My husband was put on prozac after a fire gutted our house. He went to the Doctor for a blood pressure pill renewal, and the Doctor asked how are you doing. My husband said a little depressed and the next thing I knew he was put on 20 Mgs prozac. When he came home with the prescription I laughed and said people kill people or themselves on this stuff. Little did I know what would happen in the next 1 1/2 years.

First about 3 months after starting the Prozac he started spending more and more time in front of the TV not talking to anyone or responding to anything. Next he starting drinking alcohol (he is not a drinker). Then he passed out at work and was brought to the hospital. He came home in a trancelike state after spending the night there, Upon coming home he started having panic and anxiety attacks, electric shocks going through his body, internal shakes, suicidal feelings etc.. I kept calling the Doctor and telling him that something was wrong, he kept adding more and more drugs, like Buspar, Klonipin and a few more.

Then he ended up at a psychologist. This psychologist was trying to teach him excercises to relieve anxiety like "butt cheek squeezing excercises", this went over real well, and others. All the while I keep telling the Doctors that I think it was the Prozac and they kept telling me "no that Prozac doesn't do this".

Well finally he couldn't take anymore and went off the prozac cold turkey. After this he went completely off the wall. His adverse reactions include the following:
1) Psychotic
2) Paranoid
3) Suicide attempts
4) Electric shocks were shooting from his feet to his head
5) Not sleeping
6) having severe nightmares, when he did sleep
7) leaving work to go sit alone for hours
8) rage
9) crying spell
10) more and more anxiety attacks
11) an affair

and much much more. All the while the Doctors are still telling me its not the prozac, that it was out of his system by now. Which I have found out through research stays in your organs for a long time because it has a binding agent in it.

He ended up hospitalized 3 times over the next year and on many, many more drugs. Including Serentil (anti-psychotic), Effexor(anti-depressant), Annafranil(anti-obsessive). Then onto Pamelor (another anti-depressant), mellaril (another anti-psychotic) and his Annafranil dosage was incresed to the maximum allowed. His mind was in a fog, his suicide attempts continued. And the Psychiatrist he was seeing at this point told us that the next step was Shock Treatments.

Well when he told us this we decided we had to take matters into our own hands. My husband pulled himself off these drugs cold turkey. He went through the most horrible withdrawals: Rebound depression, Crying hysterically, severe emotional swings, abdominal pain he just wanted to lay down and die, etc.. He basically tried to sleep his way through and after about 2 weeks he started going back to his old self.

It has been 7 months since he went off all these drugs cold turkey he still has good and bad days although the bad days are getting farther apart and fewer. I am a volunteer for Bills penpal room and we would like to dedicate our time to helping others who have been through this hell and let them see that they are not alone in this.

You can write to Patty and Robert at: pbmac@bellatlantic.net