Hi All,

I made sure to read the old posts about weaning off of Effexor and thought I'd share my experience. I've been taking effexor XR 150 mg for about 3 years. I've been seeing a new psych for a few weeks and he's gotten me into meditating. (I'll make a side post about how it's been helping me). Anyways, I was down to my last 7 capsules before I had to reorder a new shipment. I procrastinated and when I got down to having 4 left, I noticed that I had not refills. No biggie, since the meditating was helping, I thought it was a good time to wean myself off of the effexor. I broke the 150s in half and had a weeks worth of 75mg.

Wednesday was my last dose and I felt fine UNTIL early Friday morning. Man it hit me bigtime. It feels like a bad hangover, migraine, and flu all rolled into one. One of the most anoying symptoms is the feeling that every sense(hearing, sight, touch) gets amplified for a half second. It's like someone had an intensity control for the senses and is turning the control up and down. The other annoying things is the feeling of floating in and out of reality(for lack of a better word).

I've read that it could hang around for awhile. I just hope that the intensity eases up. I'll keep ya updated.

Al

Al, you may have already read this, but if you get a chance look up SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome. It sorta describes what your going through.

Keep us posted... Cardo

I'd see if your pharmacist can help you with a couple of pills to hold you over til you see your doctor - depending on how nasty you feel. Effexor has a bit of a reputation for being harder to quit than other drugs. Are you sure you want to quit? Often people feel this way when the drug starts to work and end up taking it again when the old feelings start to creep back - sorta the case with me. Other people find their dysthemia was temporary or problem specific and they no longer need it.
If you do want to quit you should taper off very slowly to avoid the withdrawl. I've heard that Prozak can help with Effexor withdrawl symptoms but this is anicdotal so I don't know if it's valid or not.

I read somewhere that taking a low dose of Prozac for a week after you completely stop the Effexor works wonders.

You might want to research that..... but don't quote me on it. (I have ADD, remember? I might have mixed my MEDaphors.....)

Hi,

Things have gotten better, mainly due to some Lexapro I found in the cabinet. From what I've read they are close, so I took a 10m pill. Within a few hours I felt better. I've taken 1 dose each day for the past couple of days. Tomorrow is Monday, and I can call my Primary doc to see if he'll give me a months worth of he Effexor. I've been procrastinating and putting off making an appointment with my "head-meds" doctor and will do it tomorrow also.

The only positive side effect has been that I've been extremely horny. Good thing it's the weekend and I usually get lucky with the wife.

see ya,
\
Al

Wow, I forgot that I posted this. Here's an update. About 5 months ago I started seeing yet another phychologist. He works with our kids and ADHD is one of his specialties. He thought that stimulant therapy would be great for me. I worked with the clinic's psychiatrist and was prescribed Ritalin. It seemed to work great(in the beginning). We came up with a plan to wean off of the Effexor. I would taper doses a week at a time. I did a week of 150mg, week of 75mg, week of 50mg, week of 35 mg, week of 18mg.

Talk about BAAAAAD timing. My last dose was three weeks before Christmas. Add to that was the fact that at the same time I was recovering from shoulder surgery that induced a back problem. So now it's the Christmas season, and I'm in pain, and suffering withdrawl. If anything, the recover pain just added a bit of drearyness to the withdrawl.

Physical symptoms: The best way to describe it is feeling like all of my nerves were exposed. Any noise was exagerated. I couldn't eat dinner with the family because the sound of the forks on the plate were too much. Any sound gave me the sensation of fingernails down the balckboard(literally). I would get these sensations that felt like electric shocks all over my body. And then there was the "WHOMP" sound. If you put your fingers in your ear and hum then let go quickly....that's the whomp sound. I would get them every 30 seconds. It took about a month to go away, but there was a two week period where they were constant.

Emotional: OMG, now I know what it feels like to be depressed. I felt deep sadness without being caused by anything. It felt like a chemical induced feeling. There was RAGE. Everything ****ed me off. I was flipping out on my kids. I've read that a common symptom is suicidal thoughts...I had em. They were wierd. It's not like I felt the world was not treating me right, so I wanted to check out. It was just a "suicide" thought that came out of nowhere. These hung around a little longer.

It's been about a month and a half and things have normalized. I think I'm feeling what it's like to experiencing life without the Effexor filter again. I'm noticing I'm a little more nervous, anxious, and affected by situations. But since I started the Effexor(6 years ago), I've learned to steer my thoughts a little better.

tha'ts about it for now.

al

Yup it can be bad...

Or it can be very easy.

I recently went of effexor without much of a problem. The key is to SLOWLY and I mean slowly lower the dosage. Over the span of 4 months or so, go down by about 5mg every week. Pretty easy to do it that way, you pretty much bypass all the withdraw effects.

But yes, withdraw from effexor is hell. With me, there wasnt much in the terms of physical problems, besides the dizziness. But after missing only one dose, I had quite disabilitating mental changes.