Can a former medication I was taking be to blame?

I am sorry you are having such a bad time. I took 450mg of venlafaxine daily for fifteen years. After very exhaustive research, I am only partially kidding when I say: you can blame venlafaxine for just about anything.

Venlafaxine has so many side effects, possible side effects and negative interactions with other drugs I do not know how (other than money) it was ever approved for use in mammals let alone humans.

Who ever thought it was a good idea to give those suffering from depression a drug that has a Black Box warning that states; “may cause suicidal thoughts or actions” must have received a great deal of funding from some pharmaceutical company.

Why not give people with lung cancer a pack of cigarettes. Okay, that’s a bit much, but just a bit.

Does it work for some people? Sure, but so do magic mushrooms and a host of other drugs and placebos.

I just completed a four month taper of venlafaxine by taking my last 37.5 mg yesterday. I feel like all my Christmas have come at once.

Now I just have to try to deal with the damage it has caused to my body.

Venlafaxine is a very powerfully drug that affects the entire body in different ways for each individual. In my opinion it should only be used in emergencies and for short periods of time while other interventions are given time to work.

If you have access to the internet I encourage you to Google the drug, its side effects and interactions with any other medications you take.

I classify my finds into three categories: does cause, may cause and is unlikely to cause. Then add in your other meds and the does cause, might cause when combined features and one can quickly come to the conclusion that if one runs out of gas on the way to the store the drug caused it, okay again a bit over the top.

My point is no one, I repeat no one, fully understands mental illness let alone the drugs we have been given. Why lithium works ( yeah the salt in batteries) the oldest and one of the most often prescribed drugs for mental illness is still a mystery.

I wont make everyone read my whole story again you can click on my post and review them if you would like to. In short I have come off of eleven of the fourteen drugs I was taking in June, to just three now. One psych med and two side effect meds are all that are left, those will be gone before the end of the year.

There is nothing special about me. I am pathetically average. I was simply desperate so I tried a different approach.

I my opinion psyche meds can save lives in an emergency and destroy lives over the longer term. I predict an avalanche of lawsuits coming over the next decade or so as the long term effects of these drugs become more widely understood.

So that was a bit of a rant!

Short answer, yeah the drug could be the problem. Do a little research the information is everywhere, you’ll be horrified. I was.

Question everything you put in your system.

I hope you find the peace you deserve.

Would you share your taper regimen and if you experienced any withdrawal? I've tried to come off and the withdrawal is simply intolerable.

I am happy to share my process. A couple of caveats:

I have come off of seven psych meds concurrently. Venlafaxine in my opinion being the worst, followed by Lithium.

My taper was very aggressive.

I enlisted the help of my psych provider, PCP an therapist.

I did a lot of research and built a specific plan to discontinue all my meds by the end of this year. I am ahead of schedule.

I radically changed my diet: no refined sugar, no ultra processed food, more protein and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

I started exercising, both light strength training and cardiovascular exercise. In the beginning I could only do fifteen minutes of each everyday. I now exercise two hours a day everyday. Probably more than needed, but it makes me feel good.

My goal for the venlafaxine was to reduce by 75mg every two weeks. Initially that was easy. I did not experience any difficulties until I got down to 225mg. I then started to experience body aches, diarrhea, sleep disturbances and high blood pressure. My PCP put me on a blood pressure med temporarily. I will stop the BP med in a week or two.

I dealt with the other discontinuation effects by pausing the taper until they went away, usually about a week. After two weeks at 75mg I dropped to 37.5 for two weeks and done.

A couple of things of note:

I was desperate. I was going to get off these meds or blow my head off. My life was not worth living.

I did my homework. That allowed me to recruit the help of my doctors. I could not have gotten my life back without their initially skeptical, but nonetheless committed help.

I had to advocate for myself. I have been a pain in the ass for my doctors. It’s my life. I will no longer suffer needlessly.

None of this would have been possible had I not changed my diet and committed to moving my body.

I currently take low doses of Latuda (prescribed as a precaution as I discontinued lithium) and bupropion. Both currently below therapeutic levels will be gone by mid December.

Most importantly:

THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT ME! I AM A PATHETICALLY AVERAGE WHITE SIXTY YEAR OLD GUY.

Bonus: I’ve lost twenty five pounds and my body fat has dropped from plus thirty percent to twenty percent and I am always stuffed, veggies will do that.

Now my docs have a problem; either I am cured (something the current science does not allow for) or I should have never been on all this poison to begin with.

I was very lucky that my current docs just happened to be new and we’re not responsible for putting me on any of the meds. They might not have been so cooperative otherwise.

I keep in mind a line from the Shawshank Redemption; it was time to “get busy living or get busy dying”

I hope you find the peace you deserve.

Oh, I forgot to add I feel mentally and physically the best I have in my entire life! Perhaps that’s just in contrast to how bad I have felt for the last fifteen years.

@dfb Thank you for sharing as openly as you have, in different discussion threads. I am very sure there are others who agree with me. It's too bad it took such dramatic and drastic events for you to step up and "own" what is going on. But you have given so many of us hope, and an education that all is not hopeless.
Ginger

Thank you for your kind words. They mean a great deal to me!