1. < Depression & Anxiety

Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

Posted by richyrich @richyrich, Nov 2, 2016

I have been taking Effexor/Venlafaxine for years and tried to get off it a few times but each time I try to give up the chemical withdrawal symptoms are a horror story and I give up giving up. Anyone got any tips or tried and tested strategies? Thank you

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dickygray | @dickygray | Jan 13, 2019

Ive been free of these things for nearly three weeks now, coming down from 300mg over the past 4-5 months. Now, to clarify, I have just returned from 5 weeks in Costa Rica. returned to grey miserable london, sleeping badly through jet lag, so you could see why someones mood could be a bit low. I have to say though, Ive not felt this low, this utterly bereft of any hope since god knows when. Not good !
Suicidal ideation is raising its head from time to time, emotional and really angry. Feel like Ive made a mistake coming off of these horrible drugs. Im going to stick with it for a bit longer, obviously if things degenerate further I wont sit on my hands. Really pissed off that these drugs may turn out to be a necessary evil.

REPLY
1 reply
BrightCloud | @brightcloud | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @dickygray "Ive been free of these things for nearly three weeks now, coming down from 300mg over..." + (show)
@dickygray

Ive been free of these things for nearly three weeks now, coming down from 300mg over the past 4-5 months. Now, to clarify, I have just returned from 5 weeks in Costa Rica. returned to grey miserable london, sleeping badly through jet lag, so you could see why someones mood could be a bit low. I have to say though, Ive not felt this low, this utterly bereft of any hope since god knows when. Not good !
Suicidal ideation is raising its head from time to time, emotional and really angry. Feel like Ive made a mistake coming off of these horrible drugs. Im going to stick with it for a bit longer, obviously if things degenerate further I wont sit on my hands. Really pissed off that these drugs may turn out to be a necessary evil.

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@dickygray
I went into hibernation back in August, due to depression. My husband passed away. At that time it had begun raining here, and the sun didn't shine for months. Now it's winter here, which brings gloomy cloudy dark days. On the occasional days when the sun shines, I actually feel happy with a bit of energy.
Please have your vitamin D level checked before you give up! A simple OTC supplement might change everything. Stress also depletes our Vit D, and traveling must be stressful! Even fun can be stressful on your body. I take a generic brand Vit D3 1000 mg per day. I think it is helping, but I'm so "off" right now, I don't know whether my symptoms are caused by taking the effexor, or from tapering off! The side effects are identical. I want this poison out of my brain! I'm also going to read up on detoxing with juicing. That should help get it out of my system. @dickygray hang in there! We can do this, right?

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2 replies
texasduchess | @texasduchess | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @brightcloud "@jakedduck1 @sandij The doc started me at 75 mg/day for 10 days, then doubled that dosage...." + (show)
@brightcloud

@jakedduck1 @sandij
The doc started me at 75 mg/day for 10 days, then doubled that dosage. I didn't count grains when starting. I know there are withdrawal symptoms, and as long as I can recognize them, I'm not expecting to be withdrawal symptom free. I just don't want to drop over dead from stopping this med.
It seems to me that the longer I stretch out the taper, that keeps the chemical in my system longer, and might intensify the withdrawals. What do you think of my reasoning?
With my shakiness, I don't think I could take a capsule apart and count grains without spilling it.

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@brightcloud Trying to taper by skipping days means that the levels of Effexor in your body will yo yo dramatically; this drug has a very short half-life already which makes it hard to get off of. You'd do better to reduce the amount of drug you take at each dosing. You reduce by a small amount, stay there for weeks, or months until you aren't experiencing withdrawal effects and then make another small step down.

A compounding pharmacy can make reduced dosages to allow you to taper--however, you mentioned not having insurance and trying to keep your costs low--the compounding service may be more than you can afford and may not even be available in your area.

From one of my posts (8/15/18)–If you cannot cut pills, or a compounding pharmacist is not available to you, or too expensive–you can dissolve your dose in juice and not drink all of it. "Venlafaxine (Effexor) can be tapered … with approximately 1% dosage reduction every 3 days. Stahl (a prescriber’s guide–Stahl’s essential psychopharmacology) recommends dissolving the tablet in 100 mL of juice, discarding 1 mL and drinking the rest. After 3 days, 2 mL can be discarded, etc."–https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/103869/depression/venlafaxine-discontinuation-syndrome-prevention-and-management

The dissolve-in-juice method mentions reducing by 1mL, but you could control the taper as you wish by discarding a different amount and reducing at a different interval. Just don't bounce around all over the place--slow and steady wins this race.

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Merry, Alumni Mentor | @merpreb | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @brightcloud "@dickygray I went into hibernation back in August, due to depression. My husband passed away. At..." + (show)
@brightcloud

@dickygray
I went into hibernation back in August, due to depression. My husband passed away. At that time it had begun raining here, and the sun didn't shine for months. Now it's winter here, which brings gloomy cloudy dark days. On the occasional days when the sun shines, I actually feel happy with a bit of energy.
Please have your vitamin D level checked before you give up! A simple OTC supplement might change everything. Stress also depletes our Vit D, and traveling must be stressful! Even fun can be stressful on your body. I take a generic brand Vit D3 1000 mg per day. I think it is helping, but I'm so "off" right now, I don't know whether my symptoms are caused by taking the effexor, or from tapering off! The side effects are identical. I want this poison out of my brain! I'm also going to read up on detoxing with juicing. That should help get it out of my system. @dickygray hang in there! We can do this, right?

Jump to this post

Welcome to Mayo Connect @brightcloud. What a gorgeous name! My sincere condolences on the loss of your husband. I hope that with time you will begin having only happy memories, not only sad ones.
I'm wondering if a special light to help seasonal depression help? It sounds like you are living somewhere where you do not get adequate sunlight. I'm not trying to sell you anything, because we can't on this site. However I've heard that these lights do work.
Please read back on the posts, if you haven't. There are some wonderful suggestions.
I'd also like to suggest two groups that you might be interested in:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/loss-and-grief-how-are-you-doing/?pg=11#comment-97289
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/depression-anxiety/
I was lucky to not have had problems with weaning off of Effexor but a lot of people have as you will read in this group. Have you considered CBD oil and have discussed trying some with your doctor?

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1 reply
Merry, Alumni Mentor | @merpreb | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @jakedduck1 "@sandij Hi Sandi, Where did you.read “The lower the doseage the higher the possibility of withdrawal..." + (show)
@jakedduck1

@sandij
Hi Sandi,
Where did you.read “The lower the doseage the higher the possibility of withdrawal symptoms.”
I disagree with that statement. I know even if a person has an extremely slow taper the possibility of withdrawal symptoms sometimes do occur. There is no guarantee that going slow will get you off a drug symptom free but it greatly reduces the chance of withdrawal. There have been studies that show no withdrawal symptoms at all then nearly a year later they appear. I don’t know how that is possible and not sure I believe it.
Take care,
Jake

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@jakedduck1- This is very possible because when the dosage is reduced there is less medicine in a person to help with depression on top of withdrawal symptoms. Also Effexor is not dose dependent regarding withdrawal symptoms. Pretty soon we will all be more confused as the doctors!

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nancy54 | @nancy54 | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @brightcloud "@dickygray I went into hibernation back in August, due to depression. My husband passed away. At..." + (show)
@brightcloud

@dickygray
I went into hibernation back in August, due to depression. My husband passed away. At that time it had begun raining here, and the sun didn't shine for months. Now it's winter here, which brings gloomy cloudy dark days. On the occasional days when the sun shines, I actually feel happy with a bit of energy.
Please have your vitamin D level checked before you give up! A simple OTC supplement might change everything. Stress also depletes our Vit D, and traveling must be stressful! Even fun can be stressful on your body. I take a generic brand Vit D3 1000 mg per day. I think it is helping, but I'm so "off" right now, I don't know whether my symptoms are caused by taking the effexor, or from tapering off! The side effects are identical. I want this poison out of my brain! I'm also going to read up on detoxing with juicing. That should help get it out of my system. @dickygray hang in there! We can do this, right?

Jump to this post

@dickygray. Yes! We can get off this! I’m doing better - I’m taking 25 mg cut in 1/2. Taking 1/2 of the 25 in a.m. and the other half in evening. That was a smart move by my dr. Now I’m having less of the nasty withdrawal. I’m going to take it super slowly. I take 5,000 ofVitamin D because I also live in a cloudy place. I’m not averse to going onto something else but nothing with this difficulty of weaning. Simply evil!!

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1 reply
nancy54 | @nancy54 | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @jakedduck1 "@brightcloud The main problem I see with your reasoning is if I agreed, it would mean..." + (show)
@jakedduck1

@brightcloud
The main problem I see with your reasoning is if I agreed, it would mean my advice would be wrong. Now we can’t have people thinking that can we, lol
Are you currently on 150mg. Maybe reduce it by 25mg every couple weeks. I had forgotten it also comes in 50, 37.5, & 25mg and sense you haven’t been on it long titrating down by those amounts my work out fine. (If your at 75mg) I wouldn’t be overly concerned about being on it awhile. The question is how long to stay on each dose. I think what’s important is that your consistently decreasing the dose letting your brain adjust. Also I wouldn’t take this drug every other day because of it’s short half life, approximately 5 hours. If I was reducing a drug like Phenobarbital with a half life of 80-100+ hours I might consider it. I’m curious why the pharmacist suggested it. He is the expert though.
Decisions decisions
Health and happiness & best of luck,
Jake

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My doctor suggested staying at each lower dose till the side effects subside. I was skeptical- I didn’t think the headaches, nausea, dizziness would subside! But seems he was right . I’m on 25 mg now and all the turmoil has settled down.

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sandij (Sandi James) | @sandij | Jan 13, 2019

I think the liquid method sounds really good to start doing, thanks for that reminder.

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BrightCloud | @brightcloud | Jan 13, 2019
In reply to @merpreb "Welcome to Mayo Connect @BrightCloud. What a gorgeous name! My sincere condolences on the loss of..." + (show)
@merpreb

Welcome to Mayo Connect @brightcloud. What a gorgeous name! My sincere condolences on the loss of your husband. I hope that with time you will begin having only happy memories, not only sad ones.
I'm wondering if a special light to help seasonal depression help? It sounds like you are living somewhere where you do not get adequate sunlight. I'm not trying to sell you anything, because we can't on this site. However I've heard that these lights do work.
Please read back on the posts, if you haven't. There are some wonderful suggestions.
I'd also like to suggest two groups that you might be interested in:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/loss-and-grief-how-are-you-doing/?pg=11#comment-97289
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/depression-anxiety/
I was lucky to not have had problems with weaning off of Effexor but a lot of people have as you will read in this group. Have you considered CBD oil and have discussed trying some with your doctor?

Jump to this post

@merpreb
Thank you for your reply and suggestions.

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