Hello, I am Bright Wings. I too am withdrawing from Effexor. I have taken this med for 26 years. I came here last Friday and read this thread for 4 hours. I can not tell you how much doing all this reading helped me.
My symptoms of withdrawal include severe vomiting, sweaty palms, (to the point of being able to make a palm print on a paper towel from just the sweat on my hands.) Body shaking, total body shivers, sweating bullet size rolls of sweat rolling down my forehead. Also, difficulty sleeping and severe loss of energy. There are so many more but can't access that information this minute because I miss my brain after a stroke. Oh I am fine so don't worry about that.
I do have some solutions for the symptoms and will post them when I get back from walking my dog.
Every spring for so many years I have worked to get off this drug. This time I am succeeding. Yea.