Exciting -- and good for you! I'm close to the end, too, and I'm counting the days. This week I'm on 29 mg. and next week I go down to 14 for a week and then -- I hope -- none. If I have any zaps when I'm coming off 14, I plan to taper down 5 beads/day until I'm off, which would be an additional week. (A week ago I added 3 mg of time-release melatonin for the insomnia, but my sleep schedule has gotten completely out of whack during this process. That might also be because I'm retired and I've canceled everything non-essential during the taper, so I can sleep for long stretches when I feel the need, which makes it hard to go to sleep at a semi-normal time, plus I drink lots of water to help flush this stuff out of my system so I have to pee a lot which makes it harder for me to fall asleep unless I'm really, really tired!!)

We'll see what happens. Although I did learn one benefit of Effexor -- apparently it tamps down menopause symptoms...I hit menopause 3 years ago - no symptoms whatsoever....when I spoke to my therapist about how crappy I felt on Wednesday and how I slept with ice packs for a couple of nights -- she said that I was probably experiencing hot flashes....mine were more like heat waves.