I just had my dr appt with my oncologist. They nearly flipped out when I told them about missing three days of my Venlafaxine. They told me to NEVER run out of that medicine. I informed them that I wanted to start tapering off and see how that goes. I'm only at 75mg right now and they cut me back to the 37.5mg. Hopefully, since I wasn't so high on the dosage anyway, it won't be so hard getting off. But, by the third day of those missed dosages was starting to take its effect. Nausea, brain zaps, headaches, upset stomach, etc... Doctors really should see how someone is going to physically and mentally be after surgery before just automatically putting them on something like this. I DON'T LIKE DRUGS, PRESCRIPTION OR RECREATIONAL!!!

Ronnie - I think that docs didn't warn those of us who have been on Effexor for a long time - simply because there wasn't enough clinical data out there to show that there are problems. Prescribers (many of whom are PCPs as opposed to psychiatrists/psychopharms) found that the SNRI's worked well in patients who didn't respond to the SSRIs....but there wasn't enough experience in patients coming off the drugs.

I remember back in '03 or so, issues with the atypical antipsychotics (high cholesterol, weight gain, hypertension, diabetes) had on many patients started to come together. The atypical antipsychotics - the ones that we now see lots of advertisements for under the banner of "when your antidepressant isn't working - add XYZ" - are a huge improvement over older antipsychotics - but now doctors know that these drugs are not without their downsides.