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Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: 19 hours ago | Replies (6411)Comment receiving replies
I agree with you, sears, Effexor needs to be taken off the market. The withdrawal is wretched and painful. I was on 225mg Effexor XR for 12 years. I tried several times to taper down and get off but the withdrawal symptoms were so mentally and physically disturbing that I resumed taking the drug. This time I started in January 2020 and very gradually tapered down to approx. 10mg for the last week of June. My last dose was on July 1st. Still – nearly three weeks later – I have severe withdrawal symptoms with headaches, body aches and pains, brain zaps, fatigue, chills, disturbed thinking, severe mood swings, high anxiety, strange dreams and nightmares.
Doctors need to stop taking advice from drug pushers at pharmaceutical companies and educate themselves about the dangers of this drug. Doctors must try to grow some compassion for mental health patients, and stop prescribing drugs that make our lives hell on earth. Effexor was not superior to any of the other antidepressants (which eventually pooped out) I have taken, so I don’t know why it was prescribed by a celebrated psychiatrist at one of the “world’s greatest hospitals” in the Northeast.
Replies to "I agree with you, sears, Effexor needs to be taken off the market. The withdrawal is..."
@seashore
I disagree about taking this pharmaceutical off of the market. I certainly agree with you on the following statement ” Doctors must try to grow some compassion for mental health patients.” The pharmaceutical company who developed this medication failed to do adequate testing & provide discontinuation procedures so we can’t totally blame the doctors although they should know by now from having enough complaints by their patients that they’re stopping this medication too quickly. A psychiatrist in France was taking this medication and he decided to discontinue this medication the same way he prescribed his patients to stop and obviously he had withdrawl symptoms. Then he stopped at a later time and he use the 5-10% method and it was very successful, he had no withdrawal symptoms at all and now he advocates the 5-10% method. It’s a shame people don’t come here first and read this thread to educate themselves on others experiences, if they did they wouldn’t have to experience the awful withdrawal symptoms. Obviously patients don’t have to obey their doctor and take these large cuts and suffer the withdrawal symptoms. But this drug does help a large number of patients so again I disagree that it should be taken off of the market. However I do believe the pharmaceutical company should educate the physicians who prescribe it.
Take care,
Jake
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The majority of physchiatrists have zero compassion for their patients. It’s all about the money, here’s your poison script, see ya in 3 months, have a nice day! LOL! BTW Effexor is in my opinion worse than any benzo. I’d much rather taper a benzo than most of the anti depressants.