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How did you cope with Effexor discontinuation symptoms?
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: Jun 10, 2021 | Replies (49)Comment receiving replies
With all due respect, you shouldn't be afraid of all psych meds. Granted, it takes some tweaking to find the ones that work for you. But they are out there. If it had not been for the work I've done in the past 30 years, I would not have found the combination that allows me to live a life today. I've accomplished quite a bit in my life. I held down a job for 40 years, I went to Afghanistan for two years with the DOS, I helped raise an amazing son (he was a captain in the army deployed to Iraq first with a tank platoon and then with a sniper platoon and now he is an FBI agent - perhaps he is the reason I was put on this earth; he has made a significant contribution to society), I started playing the piano when I was six, and I play moderately well - not Carnegie Hall mind you, but enough to satisfy me. Despite the pain, the depression, the anxiety, the family-of-origin PTSD, I've had a life thanks to my meds (and thanks very much to my husband of 46 years who has never turned his back on me). Don't lose hope; find a psychiatrist and psychologist you trust and work with them to find your answer. Keep you head up.
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My story is much like yours. I had a physchiatrist who told me I needed Xanax and Paxil for over 25 years. I suffer from debilitating anxiety and panic. No known reason. I’m 67. Last year when the Xanax “turned on me” the best way I know how to put it, LOL, I expressed my desire to discontinue and begin tapering. To make a long story short my doctor totally abandoned me, refused to take my phone calls, office staff was hanging up on me, etc. etc. I had no prescriptions left and even though I live in a very large city couldn’t find a new doctor willing to take on another doctor’s benzo addict. I wound up in the hospital and was put on all kinds of crazy physch meds when in actuality I was in withdrawal from the abrupt cessation of the Xanax. No physchiatrist at a very well known hospital here would acknowledge or admit I was in withdrawal. Another long story short after leaving the hospital with about 5 different meds making me horribly worse I did find a compassionate, caring doctor who is now helping me out of this mess. This has not been a good year! Thank God I have a loving husband of 48 years and two great sons. Doing pretty darn good now.