Sleep Paralysis W/ Hallucinations (Page 12)

Has anyone else experienced sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations since starting viibryd? I have been on the medicine for about 4 months now and for the last 2 1/2 months have had several very scary episodes of sleep paralysis... I have never been on a anti-depressant before and never experienced sleep paralysis until i started this medicine. I am a 23 year old female and i take no other meds except a daily multi-vitamin. Ive noticed that if i accidentally miss a viibryd pill i have sleep paralysis... but have also had it on occasions of not missing a pill. It occurs about once a week... its to the point where i dread going to sleep at night in fear of sleep paralysis, but the hallucinations that come along with it are what I dread the most. Has anyone else had a similar experience with this medicine?

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80mg is way too high a dosage. I was on 40mg and had to go to ER and found out it was causing Seratonin poisoning. So they put me on 20mg instead with 150mg Welbutrin and that combo has been perfect for me. The sleep paralysis is triggered by enhaustion. So the more tired you are the worse it gets.

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I would ask for some sort of sedative or sleep aid. Or even Xanex can help.

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I have now been on Viibryd for 18 months and the benefits are FAR outweighing the initial side effects. When I first started taking Viibryd (at 10 mg) I thought WOW this is a miracle drug. I felt amazing, well rested, and happy with very little anxiety. I titrated up to 20 mg and the benefits were the same but I started experiencing sleep paralysis and though I was bothered, the benefits still outweighed the side effects. Fast forward to the titration up to 40 mg and I thought I was going insane. The sleep paralysis was happening multiple times per night and even during the day if I tried to nap. Sleep was becoming non-existent even with the mild sleep pill I was on. For 9 months my doctor and I went round and round until he finally titrated me back to 20 mg and prescribed Restoril 30 mg. After about 8 weeks, the sleep paralysis was nearly gone and I was sleeping soundly and feeling good again. Fast forward a couple of months and I was having some situation induced anxiety so we added a low dose of Xanax. The sleep paralysis came back with a vengeance. I suffered for a week before the doctor took me off the Xanax and again sleep returned to normal. Another few months passed and I reinjured my shoulder and got a prescription for Tramadol. You guessed it, sleep paralysis again. Decided to suffer out the pain and stopped the Tramadol and everything returned to normal. Several months have passed and I feel better than I have in MANY years. As it turns out there are several drugs out there that have serious reactions when used with Viibryd. I don't know now, how I made it through the months of issues with the reactions, but I'm so glad that I did. Viibryd has turned out to be MY miracle drug. This is not to say that sleep paralysis doesn't occur, because it DOES and it can get BAD, BUT I think with close monitoring of other drugs you are taking and avoiding too high of a dosage, the sleep paralysis can be avoided.

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I agree that Vyybrid should be pulled from the market. I took this drug for about a year and have no idea why I took it that long. The nightmares and hallucination were horrible. I also had sleep paralysis. I have never had such vivid nightmares/hallucinations. I would wake up screaming or trying to scream almost every night. I could actually feel the movement of the bed with people/things climbing on the bed to "get me". My kids would come running into m room when I screamed. There were also "brain zaps" that were like surges of electricity going through my brain. This was all very scary. I allowed myself about 6 months to wean off. This drug also caused severe dehydration. I aged 20 years in appearance. My gums receded from my teeth. My lungs were dehydrated as well. There were no products or enough water to fix this problems. It was like trying to fix an internal problem with external solutions. I have had side effects from other anti depressants but nothing like this. It should definitely be removed from the market. I don't know if I will make a full recovery.. I strongly advise anyone from taking this drug. You should also know that there is a lot research linking SSRIs to osteoporosis and tooth decay. I have enough bad experiences to write a book but Vyybrid takes the prize

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Nightmares are frightening. but can seem very real or perplexing. I took a SNRI CALLED EFFEXOR AND HAD HORRID NIGHTMARES.I SWEAT, AND FELT
DISCONCERTED.

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Yes i had to go off it. The sleep peralisis has stopped but when i sleep i go in to a deep dream state and i think it stops my brain from sending the signals to my body to circulate the blood and when i wake up i have no blood circulating in my arms legs hands and some times stomach. its numb and painful and it doesn't come back till i start moving again.. I'm afraid it's damaging my limbs and brain. My memories seem to be being affected. i think this is a dangerous drug and should be removed from the market.

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hi!!
Dont worry evrythn will b alryt.. Consult any neurologist asap..
Before u consult neuro u better go for E.E.G brain test.. N show ur reports to doctor..

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I think this viibryd has done perminent damage to my brain. I stopped it becouse of the side effects, sleep peralisis, scary vivid dreams like being in hell. Now even though i stoped it i dont think my brain is sending the right signals for my bodys circulatin while im sleeping.i wake up and it feels like pain and numbness and like their was no cicurlation. and alot of nights i wake up like i stoped breathing and my heart jumps to start again. i would advise any person on this to stop it as soon as you can to save your life. I am afraid i might not wake up one night and the doctors say they can't find any thing wrong and just want to perscribe more antidepresents.

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OMG!!! I have been on viibryd almost 3 months and about a month ago I started having nightmares!! They are horrifying, bloody, murderous, ghastly nightmares! So last week I cut my 40mg in half so that I could wean myself off of this stuff, that was Friday and my doc calls on Monday to tell me to stop it completely. I was hesitant but I did it. So yesterday I didn't take any and when I tried to go to sleep, I had these seizure-like episodes where I was awake and was completely aware of what was going on, but could not stop it! I was so scared! I was making these inaudible sounds and my body was shaking weirdly. I just don't know any other way to explain it. It happened 3 more times and I simply was powerless to stop it, as soon as it was over my eyes were open, I was awake and scared! So I cut the half dose in half again. Would you believe that I went to sleep and it didn't happen again?? I'm so scared to go to sleep tonight. I guess I'm going to continue to wean myself off and hope that this NEVER happens again. And what's more, since I started weaning off, my concentration is back and I'm not craving sugar because since starting this med it's been like a daily binging of sugar. I mean I could be a diabetic in six months!! This is ridiculous. I don't know what I'm going to do now...smh thanks for listening I hope it helps

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Just an update. I'm off of the viibryd but it took 6 days to wean off. I was on 40 mg and took 20mg for 3 nights and then 10mg for 3 nights and then I was done! NEVER! EVER HAD A WORSE EXPERIENCE WITH MEDICATION!! This should be taken off the market!! I was so desperate to feel better that I was willing to try anything... Well I'm fixed from ever having that attitude again. This was by far the scariest feeling I've ever had! I'm still having some bad headaches and this is week 3 I think, anyway I'm on Wellbutrin and a little trazadone at night. I just realized that I don't want to alter the chemicals in my brain anymore... Just not gonna do it. We're guinea pigs and I'm not gonna participate in this roulette anymore

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If you hear anything about a legal suit, please let me know. Viibryd stopped my world when I was taking it. I would wake up sobbing from the sleep paralysis. I went nearly sleepless for days because of the brain zaps. People should be warned about this. I told my doc if I was going to take something for anxiety, I wanted LOW side effects. I've never been so screwed up or worthless as when I was on that awful drug. It should be illegal to do that to people.

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I was on this medication for a short time and it was a terrible experience! I was scared to sleep and begged my husband to wake me periodically due to the sleep paralysis I was having that was terrible. When he was working 3rd shift, I had an episode where I seriously felt like the devil was speaking to me! When I woke up, I looked at a picture of my kids on the wall and their faces looked like they were morphing onto demons!! The next day I calles my dr immediately...I felt like this is something that happens to people who hurt their children and that was NOT going to be me!! Be careful with this drug!!!

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There is no such thing as sleep when it happens. For me, it started with dizziness I blamed on the Cymbalta but it turns out I was wrong. Let me state, I am and am known to be sensitive to drugs.

anyway, first it was dizziness and what I call white outs... which are where your eyes loose focus and it was like half your brain was trying to pass out while the other half was trying to keep you awake.

then I had the dream when we bumped it up. No, it was not a lucid dream. when I go to bed, im abnormal and take at least an hour to an hour 1/2 of having my eyes closed to fall asleep. So when within 3 minutes I was seeing a clear as day picture, I knew I was awake. I could move, but my curiousity kept me still. Then I was on a roller coaster and the feeling is the adrenaline when going down a roller coaster, but saturated. If you have this now, get off immediately. unless you want to progress to the 40 and have immense horror and sleepless WEEKS get off. (imho)

time went on, about 2 weeks until I had a panic attack leading to another dream, with the day following consisting of dizzy spells. now we are on 40. this lead to my living hell.

so I was going to bed feeling the electric shocks more frequent and powerful than usual. I closed my eyes. it started with a basic shape. this shape would then gain a movement like a gif you would find of an optical illusion. this would make a picture. then it would make a jumpscare. yes. like the ones In the movies.

the worst part was the auditory hallucinations. they were the worst. when the rag doll things head turned at me, that boom plus the ambience of tension was enough to shock me awake, and I knew something was wrong.

I wrote all my symptoms down. In the light I would see things move in the corner of my eyes and would have actual paranoia. paranoia that was so real, that monsters were real and it was possible they were here. I knew they were fake, but just the fact that im SEEING things was scary.

I decided to give it one more go, to make sure it wasn't me being dramatic. I tried to sleep again and found my the ambiance and boom repeatedly screaming in my ears. It was getting darker and darker and I couldn't move anything. Me, not knowing what seep paralysis was at the time, was convinced I was dying, and the only way to stop was to fling myself back into the waking world. So there I go.

i took the medicine at ten, had the sleep paralysis at 2, and had non stop sleep paralysis until it reeeeally wore of at 5:30 in the morning.

all fine right? NO.

so go next day, im still shaky, i go out, everythings okay, took nothing (because i wasn't gonna sign my own death certificate) fell asleep normal and it was good, minus the fact that the paranoia and fear of sleepingand the dark was still there.

Monday sucked. we were fine until we went to the doctor and he gave a new medicine. it was 5g of Brintellix at 3:00 pm. i go to take a nap at five and to my horror, my hell was back at it again. Im not saying the Brintellix is bad, im saying that you definitely need to give youself atleast a week of pure NO PILLS until you can try new, but i cant be sure. All i know is my symptoms are back and im crying again.

then later at 9 i fearfully try to sleep. the twitching from the shocks are back and i dont need to expiriece to torture again to know its coming. i knew it was gonna be a sleepless night and it still is. yes. i ended up trying. i was right, the symptoms were right back into play and i was once again dizzy, anxious, and electrified. the dizziness was a lot more prominent this time. so yeah. here i am. typing my viibryd horror story. the most scary part about this is my doctor had NO CLUE viibryd did this.

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I haven't been on Viibryd for a month yet and have the dreams and paralysis. I wish the dr would at least warned me about this. It is so scary I haven't slept for almost 2 days.

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Mine got worse and worse until I was up to 5 nights of nearly no sleep. I stayed home from work and had my husband help me call my doctor who weaned me off but it took weeks. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

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Side effects I experienced:

*Explosive diarrhea
*Headaches—intermittent pre-migraines
*Lack of libido—started on day 2
*Brain zaps— I could see them in my head too….they went from right to left, then left to right and were purple with a blue inside. Sometimes fast zaps, mostly slow ones…..they kinda hurt too.
*Body jerks
*Felling something sitting on me when I slept, pressing down on my body, and couldn’t move, or speak…even with attempts to call out to Will (my husband).
*Auditory hallucinations (hearing them as they are real and right beside me)---at night…mean things said to me, hearing the rumbling of someone else’s stomach, hearing frightening laughter.
*Sleep Paralysis
*Very vivid frightening dreams
seeing gory, bloody faces in the windows, TV, which was off. And text scrolling in the windows that I couldn’t read, but looked very old
*Seeing a stack of papers being lifted up
*Seeing picture frames on the walls being lifted up and placed back without sound.
*Visual Hallucinations---at night---
*Bloody, gory images in my dreams
*Seeing demons beside my bed staring at me
*Hearing Shouts, screams, yells and wails from unknown sources…sounded like people being tortured.
*Constant state of being afraid to go to sleep, because I didn’t want to experience any of this.
*Every time I closed my eyes, it was like a never ending swirling interactive optical illusion in many colors with bloody gory jump scare images.
*Seeing things out of the corner of my eye, turning to look…nothing there
*Photos on the walls ---the faces would turn in to what all looked like demons, then would turn back when I clicked on the light.

Called to schedule an appointment with my Doctor to get off this horrible medication as soon as I can get in. This is AWFUL....DON'T TAKE IT!!

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oh, and also add to this my constant craving for sugary items...which obviously caused a bit of weight gain

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Please everyone...report this drug to the FDA

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as this medication is an SSRI and cannot be abruptly stopped without even worse side effects, my doctor appointment was today, and we worked together to get a taper off schedule. I also handed him my printout of my open, honest experiences while taking it. Your Doctor needs to know what this medication does, especially for reporting purposes. They are the ones who can best report the percentages to the FDA, as this is a pretty newer medication.

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My story.

I'm thankful for this thread. My experience with Viibryd has been similar to others. At first, I was on cloud nine. I was less numb sexually, actually had a bit of a libido. I had more energy. I felt like I had gained some clarity. It was about 2 months into taking it when I had my first terrible night. I was trying to fall asleep when I experienced powerful brain shocks that would sometimes make my arm or leg jerk. I remember hearing the shocks. At some point there was loud buzzing as I felt my body sink into sleep but leaving me conscious. It feels like you're fading away with no control over it. I'd ending up gasping for air and coming out of the hole I was falling into. I felt like I also lost control over my breathing- like my brain stem took over while I was still conscious. But even though it was scary- I had enough control to try to fight my way back to normal. This happened several times over the next few hours. Somewhere in there I was experiencing the paralysis. In my lifetime I've had a few episodes of sleep paralysis to recognize what it was so it didn't totally terrify me (yet). I'd be laying there having a dream while totally conscious, and realize I'm paralyzed, then I'd actively work on trying to wiggle a finger or a toe until I brought myself out of it. It came to a head that night when I starting seeing and hearing things that weren't there. That was when it became frightening and I woke my husband. I heard a wolf howl, I saw things in my room that weren't there. I thought I saw a giant man in my room. It was messed up. So it wasn't the run of the mill sleep paralysis I'd had before. Throw in that body jerking and brain buzzing and shocks...it felt seizure like. I want to point out its not the normal brain zaps one gets with withdrawal. We all know what that is. Also I DID NOT MISS A DOSE!

I experienced this for a few days in a row- decided it was the medicine and I would not tolerate these side effects, so I called my doctor. He didn't believe me. Did you read that? HE SAID IT WASNT THE MEDICINE. HE SAID THIS WAS A NOT A SIDE EFFECT OF VIIBRYD AND NONE OF HIS PATIENTS HAD EVER REPORTED IT BEFORE SO I NEEDED A NEUROLOGIST. I was super angry. I told him I found report after report of people experiencing this with Viibryd and he said it was coincidence and could absolutely not be the Viibryd. I told him I wanted off anyway and he'd either tell me how to do it safely or I was gonna wing it. He told me. I did a quick taper down and felt like living hell. I was so angry and tearful. My husband and I talked, and decided to give Viibryd another chance. So I went back on 20mg, instead of the 40 which I was at before. I had decided that I had so many benefits from it, that perhaps the sleep issues would be infrequent and the positives would outweigh the negatives. I found out 2 days later that it might have actually been the worst case of PMS, and not being off Viibryd that caused me to feel so bad since it was my first cycle post partum. Still- I wanted to give Viibryd another shot.

So I'm going along on 20mg for a couple weeks. But- When I really think about it, my anger might have been relieved- but my libido had gone away again, I still had anxiety (maybe a bit lessened). I think the initial honeymoon period with it faded and it really was not giving me the help it initially had. I still stayed on.

Then the sleep paralysis and brain shocks happened again one night. I looked at my calendar and thought to myself that I was due for another cycle in about a week and I was starting to correlate the symptoms with the brain chemicals dipping due to pms perhaps. Some people need more ssri around the time of their period, so I went back up to 40mg. I had sleep issues for a couple more days and I had hope, that when pms week ended, so might the sleep problems. I was wrong.

They've continued with no correlation to a damn thing. I don't miss doses so it's not withdrawal. This sleep hell hits even at naps. When I lay down and my body relaxes, I know it's going to be awful when the first brain shock hits. I might as well said screw it and get up. Cause if I stay down I will just be fighting the awfulness for a few hours. Not only will the paralysis happen- at times I've been able to have lucid dreaming where I can control aspects of my dream. Sometimes it was neat- but not worth the rest of the symptoms. I've had brain shocks happen several times in a row where my eyes are even ticking back or to the side- if that's not a seizure I'm not sure what to call it then. Like I've stated before I will have breathing issues where i will have to gasp, sometimes 8-10 times an hour (that's my best guess). My dreams will sometimes be so real that I think I'm awake and doing things in my house, when in reality I never left my bed. I can feel the carpet under my feet as I navigate my house and think I'm awake only to wake up enough to see I'm in bed.

I generally do not have pleasant dreams. They are dreams that could sometimes make Stephen King frightened. Sometimes they are just flat out weird- but not scary. I will say I've always been a dreamer. A vivid dreamer actually- but NOTHING compares to these Viibryd dreams.

My experience the other night is what made me decide to stop Viibryd completely. I was having the "normal" issues falling asleep but I ended up having a realistic dream in which I saw my baby sitting up but holding very still in her pack and play which is next to my bed. It looked so creepy. It was dark in my room so I could only see her silhouette. I told my husband to wake up cause our daughter was sitting up (which she should not be, she's not old enough). I was reaching for my lamp to turn on the light. I got the light on and saw a ghost next to my bed that jumped into my body. It was so scary and I was fighting so hard to get this ghost out of me that I started screaming in my dream. It actually made me moan very loudly to the point of screaming that it woke my husband up. He shook me until I was awake but it did take me a little bit because I was paralyzed.

I have had enough.

Ps- side note- I've gained 15-20 lbs on this med.

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