Hello,

Just recently I acquired a prescription for PRozac. I broke a 10 mg tablet in half to take roughly 5 mg. Needless to say, I've decided to back off and not take prozac and go with another SSRI instead. This drug stays in your system for way too long for me to feel comfortable taking it. I know this sounds stupid to get a presciption for it in the first place but after the effects I've felt just from 5 mg of 1 dose, I don't personally feel comfortable continuing this medication.

Right now, it's 4 days since I last took 5 mg and I still feel a bit dazed and feel the urge to tap my leg up and down every now and then. It's not a tic but more of an impatient sort of thing that I may do while sitting at the computer. This may be due to the drop in dopamine that prozac causes in certain parts of the brain. How much longer till this stuff washes out? It's a very small dose and I've only taken it 1 time.

Will it be a month still?

I am not a doctor but I would think that taking it just once that it wouldn't be in your system at all anymore considering it takes up to 8 weeks to build up enough to work porperly, so I would be inclined to say the tapping of your leg may be more so anxiety and not the meds.

Yeah, that may be the case in terms of the leg tapping.

However, I still feel abit dulled out. I was able to find something online and it said that the half life is about 1-4 days after a single dosage. Factor in the active metabolite called norfluxotine (said to to have a half life of 4-16 days) and I don't know what I'm looking at before it clears out. I'm not certain on how long it will take for the metabolite to clear out after a single dosage...

I feel kind of spacey and lethargic still but at least it's not as bad as the first day after taking it. I'm hoping it will be cleared up more in the next couple of days. I'm in the middle of a move so this is not good timing.

I too have been waiting for Prozac to flush out of my body so I can feel for what you are going through. I took it for a couple of weeks, have been off for a couple of weeks, and am still suffering from side effects. It's getting better each day though, so keep that in mind. I'm not sure with one dose either, but if the metabolite is 4-16 days you may be looking at a couple of weeks. And keep in mind that the half-life is how long it takes for just "half" of it to be out of your system. It's difficult to know how each part of the drug affects you and your body chemistry as far as side effects go. Good luck to you and I hope it's out of your system soon!

I just found this on RX list that might be helpful:

Accumulation and Slow Elimination — The relatively slow elimination of fluoxetine (elimination half-life of 1 to 3 days after acute administration and 4 to 6 days after chronic administration) and its active metabolite, norfluoxetine (elimination half-life of 4 to 16 days after acute and chronic administration), leads to significant accumulation of these active species in chronic use and delayed attainment of steady state, even when a fixed dose is used [see WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS]. After 30 days of dosing at 40 mg/day, plasma concentrations of fluoxetine in the range of 91 to 302 ng/mL and norfluoxetine in the range of 72 to 258 ng/mL have been observed. Plasma concentrations of fluoxetine were higher than those predicted by single-dose studies, because fluoxetine's metabolism is not proportional to dose. Norfluoxetine, however, appears to have linear pharmacokinetics. Its mean terminal half-life after a single dose was 8.6 days and after multiple dosing was 9.3 days. Steady-state levels after prolonged dosing are similar to levels seen at 4 to 5 weeks.

At the bottom of the paragraph, it talks about the mean half life of norfluoxetine being 8.6 days after a single dose which means that half of one dose would be out of your system in 8.6 days and then another half would be out in another 8.6 days. So like I said in my earlier post, you're probably looking at a couple of weeks before it's completely out.

Hope this helps! Feel better soon!

Wow. I am never taking this again.

I read somewhere that Norfluxotine is 4-16 days. However, if you take in the fact that fleuoxotine needs to be metabolized before Norfluxotine is produced, then it makes sense that the overall half-life of the metabolite could be said to be about 8.6 days (or more depending on how fast your body metabolizes).

I only took about 5 mg in a single dosage thinking that was a very small amount. I wish now it had been 1 mg.

This sucks cause I'm right in the middle of a move. I'll have to be careful about taking any drugs that have an "active metabolite" or have a half-life over 24 hours. That's just too long for me to mess with.

Please let me know when your side effects begin subsiding!

This post has been edited by BlueWave: Jun 30 2009, 04:21 PM

Oh trust me, I feel the same way! The past month (2 weeks on, 2 weeks off) have been so bad I can't wait to be back to my old self again! I had no idea that taking something like this could have such a big affect on me. I have been more nauseous, anxious, nervous, and tired than I have even been in my life and I this stuff can't leave my system any sooner!!!! I lost 10 pounds that I didn't need to lose due to absolutely no appetite.

The crazy thing is that I have been on Prozac twice before with good results and practically no side effects. These drugs are mind altering and I wish doctors would explain all of this to patients before prescribing them. I had no idea that Prozac took such a long time to leave the body, but I will say that I have seen steady improvement in my side effects since one week after stopping it. It has been very slow, steady progress, but it is progress. In the early stages, I started journaling what I was feeling because I didn't think I was getting any better. Looking back now, I see that it has been steady progress with little changes each day.

Just know that you will get better and, yes, I will let you know how things are going. It helps so much to talk with others who are going through the same stuff. Good luck on your move I hope you find the energy in there somewhere! I can't imagine moving the way I feel right now, I am just so tired and spacey too! Luckily, it's summer and I'm not working, I don't know what I would do otherwise...

I'll have to manage somehow. I only took 5 mg so the effects shouldn't last too long hopefully. By the end of this week, the fleuxotine will probably have gone through 2-3 half lives. The norfleuxotine on the otherhand may only undergo 1.

I'm thinking alot of the psychiatrists out there don't know what they're doing. I calculated recently that 10 mg of prozac taken each day will be roughly about 100 mg floating around your system as a steady state is reached (however, this could be more since I didn't calculate in the active metabolite). This doesn't include any prozac that could maybe be stored in fatty tissue (like the brain) over time as dosing continues.

Hang in there. Since you've gone thru the first couple of hard weeks, by the end of this week you'll have one more to go until around 90% (maybe more) is removed.

Other SSRI's at least don't remain in the system so long but still can have mind altering effects over time. I wish there was a better solution out there for upping serotonin levels more safely. I've tried an SSRE (Serotonin Enhancer) for a very short period but that didn't seem to provide the sort of comfort zone that one may get with SSRI's like Zoloft (an SSRI I tried for a couple of months a few years back). Any idea on if you're going to try anything different once the prozac wears off? I'm looking for suggestions...

This post has been edited by BlueWave: Jun 30 2009, 10:27 PM

Going through this experience has really made me gun shy about SSRI's in general. I had no idea that taking something like this could have such of (what seems to me to be) long lasting effects on my body and mind. Even though it's only been a month, the way I have been feeling is so different than the way I felt before that I don't know if I even want to try something else. I went to see a psychologist about my anxiety and am hoping that I can find ways to cope with what I considered to be mild anxiety before I started taking prozac, without medication.

For right now, I just want this out of my system and feel back to my old self, which wasn't nearly this bad to begin with!

How are you feeling?

Did you have a solid pill or a capsule? Normally, Prozac is dosed in capsule form and cannot be split safely as each of the tiny pills are different in content. Meaning, some have Prozac and some are "fillers." 5mg should have been out of your system within 3 days. Talk to your pdoc if you are having depression or other problems. If you start on another AD soon after discontinuing any AD, there's normally no withdrawals.



Long term (6 mos to several years) at doses of 20mg or higher. I was on 20mg about 14 years and then slowly raised to the maxium dose of 80mg.

Your upcoming move can be causing some anxiety, hence the leg tapping. I've made some big moves (different houses/different cities) and have had anxiety before the actual move.

You really need to discuss how you're feeling with your pdoc
and get his/her advice about Prozac.

If you you just accept a prescription without asking about it, you will receive very little info from your pdoc. I've had good fortune with pdocs who explain everything about what's being prescribed and will answer any questions I ask.
Sheepwoman

I started taking Prozac for anxiety on June 24th. I stopped taking it 5 days later due to dry mouth, absolutely no appetite, shaky, nausous, & weakness. It's been a little over 2 weeks & I am still having side effects. Some days I have an appetite & some days I do not. The mornings are bad for me b/c I feel really nervous. My mouth is still dry, but not as bad. I wish the side effects would go away.

I started taking Prozac for anxiety on June 24th. I stopped taking it 5 days later due to dry mouth, absolutely no appetite, shaky, nausous, & weakness. It's been a little over 2 weeks & I am still having side effects. Some days I have an appetite & some days I do not. The mornings are bad for me b/c I feel really nervous. My mouth is still dry, but not as bad. I wish the side effects would go away.
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I'm sorry you had a bad experience with Prozac. I'm sorry you're still experiencing side effects, but you will get bettr. My mornings were worse too, I'm not sure why that is, but I have heard others say the same thing on this forum. I would wake up so nervous and anxious about being anxious and feeling sick another day. I was so tired that I just wanted to lay in bed and sleep all day and feel better. It's been 4 weeks for me now and things are much better. I have been told that Prozac can take up to 45 days to be out of your system and that you can experience side effects up until that time. Since you only took it for 5 days, hopefully it won't be that long.

I think that the lack of appetite, nausea, shakiness, and weakness probably work together to make you feel worse. If you're nausous and not hungry, then you also feel shaky and weak. One thing that helped me was forcing myself to get calories in by drinking whole milk with some instant breakfast powder in it. Even when I wasn't hungry, I could stomach that. Try to get some nutrition some how and it might help.

Your side effects will go away in time. Let me know how it's going for you.