alt Hacker NewsI described this to numerous doctors and none of them had any idea what I was talking about (around a decade ago, caused by Paxil). I'd accidentally go a day or two forgetting my pill, and not only would I get brain zaps, but a fair amount of depression-like symptoms.
Then some papers came out and a few of the doctors knew what I was referring to but didn't consider them particularly important. Eventually, I was able to find a therapist who helped me adjust my meds to somethign that works better and is more tolerant of forgetting for a couple days.
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I had a similar experience in 2015: a doctor was trying to prescribe a choice between Venlafaxine (Effexor) and Duloxetine (Cymbalta) as third line ADHD medications. I was astounded that they didn't know that brain zaps were a common side effect and brought up some papers to show them. They apologized and indicated that they would likely stop prescribing them.
I was skeptical when they mentioned that other doctors had been promoting these drugs at gatherings, but what irritated me most was that they didn't have access to the research discussing the known side effects because the journals were behind a paywall. A willingness to pirate / use Google scholar to bypass paywalls shouldn't have been necessary to know about safety issues for a drug.
I was pretty good with regularly taking my dose, but decided to go off after I felt entirely emotionally numb to everything. The closest I could get was feeling deeply sad watching a movie with an emotional scene and realizing I didn't feel any emotion. I decided to quit mainly because of that and other issues (mainly sex taking forever and feeling a bit hollow). I halved my dose every 3 weeks and stopped around 5mg (from 40mg). The zaps fucking sucked and lasted heavily for ~2 months. Even now 8+ years later every once in awhile I get that kind of rollercoaster drop feeling in my head every few days that had preceded my zaps previously. It would feel like an initial void in my head, followed by a shock travelling from my feet to my head and I'd legitimately jerk my whole body while it happened. It made me feel depersonalized and I found it most tolerable dissociating physically and just mentally observing the effect occur. Walking seemed to trigger it the most, but I definitely had some times trying to sleep where I just felt completely zapped with discomfort (less electrical fwiw). I would have to smoke a ton of weed to sleep and still feel a lingering disconnect from my physical self. Paxil initially helped a ton with my social anxiety and depression (likely triggered by feeling of inadequacy and being left behind my peers). Now I'm awaiting a diagnosis for ASD. I've been able to cope decently without SSRIs/SNRIs but have more or less accepted the feeling of incompleteness that follows me eternally. I still feel generally lost in life purpose, but have accepted that as best I can. I'm not sure if it's the ASD or the SSRI's but I do appreciate the mental pathways they opened, it just never lead to a conclusion I wanted to follow through with. Everything feels pretty arbitrary, I just try to enjoy life as it happens now.