I have read through about a year's worth of this thread and now I figure I would just post my question. I am 49, a married mom of 2 with multiple Sclerosis. Due to anxiety and an almost chronic depression I have been on and off of antidepressants most of my adult life. I was misdiagnosed several times with other disorders until I was ultimately diagnosed with MS at 32, and having correct information, doctor's, and strategies helped so much in relieving the anxiety I had been feeling for so long. Struggling, though, as a mom to young girls, I decided to try tapering off of the effexor. I was on 225 mg, and although we did taper in a way I believed was slow, the 'brain zaps', anxiety, and other problems were horrible, but then, I really do not know, to this day, what happened. Piecing it together later, we determined that going off of the effexor had caused me to experience a so-called rebound reaction which decimated my short-term memory, amongst other things. My daughters and my husband were all very scared, they did not know what was going on, and had no idea how to help. All along, I believed I was just fine, not even realizing there was a problem. My mother told me later about several instances where I would repeat the same question to her 3 or 4 times in the same conversation, even after having been given the answer, and have no memory of it. Scary time for them. I wasn't really scared until they finally got me to my neuro and I was sitting there, listening to them all, telling the doctor what it had been like for us. I still cannot remember much of that time. Needless to say, I was immediately put back on to the effexor, and as I adjusted to the higher doses again, the short term memory came back, and we decided that until both of my children were out of school, we would not try to come off again. It was a very hard, very dark time, and I felt ( and still do ) really badly over the whole situation. I did follow my doctor's instructions about how to come off of the drug, but obviously something did not go right. Now that my youngest is in college, I am considering again trying to get off of this drug. My weight has ballooned higher than it has ever been, causing more challenges for me in dealing with my MS. Does anyone have a strategy or suggestion for me to consider? I do not want to go through anything like that again, nor do I want to put my family through it.

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