Lexapro Withdrawal- Need Advice/Insight
I don't even know why I am posting this because I know what this is, but anxiety has me catastrophizing everything. I've been on Lexapro seven months (started at 10mg), and it has been amazing. My PCP also prescribed 0.5mg of Xanax. Life was great, given that the anxiety started at the top of February. Because this anxiety and panic attack mess is new to me, a couple weeks ago I asked my doctor if we can start taking me off so that I could if I would be ok.
Backtrack a bit: I had a thyroidectomy (stage 1 cancer) in October 2025 and asked him to increase me to 20 mg because the recovery was freaking me out. He did it without hesitation. I felt amazing. Almost 2 weeks ago, we started weaning me off from 20mg back to 10mg. The first week was normal. I felt a couple brain zaps and that's it. This week, however, has been so bad. I am back to full blown anxiety, panic attacks, brain zaps, and the intrusive thoughts have returned. Yesterday, I called him and he told me to immediately get back to taking 20mg. He said this just means that I wasn't ready to come off of it.
I just need to be reassured that this is normal as far as side effects/withdrawal goes. 😞 Of course, the anxiety is telling me to go to the ER...smh (Im not doing that). From compulsively reading everything on Reddit, I now know that he was waaaayyyy too aggressive in decreasing me from 20mg to 10mg and back to 20mg in less than 2 weeks' time. I feel like crap... Chest is heavy and tight, I feel like I can't breathe, and my head is hurting on and off... I know its anxiety. I usually take half of xanax for the sake of being productive at work, but it's not taking me back to baseline. Ugh!! Any insight, advice, or encouragement would be really appreciated.