Q. I have muscle spasms in my cheeks due to Paroxetine. How long will it last?

Hi doctor,

After taking Paroxetine 20 mg for GAD, I had three side effects. The two side effects are diffculty in sleeping and lack of appetite. The two were manageable. The third one was a mild spasm in my cheeks. Sometimes, I have tightness and sometimes it seems to be relaxed. These side effects lasted for four years and then it got disappeared. After doing exercise, it got disappeared. Before a year, I started taking Paroxetine CR 25 mg under the guidance of my doctor. Everything was going fine for three months and after that, I started to take my pill at night. By the end of the month, I started feeling that my medicine has gone out of my body and I have to take it again.

The old side effects of the cheek were back. It affected my neck and I had muscle contractions and stiffness due to continuous contractions. After a month, my cheek spasms got disappeared. Throughout this period, my muscle contractions covered all my back and front neck muscles at the same time. Before three months, I had some smoothness in the muscles of the back of the neck and slight improvement in contractions. They were getting slow and mild. I also have cracking sounds in my back of the neck muscle due to stiffness.

Now, my spasm in the muscles is getting isolated. It is not visible and I can feel it. I want to know whether I have any defects or abnormal movements such as tics or jerking movements in my neck. These symptoms are getting improved slowly. How long will these spasms last? I do not want to change my medicines as I had a very disastrous experience. What to do?

Thank you doctor,

My spasms are not visible. I can only feel them. Does exercising help in reducing them? Is it good to reduce its dosage from 20 to 10 mg?