You can click on my name, or anyone's name on this thread and read all their posts. I have quite a few, so I'll reprise my history.

I started taking 25mg Effexor in 2001 for hot flashes (an off-label use). My breast cancer was estrogen-driven so I was given tamoxifen--it binds up the estrogen in your body which put me into a chemically induced menopause.

In the Fall of 2014, I was diagnosed with a different breast cancer. I asked my oncologist if I should get off the Effexor as my treatment was going to more grueling and I probably didn't need it for hot flashes anymore, anyway. He told me to hold off--not to rock the boat right now.

I waited until the Spring of 2018 and tapered off by cutting my small flat tablets into tinier and tinier pieces. I took two months to get off 25mg. I was fine for about six weeks after the taper. Then, I began experiencing all the symptoms of Effexor withdrawal--anxiety, insomnia, agitation, shakes, akathisia, fear, dizziness, etc. I had been on Effexor for almost 18 years--I think six weeks is how long it took for my body to "use up" all the stores of this drug stored in my body tissues.