Antidepressant Tapering Calculator

Create personalized medication schedules for safe antidepressant tapering with just a few key inputs.

Why Use a Tapering Calculator?
Antidepressants should not be discontinued immediately. To minimize the risk of withdrawal symptoms or relapse, they should be gradually tapered over a period determined by the physician. Each patient’s unique situation, including their specific drug, dosage, and treatment duration, requires a tailored tapering schedule. This calculator effortlessly creates such personalized tapering schedules.

Key Benefits:
- Automated daily dosage schedule creation.
- Offers hyperbolic, exponential and linear tapering methods.
- Projects reuptake inhibition effect throughout tapering.
- Supports split dosage forms for more precise tapering.
- Considers drug specifics like half-life and Michaelis constant.
- Easy medication schedule printout.
How to Use
- Enter the details as per your physician's guidance.
- Adjust dosage forms to match available options and splitting capabilities.
- Click "Calculate".
- Review the graph showing the projected reuptake inhibition effect and the tapering schedule.
- Click "Print".
- Get your physician's approval on the tapering schedule.

The tapering process, including finalizing the medication schedule, must be overseen by the treating physician.

Antidepressant

Current Daily Dose

mg

Tapering Start Date

Tapering Duration

days

Tapering Method

Advanced settings:

Drug Half-Life

hrs

Michaelis Constant

mg

Use Tablet Splitting

Dosage Form

mg

Max parts

Further reading

Going off antidepressants:https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/going-off-antidepressants
Tapering of SSRI treatment to mitigate withdrawal symptoms:https://markhorowitz.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/18TLP1004_Horowitz-1-11.pdf
How hard is it to stop antidepressants?:https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/stop-antidepressants
What I have learnt from helping thousands of people taper off antidepressants and other psychotropic medications:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2045125321991274
Discontinuation syndrome and antidepressants:https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/discontinuation-syndrome-and-antidepressants-2019040416361
Sorting Out the Antidepressant “Withdrawal” Controversy:https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/sorting-out-antidepressant-withdrawal-controversy
Antidepressant withdrawal – the tide is finally turning:https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045796019000465
When Discontinuing SSRI Antidepressants Is a Challenge: Management Tips:https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2018.18060692
Stopping antidepressants:https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/stopping-antidepressants
Clinical practice guideline recommendations on tapering and discontinuing antidepressants for depression: a systematic review:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8841913/
The relationship between dose and serotonin transporter occupancy of antidepressants—a systematic review:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-021-01285-w
Antidepressants: is there a better way to quit them?: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/22/antidepressants-is-there-a-better-way-to-quit-them
How to Quit Antidepressants: Very Slowly, Doctors Say:https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/health/depression-withdrawal-drugs.html
Outcomes of hyperbolic tapering of antidepressants:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20451253231171518
Hyperbolic dose reduction of escitalopram mitigates withdrawal syndrome: A case report:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773021222000098
Case-based learning: safe withdrawal and tapering of antidepressants:https://pharmaceutical-journal.com/article/ld/case-based-learning-safe-withdrawal-and-tapering-of-antidepressants
Stopping antidepressants:https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/treatments-and-wellbeing/stopping-antidepressants
Antidepressant withdrawal: The hidden danger:https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/antidepressant-withdrawal-the-hidden-danger
Antidepressant withdrawal should be taken seriously:https://medical-school.uq.edu.au/article/2023/03/antidepressant-withdrawal-should-be-taken-seriously-–-we’re-investigating-ways-help-people-come-off-pills
‘I stopped sleeping’: the sometimes difficult path off antidepressants:https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/17/i-stopped-sleeping-the-sometimes-difficult-path-off-antidepressants