3.5 months off 75mg flupentixol per month cold turkey

[Andyh95]

I was on flupentixol for four years and came off it on 1st April, with my last dose on March 3rd, If that makes sense. I'm just wondering.. do many or any people here have experience in coming off any antipsychotics after long term use, and in particular flupentixol, and, if so, how long did it take before you were able to feel your emotions again? The biggest side effect for me on flupentixol was being unable to feel emotions. I'm asking because it's been three months and I'm still slowly becoming more emotionally sensitive.

Thanks in advance ��,

Andy ��

[Auror.]

That said, while I wasn't on Abilify for super long (around 8-9 months) it took about six months after I stopped taking it before I was back to my physical and emotional baseline. I also experienced a major death/loss at that time, so that might have also impacted it, as that likely numbed my emotions too. This was a number of years ago now, but in the future I (and we at RYL in general) wouldn't recommend cold turkey withdrawing from anything unless you were medically advised to. It can make you really physically ill.

Are you able to go back to a GP or whomever was prescribing the medication to ask if you have any other concerns?

[Andyh95]

Thank you both. I find it interesting that a relatively short length of time on a drug could cause a 6 month recovery period. Maybe that's what I'm in store for as well, so thank you for that.

The medication wasn't helping and was making me depressed. I didn't trust the psychiatric team as when I first got depressed on the drug they just offered me mirtazapine. I thought they might keep the dose the same, or refuse to decrease it at my review. When I mentioned that to my psychiatric team they tried to up the dose to 50mg every two weeks rather than 75 mg every 4 weeks, saying "because you didn't mention you were depressed on a higher dose". This made me realise how lucky I was that I didn't tell them I was depressed on a much higher dosage, or I could've had the dose increased from that (140mg every one week to start with).

Thanks for both of your answers. I look forward to feeling my emotions again, even if it takes another 2.5 months :thumbup:

What dosage of abilify were you on if you don't mind me asking.. was it considered a high dose?

The psychiatric team have phoned me once a week roughly since April to see how I'm getting on.

[Auror.]

Honestly it was so long ago I don't remember. I think it might have been pretty high because I had some other unpleasant side effects from it as well that they had to give me a different medication to help with.

Do you get on with the psychiatric team and do they know you've stopped taking it? Are you able to tell them if not, and are you able to speak to them honestly if you are struggling?

[Andyh95]

My mum gets on with them, I don't really have time for them but they are very nice people and they want what's best for me.

They know I've stopped taking it – it was a monthly community injection so I went to see them to get it done.

Thanks for replying 😁