Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

I don't understand why people romanticise "going cold turkey" it's potentially dangerous and has a higher failure rate. Being supportive is wonderful but implying that "I did it so can you" may have been a lead up to the prescription of the meds in the first place. Life changes are huge hurdles.. So is tapering. Be well

WOW! A lot of good tips and discussions. My daughter is 21 years old and her doctor (a new doctor that had only seen her a coupled of times) put her on 75 mg Effexor XR to help fight anxiety/migraines. The doctor felt this was the best medicine for her since she has tachycardia. Well, she wasn't even on it for 30 days before she had the full effects of this medicine and eventually went to the ER because of thoughts of harming herself and unable to function. They did not hold her there, but told her to go home and follow up with her doctor. Her father and I have been then for her and made she was not home alone for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, we are unable to take much time off because of no sick/vacation time available. She is unable to work and is now home alone for 3 to 4 days a week. She followed up with her doctor (a new one because the other one is no longer there). They have been tapering her off, one pill every other day and then try every two days and then referred her to a behaviorist. We have tried getting her into a professional, but no one in our area is available. I have left messages for other clinics outside of area and no one will return my call. She has tried the every 2 days one time and it was horrible sight. She starting having body tremors, couldn't breath and crying uncontrollably. We immediately gave her the pill and within 1 hr she was a little better. She followed up with her doctor and we asked about reducing her dosage and still do the every other day. The doctor was a little reluctant, but agreed to reduce it to 37.5 mg every other day. She is still unable to work at this time. She just cannot function in the real world.

Does anyone out there have some advise for us? We have never been through anything like this before and as you can imagine, scared to death.

Hi everybody. I'm happy to have found this forum. I'm also weaning off Effexor and I heard the horror stories about the process. I was feeling pretty confident when I went from 300mg to 225mg to 150mg. I have been doing this under my doctor's care and was surprised how easy it has been. Until now. I'm now at the 75mg mark and it has been horrendous. The third day in I started to feel a lot of vertigo, weird brain zaps and lack of coordination. It got so uncomfortable I started taking 150mg again for a couple days. I wanted to try it again so have stuck out the 75mg for about 2 weeks. I thought I had the flu last week when I started having a nauseous "car sick" feeling that kept me pretty home bound. This feeling has only gotten worse over the last week. Horrible headaches, diarrhea, I feel like I'm in slow motion if that makes sense. I feel edgy like I want to jump out of my own skin. It's extremely unsettling and quite honestly, I'm scared. I feel like I may lose control. I'm not sure how to describe it properly, almost like I'm fearful the withdrawals will get so bad it will overcome me. I'm near tears writing this because I really must get off this med since it's been 15 years and doctors have told me this is basically ineffective in mood disorders (bipolar 2).

I did call the doctor today who was not in. Hoping to hear tomorrow. Anyone have any wisdom on a time frame or coping methods to get through this?

I'm curious why such a drastic shift from the 150mg to 75mg. Has anyone alternated 150mg and 75mg for awhile? I'm willing to push through this if there's hope here. I don't want to have to take this med the rest of my life just to avoid the withdrawals.

Anyone successfully off completely that can send a bit of motivation my way? This is horrible. Not sure if I can pull this off. I'm trying!

So, I just finished this process with Zoloft (sertraline) and here are some things that worked for me. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully these are low risk for you to try.

1) You may need to ask your doctor for a slower tapering program than other patients. Some people are just more sensitive to dosage changes. Be aware that symptoms will get better, then may reappear each time you taper. AAFMA (practice group of family physicians) says that the symptoms typically last 1-2 weeks and as long as 4 weeks, so I just kept reminding myself that it was temporary.
2) Be watchful for things that make your symptoms worse. For example, caffeine seems to trigger the brain zaps for me (still, even after being off for several weeks), so I cut back my caffeine intake. I didn't give it up completely (because I still need to function), but cut back on how much real coffee I was drinking, mixed decaf with regular, and switched to tea sometimes. In the end, I probably cut my daily caffeine intake in half, and it did help quite a lot.
3) Ibuprofen or other pain reliever can help with the flu-like body aches.
4) Benadryl helped with the brain zaps.
5) Exercise helped with both. Even if I wasn't up to a run, a few blocks of walking would settle down the symptoms for a while at least. (Then, when they come back, just take another walk. We took a lot of walks for a while there).
6) Get enough sleep. As I came down off the meds, my normal sleeping patterns returned, which was great, but it did mean that I needed to plan time to let my body rest.
7) Pay attention to your diet. Your brain uses carbs to make seratonin, so now is not the time to go on the Atkins diet. Eat well and make sure you're getting enough healthy carbs. You may crave sweets; I certainly did. I tried to counteract this by having bananas, graham crackers, and other healthy things I could snack on instead of sticking my head in a birthday cake like I seemed to want.

No lie - it's a painful process, but this did really help make it easier. Also, at a certain point, when I was down the below the normal starter dose, I just ripped off the bandaid and went to zero. At that point, it felt like each taper was just prolonging the suffering. Don't just go cold turkey from your current dose, though, as that can be dangerous. Also, don't add any supplements or substitutes for the SSRI without talking to your doctor first (also dangerous).

And of course, watch for the return of depression / anxiety type symptoms. For a while it was hard to tell whether I was tired because of the change in meds or because my depression was returning. I figured as long as I felt okay enough to function and wasn't thinking about being harmful to myself or anyone else, I could play it out and see. It turned out to be the meds and on the other side, I can see that I was more worried about it than I needed to be.

I wish you the best of luck and a healthy life.

Mardee

Hi All...
I just received my refill of Effexor.
For the first time (bad me), I actually took the time to read the enclosed paper work.
NOT ONCE does it mention the word ADDICTIVE (or any version). All it did say was to consult your doc before you come off . It also suggested coming off slowly in order to try to limit reactions.
Again NO mention of the word WITHDRAWAL.
Although many of us are still on Effexor, we had read the posts by those trying to come off. So, we all know what I shared.
The reason I told you about this is because in case you were not aware (like me), the paperwork from the manufacturer does NOT mention the words addictive or withdrawal.
JUST SAYING.....