Other friends seem to have few side effects? I am hoping that the return to slow tapering will help my side effects and I am trying to believe this is all a lesson in Patience. I am also tired of talking to AI about this and am hopeful that a chat group can be supportive as sometimes the whole episode seems a little crazy. Jo