Withdrawal From Prescription Medicine
As mentioned earlier, many drugs should not be stopped abruptly without the advice and supervision of a physician, especially if the medication induces dependence or if the condition they are being used to treat is potentially dangerous and likely to return once medication is stopped, such as diabetes, asthma, heart conditions and many psychological or neurological conditions, like epilepsy, hypertension, schizophrenia and psychosis. With careful physician attention, however, medication prioritization and discontinuation can decrease costs, simplify prescription regimens, decrease risks of adverse drug events and polypharmacy, focus therapies where they are most effective, and prevent cost-related underuse of medications.
Sudden cessation of the use of an antidepressant can deepen the feel of depression significantly (see "Rebound" below), and some specific antidepressants can cause a unique set of other symptoms as well when stopped abruptly.
Discontinuation of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants, (and the related class serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors or SNRIs) is associated with a particular syndrome of physical and psychological symptoms known as SSRI discontinuation syndrome. Effexor (venlafaxine) and Paxil (paroxetine), both of which have relatively short half-lives in the body, are the some of the most likely of the antidepressants to cause withdrawals. The worst withdrawal symptoms from a prescription drug that are documented are from the drug Cymbalta (duloxetine) which are sometimes referred to as "nightmare-ish" due to the ill effects and their prevalence. Prozac (fluoxetine), on the other hand, is the least likely of SSRI and SNRI antidepressants to cause any withdrawal symptoms, due to its exceptionally long half-life.
Read more about this topic: Withdrawal
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