@poisonivy I did fine weaning off Effexor till I finished the week of 37.5 then the withdrawals started bad. I found that taking motion sickness meds OTC helped a lot with dizziness and nausea. I used Botene. However it take about 6 weeks for the withdrawals to go away after I stopped completely.

Hello @poisonivy & to the group as well! I am happy to say I am completely off of the poison drug effexor. It has been almost two weeks now from my last dosage of one half of a 25 mg prescribed by a psych MD which I took for one week then off and on for 7 more days until I quit. I have experienced ALL of what you have experienced and more. I was on Effexor 150 mg since 2008 when I, by the suggestion of my doctor, decided to take the addictive drug effexor.
I am still having a FEW physical side effects left over from the withdrawal such as some insomnia, hot sweats, muscle cramps etc. and also some defined and EXTREMELY uncomfortable gastro/indigestion issues.that arrive whenever they please, including middle of the night, gas pain. Emotionally I am stabilized now with only a bit of emotional crying and much less anger than when going through the tapers. So the withdrawal symptoms are sometimes there but much lighter and nothing like it has been during tapering down times.
I believe this med has messed with my ENTIRE central nervous system. I am here to help. Please do heed advice from actual humans who have experienced this drug....not from people who have never even ingested it.
The drug will not be on the market much longer. People are writing about it globally. I just pray for the ones who start it. God Bless.....hang in there. The jest of it is...I was tapered to 75 mg and began immediately having horrid withdrawals on every level in August of 2015. I just thought I was sick with a disease or flu due to all of the symptoms. Went back up to my dosage of 150 it was so bad. After experiencing this, I made up my mind at that time that the goal would be to get off of this bad drug completely. I began again with tapering with psych MD in December of 2015. I have journals of all of it. And I highly suggest you keep a journal of all including doses, dosages, doc visits, and all of the symptoms both physically and mentally you have experienced throughout. After several months of tapering, I got down to 37.5 mg in December of 2016 and stayed there until I began tapering about three months ago with psych md again....with each taper came to the same exact symptoms, imagine that. My doctor gave me a script for 25mg Ven/Effex and 10mg of Prozac in February of this year....Immediately with the new taper same withdrawal effects and more symptoms physically, emotionally and mentally. I never took the Prozac and I have been using lots of otc medicines to help me get through nausea and gastro/digestive issues. I was feeling so angry and agitated off and on for months and weeks especially during each beginning of each taper down. Pepto Bismol for nausea and gastric...also Gas X, Tums, Dramamine...these as needed....I am taking the supplement 5HTP as has been suggested on other websites, a B Complex, calcium, multivitamins, and am eating lots of healthy food, Gatorade (G2), coconut water and regular filtered water... I actually am off the couch and out of bed and want to socialize and exercise. I am now not on anything prescribed.
I made it through and so can you.

Glad to hear you are off of it and doing well @lalyfa

You don't know how helpful your post has been to me. Thank you so much. I am so sick right now on the 37.5 mg that I am stuck in my recliner. It's the only place where I'm reasonably okay. As long as there is no motion. Even watching the movement on the TV makes me dizzy. I notice that everything sounds loud. I'm trying very hard to rid this poison from my system. Both of my Doctors are very knowledgeable about how hard the withdrawals are with Effector so that is a help. Again thank you so much for your post.

It is so comforting to know that others know what I am going through. Thank you for your post! 6 weeks of this though might do me in. LOL

@poisonivy15 I, too, too Effexor for many years....divorce after 31 years of marriage, then five years later I lost my son to PTSD related suicide. I was basically a zombie for 15 years. I gained over 50 lbs and have literally laid in bed for the past 6 years since losing my son. I was a mess. I was having horrible back pain so my PCP did a urine culture and found "considerable" amounts of blood in my urine. It scared me to death. That's what prompted me to do a TON of research on the Effexor. Yes, Effexor is poison and it was killing me one organ at a time. Back in October I talked to my psychiatrist about getting off of the Effexor not only because of the problem with my kidneys but I had severe gastric problems as well. We started reducing the dosage by 1/4 each WEEK. That was way too fast. I should have known better than to start the weaning process so close to the holidays because that's when I really tank. I miss my son so badly. On New Year's Eve Day I called 911 because I was so weak from all of the vomiting and diarhea. I was severely dehydrated and had the worst panic attack I've ever had in my life. My lips were drawn as were my hands and arms. I thought I was having a stroke and so did the EMTs. Once I got the hospital they filled me full of liquids and gave me a Xanax for my anxiety but it didn't help. I ended up getting something through the IV for the anxiety. I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. When they released me I came back home and literally didn't have the strength to even make myself something to eat. The gastric issues persisted. I sweated gallons of sweat, literally, and continued the vomiting and diahrea. I called my doctor that evening and told the doctor on call I didn't think I was going to survive. She called in a prescription for Gabapentin for the anxiety. I truly don't know how I drove to the pharmacy to pick it up but I didn't have anyone to get it for me. Once I got that in my system the panic attack subsided and I finally fell asleep. My dr. moved me on to Prozac while weaning me off of the Effexor but I told her that wasn't working. She changed it to Lexapro a month later and I have dropped 35 lbs since January. I have no appetite and the thought of food makes me gag. I am seeing a gastroenterologist to see what's going on in my stomach and bowels. The weight loss has been great as I needed to lose the 50 lbs I gained, but not being able to eat is horrible. I tried to go out for my daughter's bday and took three bites of a nice dinner and couldn't eat any more. My staple food is Cheerios. That's the only thing I can tolerate. I'm having a colonoscopy and endoscopy next week to see why I can't eat and the weight continues to fall off. I truly think that the Effexor is still in my body as I have read sometimes it takes 6 to 8 months for it to be totally expelled from the body. I know I will struggle with depression from the many losses I have had in my life but don't want to depend on pharmaceuticals to keep me alive. I am hoping the weather here in Ohio breaks soon so I can get outside and walk or do yard work. But these past 6 months have been a hell I never want to go through again. My biggest problem right now is anxiety and I HATE taking the Xanax as it's just another drug I will have to worry about getting off of. The Gabapentin helps with the anxiety but puts me to sleep. I hate that we all are experiencing such catastrophic events weaning off of this poisonous drug. And, in my opinion, it truly is poison. My recommendation to anyone thinking about weaning off of it is to to take it very, very slowly. Maybe reduce the dosage a month or two apart. But reducing the dosage weekly is a sure plan of disaster....best of luck to everyone out there who is struggling....keep putting one foot in front of the other and pray to get to the other side of this....

It is not just the physical withdrawal that is horrible. It is also the mental and emotional part of it. The withdrawal of this drug messed with my head and brought me to dark places more than once and tried to keep me there......mostly it was taking place at the beginning of each taper down. I began to question my mental state a few times and obsess about my life. It was very negative. On top of this, I became agitated and aggressive. Everything was making me so angry....the smallest things and things that do not even matter in life were irritating me. I was angry at my husband a lot. At times, there was nothing he could do to make me happy and I was mean sometimes and I am not a mean person!! I was angry at the world. Driving and dealing with traffic and the public even at the grocery store was difficult. I became agitated at everything. I cried often and questioned my thinking, I kept pushing through each day no matter what symptoms I was having believing that I could get through it. Everything that you read that everyone is dealing with this drug is spot on for me so do not discount any of it. Take the best physical care of yourself that you can. Try to make yourself feel as comfortable as possible physically and emotionally, whatever that means to you. I ate a lot of ice cream and starchy and sugary foods throughout the tapering. I didn't want to move off of the couch. I did not want to go outside often. My husband was a saint. He just loved me through it. I was overwhelmed with fear to reach out on a website such as this going through it but I kept reading and reading. Now I do not have those unrealistic fears. There is always hope. There is so much information online now and groups and threads like this are here to help. I am glad you are in awareness of the situation.

@sadiesmom1 thank you so much for your story here..... you are a very brave human being. I commend you for sharing your story.
Much love to you. You are helping people more than you will ever know. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the doctors have ANY idea of the withdrawal effects of these hardcore designed chemical legal prescribed drugs such as Venlafaxine. If they did, true caring doctors would not prescribe them to their patients. The drug pharmaceutical companies selling the products to them may or may not be aware of the indications. Plenty of people/patients are coming forth worldwide about their own withdrawal symptoms surrounding this drug. There are also concerns about repercussions from long term and short term usage of the Venlafaxine/Effexor drug. A psych nurse I found to help me do the taper off of Venlafaxine/Effexor admitted to me she does not prescribe the chemical drug to any of her patients anymore because of the horrible withdrawals and less mentioned studies regarding repercussions on the body from ingesting this and other man-made chemical drugs. I have a question. If there are so many designed chemical drugs and antidepressants on the market that help people, would it be that difficult for the pharmaceutical companies to design withdrawal medications? There are people who claim they have become suicidal and/or homicidal at times on these medications and withdrawing from some of these medications. I am so glad you are in awareness of the situation. Yes very very very slowly with the tapering otherwise it will jolt your entire being physically and mentally and make you a total nonfunctioning wreck. I was so afraid to go through another taper down with Effexor I stayed on the 37.5mg dosage for about a full year because I knew from my previous tapers that another tapering down period of withdrawal could again affect my life, my career, my marriage, my physical and emotional wellbeing, other's wellbeing around me....Each time I would put in my script at the drug store, that small dosage was not available for a week. I kinda got a chuckle out of that. It told me that not many people take that small of a dose of Venlafaxine. I am truly thankful that this website and others have set up forums for us to speak safely and directly about our concerns for ourselves and for others who have true and factual experience with this. These places will hopefully help another human being to journey through it a little more gently knowing that there are others who have beat it and that it is indeed possible to withdraw and recover successfully.

I am sooooo sorry to hear about you....my heart goes out to you and I COMPLETELY understand. I hope the taper was not too large of a jump @poisonivy15. If you are feeling it was, you can discuss this with your doctors again and reevaluate choices. Yes sounds like you are in the throws of your last taper down. Yes noises sound louder and I actually heard some voices or like someone was calling me from another room a few times. Others have said this as well. The dizzy vertigo thing is the worst.....one time I got it when I was hiking in high mountains after missing a dose.....scary. I watched a lot of dark documentaries for awhile for some reason. Then I switched to building cabin type shows and nature documentaries....anything except the news. I ate lots of sweets and candy....my body craved all of it....and fast food etc. Thanks for the thank you. Now that I am feeling better and almost all of the way through it....I just want to make sure I show up for others. I think popsicles and ice cream helped a lot.....lots of cold things and anything that makes you feel comfortable... take care. I'll keep checking back.