How long does it take your body to get rid of prozac?

Question

I've been taking 20mg of prozac once daily for about 6 months. How long does your body need to physically remove that substance from your system? I realize it is dangerous to stop cold turkey due to risk of seizure and other possible side effects but just from a metabolic perspective, how long does it take your liver to completely remove all of this substance from your system?

Answer 1

up to 24 hour you may still feel like its in your body but it will wear of in 24 hours

Answer 2

Fluoxetine is well absorbed after oral administration, whether or not food is present, and peak plasma concentrations are attained 6-8 hours after a dose. Steady-state plasma concentrations are reached after 2-4 weeks. Fluoxetine is widely distributed throughout the body, and about 94% of a dose is bound to plasma protein.

The drug is metabolized in the liver to the active metabolite Norfluoxetine, which also selectively inhibits serotonin reuptake. Fluoxetine is excreted in the urine primarily as inactive metabolites. Renal impairment does not appear to alter the pharmacokinetics, although alcohol-induced cirrhosis does prolong the half-life.

The elimination half-life is long: 1-4 days for fluoxetine and 7-10 days for norfluoxetine.

It takes five and a half (5.5) half lives for all the drug to be completely out of your system so as the half life of norfluoxetine is 7 to 10 days, if you take 10 days as the maximum half life then the active metabolite should be completely out of your system in 55 days.

5.5 x 10 days = 55 days

Answer 3

A secondary aspect is that research shows Prozac continues to concentrate in the brain until it reaches its maximum level after about 6-8 months of use, reaching about 20x that in the blood.

I am unaware of literature (any links gratefully received) that indicates how long this store of Prozac within the brain takes to be excreted from the body.