QUESTION:
Dear Dr. Heller,
Hi there. After a year, and under the advice of my doctor (who has recently retired), I've been cutting back my Paxil dosage from 20mg. After decreasing to 10mg, I began to have nausea, headache, and feelings of vertigo. I have heard that these are common withdrawal effects from SSRI's. However, I have also started to experience heart palpitations. I hear that this is a "less-common" side effect of the drug. My question is, how serious could these palpitations be, and will they stop as I'm reducing the dosage? Are there any vitamins or other treatments that could help? The other effects are scary enough, but this heart thing has me very worried. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
ANSWER:
The palpitations may or may not be related to the Paxil withdrawal. If they are the
chances of them being dangerous are very small.
A simple alternative is to switch to Prozac for 2 weeks, and then stop it. Prozac
doesn't have a withdrawal syndrome because it leaves the body very slowly.
