Hi all...
You are all correct that trying to come off Effexor, or trying to reduce your dosage can be DANGEROUS if you do it too quickly. For some reason, the paperwork does not tell you this.
At an extremely difficult time in my life, my dosage was almost doubled. When things were better, I wanted to reduce my dosage. My then doctor said to reduce it every other day. From my research, I knew this would be far too quick.
I came up with my own method to reduce, which I will share. This WILL take quite a bit of time to do. I had absolutely NO SIDE EFFECTS from this method. PLEASE KNOW THAT I AM IN NO WAY A MEDICAL PERSON!!!!!
I was taking a pill in the morning and a pill at night.
I got an AM/PM pill case ans a pill cutter. If you are taking a capsule, it is more difficult.
I worked on reducing the AM dosage first. I did exactly the same thing for the PM dosage.
1. I cut all my PM pills into quarters.
2. I put 3 quarters of a whole pill in the box. I took this dosage for one week. If I had no reaction, I continued for another week. I did this for a total on 4 weeks. IF there were any reactions, I stayed on the dosage another week.
3. After 4 weeks in a row with NO reaction, I went to half a pill for 4 weeks. If there was a reaction, you go back up to the previous dosage for a week. If all is good, then go back down. Remember, the goal is 4 weeks in a row of the new dosage with NO side effects.
5. Continue this process, removing one additional quarter at a time, until you get to where you want to be.
6. If you have an AM dosage that you want to reduce, too, be on your new PM dosage for 1 month before trying to reduce your AM. Then, use the same procedure.
As I said, this takes a while and you probably won't have any side effects.
Again, I AM NOT A MEDICAL PERSON. I DEVELOPED THIS ON MY OWN BASED ON MY OWN READINGS.
GOOD LUCK!
If you have any questions I am more than happy to help.