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Anyone reinstate Effexor (Venlafaxine) after 9 weeks off to taper more
Hello 🤗
I was on Effexor (Venlafaxine) ER in January 2025, with my highest dose being 225 mg. I didn’t feel like I was getting much improvement with Venlafaxine, so I eventually tapered down gradually and slowly to 75 mg. Since the ER is a capsule, I asked my doctor to switch me to the IR so I could taper more even slower. Per her taper recommendation, I stayed at 25 mg for about 2 months, then went down to 18.75 mg for about 4 weeks and 12.5 mg for another 4 weeks and went down to 6.25 mg for another 4 weeks. Since I couldn’t cut the dose any lower, she recommended taking 6.25 mg every other day for about 2 weeks and then stopping. I stopped completely on June 4th.
I’m now 9 weeks off, and my doctor believes I’m still experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Since June 10th, I’ve felt keyed up much of the time, with adrenaline rushes, nervousness, rapid heart rate, and waves of anxiety. I’m also really sleepy, sluggish, and feeling wiped out. Even after sleeping 7–8 hours, I still wake up feeling like I haven’t slept. The symptoms continue from morning through the evening and are really affecting my quality of life. My doctor also prescribed Prozac to help with the withdrawal symptoms, but it didn’t help, so I stopped taking it. I take 10mg of propranolol in the morning to help with some of the anxiety symptoms.
I met with her last week and she said she did some research and also talked with some of her colleagues about my symptoms and they recommended that I reinstate at a very low dose and then taper much more slowly. One option she gave me was to restart with a 75 mg Venlafaxine XR capsule and count the beads, taking 10 beads (about 5 mg) to start. The plan would then be to gradually reduce the number of beads: 10 → 8 → 6 → 4 → 3 → 2 → 1 → 0, staying at each dose for 2–4 weeks or longer if needed. She also found a compounding pharmacy that can make liquid Venlafaxine IR, which would allow for even smaller dose reductions, but I am really hesitant to restart Venlafaxine. I worked hard to get off of it, and it wasn’t really helping the anxiety symptoms when I was taking it. I also don’t want to go through withdrawal again after I eventually stop.
Has anyone else been in this situation? Were you still having significant withdrawal symptoms 8–10 weeks after stopping Effexor (Venlafaxine)? Did you decide to reinstate and taper more slowly? If you did, did it help? If you decided not to reinstate, are you still having withdrawal symptoms, and have they started to improve with more time? What did you do that helped?
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been through something similar because I’m really struggling 😞. Thank you
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@cas2001 Thank you 🤗
I went off 225mg of Effexor in Jan 2026 after 20 years. I used a Prozac bridge where I switched gradually to Prozac. It took 3 weeks to switch all the way to Prozac but stayed on Prozac because of the weird physical symptoms from the Effexor. I had 3 days of migraines from 7-11pm from the Effexor? Just a few odd things. After 2 months I easily withdrew from the Prozac because of it's long 1/2 life. I don't understand why this is recommended to everyone. I had no withdrawal symptoms from the Effexor. You do NOT have to suffer.
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2 Reactions@sallyo420 My dr's never mentioned that it could be a hard withdrawal so hasn't offered Prozac or similar. Maybe he's never experienced it in a patient althoug his advice is if you feel bad now you've tapered to 10 daily, you will go back to a higher dose daily! Doesnt seem to accept that it might just be the withdrawing thats the problem? Talk about limbo!
I did the research on the internet and I told my doctor that is what I wanted to do. I didn't ask. It was never offered. Maybe they are afraid of liability because there is no standard protocol? They say they are afraid of Serotonin Syndrome but that never happened with me. When I told my psychiatrist that is what I wanted to do she had definitely heard of it and prescribed the Prozac and gave me a prescription for 37.5 mg of Effexor which worked well for switching to Prozac rather than the 75mg. Any doctor I have talked to about the Prozac bridge has heard of it but I don't know of any that offer it which is outrageous. I did not have any of the horrible withdrawal symptoms I had previously felt when I tried to just withdrawal from the Effexor even in small increments. Research on the internet. I was actually off the Effexor in 3 weeks with no problem and Prozac is very easy to withdrawal from.
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1 Reaction@sallyo420 Hi - thank you. I also was prescribed Prozac to use as a bridge, but I developed rapid heart beats and heightened anxiety. I tried it for 2 weeks and stopped taking it.
You needed to adjust the dose of Prozac. That was probably Serotonin Syndrome. I would have worked with the dosing a little more but that's me.
@sallyo420 I was on 5mg and I couldn’t take the rapid heart rate 😞
Were you equally reducing the Effexor and replacing it slowly with the Prozac? Maybe your system couldn't handle it which is a shame because you have to suffer miserably to get off the Effexor. I told my doctor getting off of Effexor had to be similar to getting off of heroin. Sorry it didn't work for you. I would take away a 37.5 mg and replace it with 20-40mg of Prozac and it worked so well. I would do that for close to a week and take away another 37.5 but still just used 20-40mg. of Prozac. Then wait close to another week drop another 37.5mg. I remember for a few days towards the end I used 60mg of prozac when I dropped the next 37.5mg of Effexor. It worked like a charm for me.
@sallyo420 I did it both ways. Last year, when I decreased down to 75mg of Venlafaxine, I took 10mg of Prozac. After 2 weeks, I decreased the Venlafaxine to 37.5mg and increased the Prozac to 20mg. Eventually I had to decrease the Prozac and stop it. This year, when I tapered down to 6.25mg of Venlafaxine, I started on Prozac again at 5mg. Each time on Prozac, I had heightened anxiety and rapid heart rate.
I am glad it worked for you 🤗
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1 ReactionThat absolutely sucks. I am sorry you had a bad reaction to the Prozac. That maybe why there is no protocol on this method because some people have a bad reaction to it.