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Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: 7 hours ago | Replies (6416)Comment receiving replies
So I was only ever on 37.5 mg for 2 years, intended only to help hot flashes. Had to go to hormone patch anyway (FYI, best decision ever!). I fainted out cold one night and husband called ambulance. Determined it was vaso vagal syncope (plain old fainting). Checked heart, did monitor to make sure as was having some heart racing episodes too. Did brain MRI to rule that out. All good. Stopped Effexor thinking it may be contributing to these things. Had "boat head" dizziness regularly and brain zaps and pulsitile tinnitus. It's been now increasingly getting worse. The boat head dizziness is terrible and worse with fatigue/work pressures. Head feels "full" too. Driving is bad. Have to lean my head on headrest to feel stable and not get nauseous. This is CRAZY. ENT doctor ran all the inner ear vestibular testing. All good. My husband is more and more convinced it's all stress/fatigue related. So got lowest dose of Xanax. First day with just the one dose daily was the best day in a long time. It SEEMS to be somewhat better, but still having the dizziness maybe not as bad. I do have concerns about Xanax - son was on this when he was 20 and OD'd (ended up ok then sought treatment for marijuana addiction which is what was really making his anxiety worse.) Have appt with neurologist tomorrow to see if there's any issue there. Fyi....I never had anxiety before which is why I keep obsessing about possible medical reasons 🤔
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Spoiler alert - this is a downer. Here's my experience. I went off effexor about 20 years ago - (too quickly) withdrawal was the pits and it included tinnitus (ringing.) Went to PCP and ENT docs trying to get some relief. Unfortunately, there is no cure for tinnitus - I didn't know that at the time. So grasping at straws - went on xanax but hated it. So, long story short. I still have tinnitus and really had gotten used to the continuous, low level ringing. (Avoided as much stress and caffeine as possible.) However, about 2 years ago I started coming off lamotrigine (again too quickly) and now have a 4-alarm bell ringing in my left ear and pulsitile tinnitus in the right ear (only intermittent.) This is in addition to the lower frequency ringing. Now have insomnia from seroquel withdrawals (did titration on that one correctly.) So, I'm pretty miserable unless I stay busy - so I stay busy. The insomnia is getting better - I have a fitbit watch that helps me track the amount and quality of sleep. I have an appointment with an ENT next week (but not looking for much hope there.) Just as an aside - PC found an irregular heartbeat last year while I was on seroquel and referred me to a cardiologist who also found an irregular heart beat - my EKG yesterday was totally normal. I told the Doc he wouldn't like the obvious - but I wasn't on seroquel anymore. Thank goodness for this website and the resources. Started reading "Anatomy of an Epidemic" and listening to Mad In America podcasts - finally some answers. I'm currently slowly titrating off 5 mg Trintellix and 12.5 mg of lorazepam. I'm encouraged about sleeping at least 5 hrs a night - that's better than 2 or 3. So at least there is some hope there. : )