Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

@edziner

Personally I would not use cannibis or CBC oil only because so little is known about it and the nearly 500 different chemicals. It’s not yet known how many (if any) are dangerous how some chemicals may be altered when smoked, baked, dried or juiced in their natural state or how they may react in our bodies. At this point nobody knows for sure.
I know it provides many people with relief of various ailments and I’m happy for them. It has stopped children with severe seizure disorders which is my nemesis.
I’m very glad it helps you.
My question is, have you tried the certified thc free version and non certified one with some thc in it. If so which one helped you more?
Sorry for going on before I got to my question.
Jake

I’m a 54 yr old Mom of 3 mini adult (18,19,&21). I was prescribed Effexor about 18 months ago for hot flashes! I struggled going on it and the pharmacist encouraged me to open the capsules and put the beads in yogurt to help with the nausea and at one point even suggesting that I ask the dr for a higher dose! Of course, being a “good patient” I tried my best to take the pills even though I lost 15 pounds in the process. Now I’ve been trying to get off of it for 8 months because I still have the hot flashes and if I’m even an hour late on my dosage, the brain zaps are overwhelming. Today is my first 24 hours with out it and I’m having problems just moving my head without the zaps. I encourage everyone to research EVERYTHING your doctor prescribes before putting anything in your body !!! Especially now that google has taken over the world :0). I love my doc and know she didn’t mean to cause this. I also realize that this med had probably saved thousands of lives but for symptoms like mine, the effects are far worse than the cause!! I really appreciate everyone’s advice, support, helpful ideas. Many Blessings

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

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

@shaker1956

You’ve been delt a stressful blow buddy. I think your insomnia was inevitable.
How about some over the counter sleep meds.
Hang in there.
Jake

@caityduck
You don't mention how much Effexor you were on and I realize when you want off you want off NOW, but to go "cold turkey" is unpleasant at best and dangerous at worst. Please read the many posts on here and taper off--slow and steady wins this race.

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. It’s me again. I had a scare on Saturday morning. I was in the shower and all of a sudden couldn’t see well. I had terrible spots in my vision and everything was very bright. I yelled for my husband (who was actually home thank goodness) and we decided together to go to the ER. Shortly after my vision went spotty I got the worst headache I’ve ever had. So I thought, maybe a migraine. Once I got to the hospital they acted quickly. Gave me three injections. One for nausea and two more for pain. It knocked me out. I don’t remember much. But on the discharge papers the ER doctor diagnosed me with discontinuation syndrome... and advised I see an eye doctor regularly to keep my eye pressure in check. My husband said my eye pressure was 23 when they checked it. Which is apparently high. This medicine is EVIL. I don’t know if anyone else has had a similar experience, but I thought I’d share. I have an appointment tomorrow with an opthamologist to assess the damage this medicine has caused to my normally 20/20 vision. I’ll update.

@shaker1956

So Shaker how are you getting along? Sounds like your symptoms are subsiding ? I hope so, I bet you feel like you’ve been dragged through a knothole backwards if not worse over the last 10 or so weeks. You must be a very strong person.
Please keep us informed as to how your progress.
Jake

Hi all. It’s me again. I had a scare on Saturday morning. I was in the shower and all of a sudden couldn’t see well. I had terrible spots in my vision and everything was very bright. I yelled for my husband (who was actually home thank goodness) and we decided together to go to the ER. Shortly after my vision went spotty I got the worst headache I’ve ever had. So I thought, maybe a migraine. Once I got to the hospital they acted quickly. Gave me three injections. One for nausea and two more for pain. It knocked me out. I don’t remember much. But on the discharge papers the ER doctor diagnosed me with discontinuation syndrome... and advised I see an eye doctor regularly to keep my eye pressure in check. My husband said my eye pressure was 23 when they checked it. Which is apparently high. This medicine is EVIL. I don’t know if anyone else has had a similar experience, but I thought I’d share. I have an appointment tomorrow with an opthamologist to assess the damage this medicine has caused to my normally 20/20 vision. I’ll update.