Tips on minimizing withdrawal symptoms from Effexor (aka Venlafaxine)

@sears have you considered asking specifically if a hospital has anyone who specializes in tapering off Effexor with successful outcomes? I wonder if that may help get you closer to a provider that would align better with your needs?

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Sadly he does not understand and only reads or hears the wonderful comments about the drug. Have the medical professionals ever used this drug? There should be more
monitoring done and information given about this medication. Little negative information is available.

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I've been on Effexor ER for many years, I was at 150mg and tapered down to 1/4 of a 50mg so 12.5mg. When I try to stop the 12.5mg I get dizziness and I have a very hard time falling asleep when I do I have weird dreams and keep waking up, when I do fall asleep it happens over and over. The ween has been over 6 months and this time stopping completely has been 3 doses off of it. Should I just stick it out? How long will it take? Is there anything I can do to get some decent sleep?
Thank you in advance,
John

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John, I feel your pain. I would say to stick it out but can give you NO intelligent guess as to how long it will take.
The sleep thing can be even worse than brain zaps as far as side-effects go. It keeps the brain/ body from resting. You wake up feeling crazy and exhausted. I did anyway. I was so done for the day and it had literally just begun. Talk about feeling hopeless.
You are not alone.

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So, I just finished this process with Zoloft (sertraline) and here are some things that worked for me. Your mileage may vary, but hopefully these are low risk for you to try.

1) You may need to ask your doctor for a slower tapering program than other patients. Some people are just more sensitive to dosage changes. Be aware that symptoms will get better, then may reappear each time you taper. AAFMA (practice group of family physicians) says that the symptoms typically last 1-2 weeks and as long as 4 weeks, so I just kept reminding myself that it was temporary.
2) Be watchful for things that make your symptoms worse. For example, caffeine seems to trigger the brain zaps for me (still, even after being off for several weeks), so I cut back my caffeine intake. I didn't give it up completely (because I still need to function), but cut back on how much real coffee I was drinking, mixed decaf with regular, and switched to tea sometimes. In the end, I probably cut my daily caffeine intake in half, and it did help quite a lot.
3) Ibuprofen or other pain reliever can help with the flu-like body aches.
4) Benadryl helped with the brain zaps.
5) Exercise helped with both. Even if I wasn't up to a run, a few blocks of walking would settle down the symptoms for a while at least. (Then, when they come back, just take another walk. We took a lot of walks for a while there).
6) Get enough sleep. As I came down off the meds, my normal sleeping patterns returned, which was great, but it did mean that I needed to plan time to let my body rest.
7) Pay attention to your diet. Your brain uses carbs to make seratonin, so now is not the time to go on the Atkins diet. Eat well and make sure you're getting enough healthy carbs. You may crave sweets; I certainly did. I tried to counteract this by having bananas, graham crackers, and other healthy things I could snack on instead of sticking my head in a birthday cake like I seemed to want.

No lie - it's a painful process, but this did really help make it easier. Also, at a certain point, when I was down the below the normal starter dose, I just ripped off the bandaid and went to zero. At that point, it felt like each taper was just prolonging the suffering. Don't just go cold turkey from your current dose, though, as that can be dangerous. Also, don't add any supplements or substitutes for the SSRI without talking to your doctor first (also dangerous).

And of course, watch for the return of depression / anxiety type symptoms. For a while it was hard to tell whether I was tired because of the change in meds or because my depression was returning. I figured as long as I felt okay enough to function and wasn't thinking about being harmful to myself or anyone else, I could play it out and see. It turned out to be the meds and on the other side, I can see that I was more worried about it than I needed to be.

I wish you the best of luck and a healthy life.

Mardee

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Thank you. I "accidentally" have to end it. I can't make contact with my doctor, to refill the prescription. My bad. Tom

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@bev098890
If it were me I wouldn't stop that quickly regardless of what a doctor suggests. Although you have been on it a short time. I definitely wouldn't skip days on this medicine.
Good luck,
Jake

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