Symptoms worsening after “better days” . Is that common?

September 28, 2026··

Hello beautiful people, Yesterday and today have been tough with anxiety symptoms after more or less 6 days of better mood and less anxiety, Anxiety symptoms (obssessive thoughts, troubled sleep, no appetite, thorax pressure, headache, burning skin..). I have to say that i am facing a quite “stressful” moment because I have been diagnosed with HPV. Anyway, this morning was really tough.. I went to the appointment but I felt my heart was gonna explode and I felt that everything around me triggering … overwhelming state. My question is; have you guys experienced worsening if symptoms aftet a period of more or less “ calm” or not as strong as keeping you in bed, after increasing the dose back to initiale dose? Because a months ago i reached a very small dose too quickly for my brain and experienced all the withdrawal symptoms all very intense… so i decided to go back to my initial dose (my doctor said so) and took mirtazapine (small dose) to be able to eat and sleep at least. After 3 to 4 days, my symptoms intensity decreased noticebly and the was functional again (still had my moments but it was manageable ) now after 10 days , i had yesterday and today where anxiety symptoms peaked again. Is that normal? Did you guys experienced that after increasing dose back ? I am not new to withdrawal symptoms as I had myself experienced severe withdrawal episode two years ago with benzos … but I thought paxil was different

Paxil — 9 — 2 years 2 months — actively tapering

5 Replies

anne noni moss4d ago

WelcomerPaxil · holding

@Nessi ..hi and thanks for posting. This forum provides so much helpful information about paxil, windows and waves (good days, bad days,) and I am still learning. Your recent diagnoses is reason enough to have some anxiety. In my experience, paxil claws into any difficult feelings and makes them more intense. So in my experience, your nervous system is perfectly normal. Your experience, totally normal . The one thing I failed to take into account when I was trying to taper in the past was that life continues to be life as I withdraw. Hard things happen. Other health conditions show up. I am praying for all of us that we can have much much much self-compassion. Another thing that helps me is to remember that instagram is not life. I don't have to feel "good" every day. My house and my body don't have to be photo-perfect. My social life doesn't have to match re-runs of "friends." My life is my life and I am getting better every day...spiritually and emotionally, and even physically. When you have time, go to the "resources" tab and watch the "de-prescribing curriculum" videos if you want to learn the bigger picture about what you are going through. It really helped me. blessings

atypical in presentation of side effects, super sensitive to small doses and general delayed responder. never took a psych med that didn't' make me sick immediately with infections and restless legs. have never been able to tolerate being on them, but have never had support to get off so I've been bouncing back and forth. i don't like capital letters. sorry.

Paxil — 1 mg — 2 yrs — holding until Oct. 7 doc appt.
Seroquel — 50 — planning taper |
trileptal -75 planning taper
prasozin 1 mg planning taper

Nessi4d ago

WelcomerPaxil · active

Dear @marz thank you so much for telling your experience of your kind advice. I will take a look.

Paxil — 9 — 2 years 2 months — actively tapering

Maria A.4d ago

LighthouseZoloft · active

As someone who crashed during her microtaper and updosed of Zoloft, yes absolutely. I have been having ups and downs and have yet to stabilize. I would say week 3 and 4 were actually harder than weeks 1-2 for me. I’m now on week 5 and praying I can turn a corner soon.

Zoloft —50 mg to 15 mg — 8 years with a cold turkey and reinstatement in between— was liquid micro tapering, crashed at 14.275 mg and now holding at 15 mg.

Kevin Roy4d ago

Dose changes are associated with anxiety and emotional regulation problems whether you go up or down. There is a rapid change in the balance of neurotransmitters and the communication system in the brain is reorganizing. This is where the anxiety is coming from. I find it helpful to think of the brain as a movie that tells the story of reality to the mind. The mind then reacts to it. When you add and remove drugs you are changing the story. Psychiatric drugs drastically changes the picture. The brain is struggling to process the movie correctly. The dose increase is stimulating the receptors but it's artificial, this sends up warning flares which is then felt as anxiety. The anxiety is the body telling you something is wrong. The mirtazapine is blocking the stimulating effect paxil is creating. The combination of the two fight each other. Also paxil like effexor is a short half life drug. You make it just in time for your next dose as it's effects weaken to prevent anxiety. Miss one dose (sometimes late by hours) can be enough to start noticing withdrawal effects. Serotonin in the brain is suppose to decrease when you sleep. SSRI keeps it artificially high, which leaves you awake at night.

anne noni moss4d ago

WelcomerPaxil · holding

So helpful @Kevin Roy

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