Cold turkey withdrawal from psychiatric drugs

Why not withdraw rapidly or ‘cold turkey’?
Melanie Davis
manager
REST Project, MIND in Camden

video from CEP

See also: Cold-turkeying off psych drugs is not a wise choice except in a life-threatening emergency

and another video: Alto Strata speaks at the Occupy Psychiatry Protest at the APA conference: psychiatric drug withdrawal

And: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

The most important thing to understand about withdrawing psych meds cold-turkey is that it’s potentially quite dangerous. This includes every class of psychiatric drug, too. To be clear: just because you’ve heard of someone that managed to do it without harming themselves (or you are the one who did it successfully) doesn’t mean it’s a generally safe thing for others to do. The risk involved if things go wrong are potentially radically life-changing in the extreme negative so it’s simply not a risk worth taking unless one is faced with an immediate life-threatening side-effect from the drugs. That is the only time that cold-turkey is appropriate and wise…in that instance one should have easy access to emergency medical services as well.

I always call the methods for psychiatric drug withdrawal recommended on this blog SAFER withdrawal options, because even discontinuing slowly has risks depending on a lot of factors that are simply not in our control.

*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications. If your MD agrees to help you do so, do not assume they know how to do it well even if they claim to have experience. They are generally not trained in discontinuation and may not know how to recognize withdrawal issues. A lot of withdrawal issues are misdiagnosed to be psychiatric problems. This is why it’s good to educate oneself and find a doctor who is willing to learn with you as your partner in care. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up

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