Maddy felt ‘brain zaps’ after stopping antidepressants. No-one told her they were a common symptom of withdrawal


When Maddy Britton stopped taking her prescribed antidepressants, she knew she might go into what is described as withdrawal.

But the days and symptoms that followed were “scary and unexpected”.

“Going off my anti-depressants was such an uncomfortable experience, something I have never felt before,” she said. 

“I was pretty scared. I had no idea what was happening to me.”

Her experience is all too common, according to Jon Jureidini, a psychiatrist and academic at the University of Adelaide.

“There’s already research in place to show that withdrawal problems in antidepressants had been under-represented and under-reported,” he said.

Maddy, a 26-year-old retail worker from Brisbane, was taking a low dose of escitalopram, or Lexapro, an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class.

The drug is mainly prescribed by GPs to treat depression and anxiety. 

Maddy had been on 10 milligrams for two years when she ran out of her script and couldn’t secure an appointment to get a refill for a few days. 

She said she was not adequately warned of how quickly side effects of withdrawal could happen.

“I was at work when I started noticing the withdrawals come into effect,” she said.

“My arms and legs felt numb, or full of pins and needles.”

She was so worried that she felt she could not drive and she felt extremely exhausted and emotional in the days leading up to her GP appointment.

Users can experience ‘brain zaps’ coming off SSRIs 

While Maddy knew about the side effects of taking the drug, she was unaware of the effects of going off it. 

Although her GP had told her not to stop taking it abruptly, she did not know about the potential side effects of withdrawal.

“I felt like my vision was lagging,” she said.

“It felt like my brain was one to three seconds behind my eyes.”



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