This programme is for senior people coming off prescribed psychotropic medication while the career is still running. If you are new here, my story is on the Home page and my background is on the About page.
Your performance comes first while you come off your medication. The plan is built around your role and your life, and the 5Fs Framework for Freedom from Pharmaceuticals gives it structure.
Coming off prescribed psychotropic medication while you carry on at a senior level is steady work on several fronts at once. Early improvement is common. Lasting change takes the full twelve months, because withdrawal effects can surface months after things feel settled, and a year is long enough to see that the change holds.
You have my WhatsApp number. Send a question, a photograph of a meal, a symptom you are unsure about, or a message at the point where you would otherwise be guessing.
I answer when I am free, which is outside office hours as often as inside them. The moment you need a straight answer is rarely a convenient one. WhatsApp is not an emergency service. In an emergency, contact your local emergency services or your prescriber.
On top of that, a fifty-minute video session, effectively every week, at times set around your calendar and your time zone. The first is ninety minutes. Weeks when life does not cooperate are allowed for. Forty-eight across the year, twelve in each three-month period.
You decide the pace and what we work on first. You know your situation better than I do.
Five areas, all of which need attention. Leaving one out is the usual reason previous attempts have not held.
Physical. Rebuilding how your body produces and regulates energy, so that the taper becomes tolerable. This usually comes first, and there is a reason for that. You decide with your prescriber when any reduction begins.
Pharmacological. Understanding your options well enough to decide the taper with your prescriber, to follow it properly, to recognise what you are experiencing, and to have an informed conversation at your next appointment.
Feelings. What surfaces when the medication's grip loosens, and what to do with it. This is where most attempts quietly come apart.
Friends & Family. Relationships worn thin by years of being medicated, starting with being properly present in them again.
Financial & Philosophical. Staying sharp and deciding well while your chemistry shifts. And, further in, the question underneath it.
The routine is light on purpose, because a routine you keep is worth more than one you abandon in month four.
Each week. Blood glucose and ketones by finger-prick, morning and evening, once a week, and more often only where it helps the coaching. Weight, waist and sleep.
Each day. A food log, in a free app.
Each quarter. A comprehensive blood panel at baseline and every three months, requested through your own prescriber, who retains clinical judgement over what is appropriate. And one questionnaire, the Modified DESS, covering withdrawal symptoms and mood together. You complete all of it every time, in your own time, so that nothing is assumed and a reaction outside your usual pattern is not missed. You complete it every three months, whether or not you have started to reduce, and again at each dose reduction and about two weeks after.
Near the start. Continuous glucose monitoring for two weeks, so you can see how your own body responds to what you eat. It is a teaching tool, and nothing from it forms part of any record.
Whenever it changes. Your medication and dose, recorded on the date of any change.
What you get back. A straight answer about your own progress. Blood chemistry cannot show all of that, and memory three months later cannot either.
A written coaching agreement. An explicit non-prescribing boundary: I coach; I do not prescribe. Your dose and your taper are decisions for you and your prescriber, and I do not enter them.
Informed consent, separately and specifically, for anything documented. I never publish identifiable details. Records go to your own prescriber as part of your care, and I honour anything you ask me to hold back. I keep a text transcript of each session for preparation and review, and I do not keep audio or video. The first conversation, before you sign, is not recorded. Your records live on my systems alone, protected, and you may withdraw consent in writing at any time.
At the end you are free to give a testimonial or to decline. Declining costs you nothing and is never raised again.
The programme runs twelve months and is billed quarterly, in advance.
The first three months are your initial commitment. That is enough time to establish your baseline, begin real change, and decide from evidence whether to continue. After that, you may stop at the end of any three-month period by telling me in writing. Fees for a period that has begun are not refunded.
If you stop before the year ends, I ask you to keep a quarterly check in place until the end date: Your blood panel results, the questionnaire and your current medication and dose. There is no fee for this.
You commit to the first three months and decide from evidence whether to go on.
I document every client's work the same way, so that what works can be measured. My research is ongoing, with research oversight from The Noakes Foundation. Nothing personally identifiable is ever published.
I work best with clients who value depth, who are committed to lifestyle change to address the cause of the problem, and who do not seek to dull symptoms.
You are in a demanding, visible role and cannot risk being seen as struggling.
Your medication has stopped working, or is costing you more than it is giving.
You have a prescriber you trust, or are willing to build that relationship, which is part of the work.
You are prepared to change how you eat as well as how you cope.
You want someone to tell you what dose to take. That is a decision for you and your prescriber. I educate you about hyperbolic tapering so that you can make an informed decision.
You are looking for a quick fix. Lifestyle change and tapering take time.
You take recreational drugs. That needs different help first.
Do you decide my dosage or my taper schedule? No. Never. That belongs to you and your prescriber. I help you understand it, hold to it, and talk to them clearly about how it is going.
Will anyone know I am working with you? I do not publish identifiable details, and I do not tell anyone you are a client. Your own prescriber receives records as part of your care, and I honour anything you ask me to hold back. I am also on another continent, in a different professional world from yours.
Why twelve months? Withdrawal effects, and a return of the original condition, can surface months after things feel settled, which is when people stop watching. Twelve months lets us test that your change lasts. The 5Fs Framework gives the structure, and inside it the work is individual: Built around your medication, your history, your role, and what your week demands. That is why I take a small number of clients at a time. Goals differ from one person to the next, and so does the time it takes to build the resilience to sustain career performance without medication.
Twelve months is the usual time to build habits that hold. The programme is individualised. Each tapering journey takes its own time. If you are on multiple medications it takes longer, but you can realistically expect improvements along the way, not only at the end.
What if my prescriber relationship has gone quiet, or was never good? That is common, and no reason to wait. Prescriptions get renewed for years with barely a conversation. Plenty of people arrive having been dismissed once and unwilling to try again. You do not need that relationship fixed before you start. Rebuilding it is part of the work. The first blood panel often opens the conversation, because it gives you something concrete to bring. Changing the dose does need a doctor. We build toward that during the months we spend getting your metabolic health in order.
I take a small number of new clients each year. The work involves research specific to each client. I enjoy that part, learning what is relevant to the person in front of me, and it is only possible at a small caseload.
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