Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

@summertime4
Hi there,
Welcome to Connect.
Your sleep, headache & body aches are side effects of Elavil. Are your pains mostly in your joints or general body aches? Why were you given Elavil. You say you have weakness and unsteady gait, body hurts all over, those are all side effects of Elavil, ask your doctor. Antidepressants have potential serious (especially) long term consequences, some irreversible and permanent. There are often other ways of helping the symptoms of depression even after starting medication. I understand Fibromyalgia and Arthritis can be intensely painful. You might consider getting off the Effexor, Klonopin & Elavil and recheck your symptoms.
Good luck,
Jake

Thank you, but now I have been off for a week, I am struggling with the idea of putting it back in my body.

@sandij Welcome to Mayo Connect. Please slow your withdrawal down so that your symptoms stop. You will feel better and have a more positive outcome. I would also read what people have said on this forum if you haven't about weaning too fast.

Hello, I want to introduce myself and thank everyone for being here. I began tapering venlafaxine in September,from a dosage of 225 which is 3 capsules. I have been on the XR formula for many years, probably 20, and prior to that I took Prozac for about 15 years. I asked to switch to the venlafaxine when I began experiencing anxiety in addition to depression, after hearing it was an appropriate treatment for both. Like most people here, I have a long story, but I will keep my first posting short. I am happy to have found this forum. The information I was reading on a facebook group was, in my opinion, a bit extreme. Perhaps when I reach the later stages of my taper I will change my mind, but at this point I cannot see myself counting beads for years to the point of staying on ONE bead for months without being able to "jump". I am tapering faster than is probably recommended, but I am determined to be successful. I went from 225 to 150, stayed there for 6 weeks and then went to 75. Yes, I experience withdrawal symptoms, but not every day. I went through a cold turkey neurontin withdrawal complete with PAWS for 12 months, about two years ago. So far this has been easier although not a walk in the park. I hope to be able to participate in this forum on a regular basis.

jake Thank you Jake. I was prescribed the Elavil for the fibromyalgia pain and for sleep? I had many of these symptoms prior to the Elavil. I am so confused. I know all antidepressants have adverse reactions. I am at a loss. I will continue with the medications ffor now because I can not endure further issues during the holiday. I know with drawing will be difficult. I do not know right now what came first, the chicken or the egg.

@notaround Thank you so much for your input. I was on 75 mg of Effexor previously and for some reason I thought it was making me ill. so to avoid withdrawal my doctor put me on 37.5. You know in the past year don't know what works or doesn't work. I keep thinking the medication is making me ill when in fact that is not it. I am looking for relief and can't seem to get it. The CBD oil helps with my back pain, but you may be right tha it does interact. I do have CBD oil w/o THC, but I am going to look further into what you are telling me. I thank you so much. Sometimes I don't know where the grief is where the depression is and then all the body pain. My late husband would want me to continue and to enjoy life and that is one of the reasons I am seeking answers. I do know that I have read so many negative's on here about Effexor and at this point wonder if I tried getting off it because of that I just don't know. It seems so much of a blur right now.

Again, I am very surprised not to find any references to waves and windows on this forum! It is pretty much a common term. Since I am a newly registered member, I am unable to post a link to the document so I have posted it in its entirety, making for a long post! (You should be able to search waves and windows, January 31, 2013 author npath, James Heaney, wordpress for the original)

"Tapering off of an SSRI can be very difficult. It’s not like other ailments that have defined timelines and symptoms. When a doctor treats a broken bone, there are long established milestones in recovery. SSRI withdrawal is different. Each case seems to be unique, with different length and severity of symptoms. One of the frustrating parts of withdrawal is the way that symptoms fluctuate over time. People call them waves and windows. At first, withdrawal is unremitting. There seems to be no respite from the symptoms. After some time, which varies from person to person, symptoms begin to break up into cycles. There are times when symptoms aren’t as bad, and other times when they are quite severe. It’s not a universal pattern. Some patients find that they have constant symptoms that slowly go away. The wave/window pattern seems to be the majority, though.

Waves

Waves describe those times when symptoms are more severe. Symptoms can be physical or emotional. It feels like getting sick. When you start to get a cold, you can feel little changes that presage the illness. A sore throat or headache, then the full symptoms of the cold start in a day or two. A wave has similar precursors. Usually, physical symptoms are the first sign that a wave is coming. A stiff neck, headaches, and dizziness are some of the symptoms. A day or two later, the emotional symptoms become more pronounced. These symptoms include obsessive or compulsive thoughts, depression, or anxiety. It can be helpful to break waves up into different parts. Knowing that each part of a wave is coming, and what to expect next, can make the whole process easier to handle. The reason we’re so adept at knowing the cycle of a cold is that we’ve had them off and on all our lives. we’re aware of the subtle changes in our bodies that tell us that we’re getting sick. In the same way, it takes some experience before you can separate the parts of wave from each other. It takes still more time to develop ways of dealing with each part of a wave.

Physical symptoms of a wave are hard to mitigate. There isn’t much you can do about general joint pain, headaches, or dizziness. You can try analgesics like aspirin or ibuprofen, but those aches are fairly resistant to those kinds of pain killers. Dizziness is likewise difficult to deal with. Withdrawal dizziness isn’t just something that happens when you stand up or spin around. It’s hard to believe that you can feel dizzy when you lie down, but it happens in withdrawal. Try to stay as still as possible until it gets better. Try to use the physical symptoms as a sign that there are new symptoms coming that you need to deal with.

There isn’t really any way to avoid the emotional symptoms of a wave. There is no way to “suck it up and get over it”. Our minds create our reality in a fluid way. The anxiety, depression, and obsessions of a wave are just as real as the screen in front of you. The fact that our rational mind would recognize that it’s not real or overblown doesn’t mean much when you’re experiencing it. That’s the essence of a wave. It’s not rational or thoughtful. Obsessive thoughts can be about almost anything from the benign to the surreal. Self harm can suddenly seem like a rational idea. In normal thought, the entire spectrum of emotions are right below the surface. When you’re cut off in traffic, you have several choices. You can ignore it, respond verbally or visually, speed up, slow down. Even the psychotic is present in that moment. We’ve become so accustomed to suppressing psychotic thoughts that we don’t even realize that the idea of ramming the other car didn’t rise up to our conscious minds. In withdrawal, those thoughts that would normally be dismissed without a thought gain the same weight in our conscious minds as socially acceptable thoughts. The only way to mitigate the emotional symptoms of a wave is to be mindful of the difference between normal thought and the unnatural power that irrational thought has in a wave. It’s very hard to pick apart which thoughts are your normal responses and which ones are caused by the wave. They mingle together in a chaotic way. That’s what makes your reactions to a window just as important as your reactions to a wave.

Windows

Windows are periods of time when symptoms are not as pronounced as they were before. At first, it feels like it’s over… you beat withdrawal, you’re free. That’s the cruel joke of SSRI withdrawal. Windows and waves are intertwined together. The way withdrawal works for most people is that the windows slowly, ever so slowly, get longer, and the waves get shorter. A window is more than a vacation from symptoms, though. It is a huge relief to have some time off from feeling miserable. Savor the good times in withdrawal, because that is what you have to look forward to in recovery. More than relief, though, windows are an opportunity to prepare yourself to deal with waves in a better way. Try to pay attention to how you feel. Examine the way you think, the way you respond to things. Try to recognize the way that you automatically choose responses and thoughts. Emotionally, a window is a return to the normal way of parsing thoughts. Instead of allowing all thoughts to rise to consciousness, you mind is automatically tuning out undesirable thoughts based on your personality. Paying attention to the process during a window makes it easier to impose that same kind of structure during the next wave. It’s that mindfulness that you’ll need during the next wave. After a while, you can tell when a thought is out of character, and consciously dismiss it.

Withdrawal is a process of alternating good times and bad. The more you’re able to mitigate the bad with mindfulness, the shorter the waves become. Our minds often work in feedback loops. One thought leads to another through association, creating the pattern of our minds. Mindfulness allows us to shape the pattern to a certain extent. The more you can recognize that a harmful thought is just part of a wave, and not a normal part of your normal mind, the faster you’ll get to the next window. Eventually, that last window becomes reality, and the next wave never comes. The mindfulness you’ve developed getting there will remain, though."

Reading and rereading this document as I was going through WD from neurontin saved me many times. Recovery from these drugs is NOT linear. It's empowering to realize that there will be ups and downs, and not to feel hopeless when symptoms hit. Even at a slow taper, a person will probably experience some WD symptoms from time to time, as described in the article above. I feel like many people stay on the drug even longer than they need to when they are tapering....not that I advocate going too fast, but if you are going to hold or even increase by a few mgs in order to stabilize, with the expectation that every day will be better, you are going to be disappointed. Recognize those waves and KNOW they are temporary. Enjoy the windows and be grateful for them. Keep those good days in mind when you have the bad ones. It WILL get better. One day you will realize that you have had your last wave. That is what keeps me tapering, I've got my eyes on the prize.