Hello, @megannicole, and welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. Glad the posts on this thread have helped you feel normal in your tapering off of venlafaxine (Effexor). Yes, many members have commented it's been very tough.

I applaud your decision to contact your doctor to talk about how your taper is going. How are you feeling this morning?

I have recently been coming off effexor I took 75 MG for about a year then went up 37.5 for week then 150 from there well I felt worse tired weight gain just overall felt worse so Dr decided to ween me off it was 3 days at 75 then 3 days at 37.5 for 3 days to nothing for 1 day then started Cymbalta 30 MG this is day 4 no effexor I feel horrible depressed weird head feeling dizzy fighting with boy friend snapping over the tiniest things I hate how I feel almost makes me want to take it to feel better in a sense but know the withdraws are what's causing it i been self medicate with colazipan and marjaunia which helps with all this but it's illegal and my family Dr drug test me on a regular basis because of other health issues please suggest anything to get threw this would be appreciated I feel so hopeless

sorry. to hear your having a bad time. but IS cymbalta and better than Effexor ? I do not know. Seems all these drugs have side effects Headaches & Dizzyness is one of them I have that too Wish I could get off all these type of meds. I also take Xanax Got very sick _ went to the ER ) when I did not take Xanax for 3 days . Wish doctors would warn us about how severe this can be Best of luck Hang in there ..

I’m in the process of tapering off Effexor to be able to go on cymbalta as well. I’ve got a long way to go because I was extremely overmedicated. But from what I can tell, you did not have nearly enough time to wean off of the Effexor. At least 2 weeks for each taper. Then while on the lowest dose, the cymbalta should have been introduced into your system. Then finally weaned off of the Effexor completely. I heard from a lot of people that cymbalta is good. I’m going to be using it as an antidepressant and for my fibromyalgia. If it’s only day 4, I would think about taking the lowest dose of Effexor until the cymbalta kicks in. Maybe 2-3 weeks. It takes a couple weeks for an antidepressant to start working. So right now it’s kind of like taking nothing and going through withdrawals. Good luck!