I was prescribed 25 mg, immediate-release Effexor (venlafaxine) in 2001 to control the hot flashes I developed while on Tamoxifen (binds to estrogen) to treat hormone-driven breast cancer. My last dose was 4/14/18. All those years, my medication was in tablet form—at first, it was an uncoated, very small, flat, five-sided, light pink tablet. Then it came as an oval and later, a round—always flat and uncoated; sometimes pink, sometimes yellow. The only difficulty with any of the tablets was that because they were very small (slightly less than a quarter of an inch across), flat and uncoated, they would easily get stuck at the back of the throat (they were quite bitter and tasted horrible). Mind you, I can literally take a whole handful of supplements (various sizes of tablets and capsules) with just one sip of water, but not the Effexor!

All of the 25 mg tablets I took would have been very easy to cut. When I tapered off in 2018, my tablets were round ones that even had a score down the middle. I cut these into halves, quarters and even smaller. I put the pieces into empty gelatin capsules (available at Vit*min Shoppe and online) to be sure I actually got the teeny dose swallowed.

I tapered by decreasing my dosage. I tapered down in a short amount of time about a month. It was way to fast. I got awful side effects both physical and mentally. It was one of the worst experiences in my life. I call it the poison pill.