Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

Good morning all
Just checking in. I am doing well. I am in great spirits. Chosing time to spend with friends. Less shivers yesterday. It was 80 degrees here much of the day too.
I was actually able to spend time in a tee top for a few hours yesterday. That means my winter coats have finally come off. Darn cold house with no insulation is starting to heat up.
I will be looking for an air conditioner this week. My MS is going to be a wild ride this year. I am losing feeling in my fingers and I am dropping things. Its so shocking when it happens. I think I gave a good grip on things but then I see things just slip out of my grasp and bang. I was sorry to drop one of my favorite containers yesterday. Thankfully it broke nicely so I won't be chasing shards of glass.
My COPD is ramping up with the change of weather. I can't believe the things I am coughing up. Yuck!
My body is complaining big time with pain. My CBD will not arrive until Friday and I did not realize how much pain the CBD removed from My body. Its so hard to stand up straight.
I had a very bad safari in Kenya in '06. I suffered 3 ruptured discs in my neck and 3 in my lower back that day. My neck was fixed in 07 but I chose not to do my lower back. So it is complaining big time. Hahaha, I've heard it all before. Nothing new in the concept or the wording.
I met with a medicine woman friend of mine yesterday. Oh we had a lovely afternoon. We sat in the sunshine and laughed together. I got to touch many baby lambs and really feel their bodies. Oh isn't new life grand?
Makes me know life is going along as it should be and will be in the future.
I am content.
Bright Wings

I’m fearing my depression is coming back. I’m in the office now and I just want to cry and scream and run away. I realize I’m going through a lot of stress at the moment, so I’d love to blame it all on that. But I just don’t care anymore about anything - and yet I care TOO much about other things. My kid still makes me smile, so I’m going to focus on that. (I was in a hole so deep before I started Effexor 20 years ago that nothing made me smile...)

Trying not to keep telling the sad story!

Going to take a walk.

BUBS

@secretwhitepop
I am sorry you are suffering so!
Chances are that the depression you suffer from is genetic, part of your heredity, part of your chemical make-up.
The Effexor kept it under control for so many years, now nothing is.
I am no medical person, but it sounds to me like you need some sort of medication to manage your depression.
Don't wait too long!
You don't want things to get worse!!!!
Call the doc!

Good luck!
Ronnie (GRANDMAr)

@secretwhitepop- I'm with you on this. Mine came back again too, or started too. Then I realized that I hadn't been taking good care of myself-not enough rest, or eating the right foods or drinking enough water and not exercising. I started back on these goals today and I'm beginning to feel better. It's an awful feeling isn't it? But sometimes I do get feeling sad about something and confuse it with depression. Twenty years is a long time on one medicine that controls your moods. Do you think that it's time to change something or get an additional medication for a short time to see you through your stressful times?

@secretwhitepop I feel you! Sometimes I wonder if "normal " people experience bad days the same as I do, or if I've always just been super sensitive to things. I do know that speaking for myself here, I will do any and every thing known to mankind before I would consider starting on another medication. I have no desire to go back to square one. There is so much more information available to us now via the internet that I can research and even experiment with modalities like meditation, other therapies.

Over 10 years BW.

Great day today. A lot of shaking but not debilitating. When I open my mouth to talk, I cry, but it's not from sadness, it's just like turning on a faucet and turning it off. Passes as quickly as it comes on.
Hope everyone is doing well today. Hang in there if you're not. It will change.

What is the deal with the crying? It’s uncontrollable and then, just like that, things feel ok again. Truly truly the strangest thing. Am grateful for feeling good. Not sure how long it will last. But grateful.

Thank you. Because truly I was considering going on Zoloft or Prozac. But, it passed. So I’m thinking straighter again. Thankfully.

@secretwhitepop I know the temptation of picking something up in the hopes it will make things easier. But I've found if I wait a day, an hour, a minute, that small amount of time puts me that much closer to my goal of living a life that is truly me. Hang in there. It gets better.