Member-only story
Mental health
How to Phase Off Anti-Depressants
The good, the bad and the ugly of my experience
The importance of tapering slowly
Everyone will tell you that you need come phase off SSRIs slowly. Because they have a short half-life, they leave your system quickly, so if you go cold turkey the side effects will hit you like a freight train.
You should ask your doctor for advice on how best to reduce your dose, but here’s what my doctor advised for coming off 50mg of Sertraline daily:
- One week taking 50mg and 25mg on alternate days
- Two weeks taking 25mg daily
- Two weeks taking 25mg on alternate days
- Quit
While I was tapering
Coming off anti-depressants can be a scary prospect purely because there’s a lot of talk online about how terrible it is. What scared me most was the idea of “brain zaps”. People describe this as the sensation of an electric shock inside your brain. Ouch.
Thankfully, I never had that. In fact, I had no negative side effects all while I was studiously cutting my dose, perhaps lulling me into a false sense of security.
