I have been taking Effexor for about 12 years. I am now down to the lowest dose. I, too, started having bone loss on Effexor and read about the connection. My doctor says there is no connection, but I believe there very much is. I do NOT want to take bone loss medications which can have terrible side effects. I agree that I don’t want to take a medication that creates the need for another medication and on and on. When I wanted to reduce the Effexor dose my doctor said to do the higher dose alternated with the next lower dose for two weeks and, boom, you’ll be on the lower dose. I did NOT find that to be true. I had severe side effects. For me, that just did not work. I, also, was told that the side effects were proof I shouldn’t go off of it. Instead of giving up I created my own plan spending many months to lower the dose and increasing for a day or two if I had side effects. I will stay on the lowest dose for maybe 6 months and very slowly decrease, over months, to get off of it, always increasing back to the next higher dose for a day or two to stabilize before slowly decreasing again. I might take the lower dose once a week in the beginning. I use a two week daily pill container to monitor it. I have a Rx for the higher dose and one for the next lower dose. Effexor is notorious for being difficult to get off of. I listen to my body and don’t allow side effects to get hold of me and haven’t had a problem by always increasing for a few days if i feel the slightest side effect. Go slow and easy. There is no deadline to accomplish this. It has been a very long process, but worth it. All in all it will be well over a year to get off, maybe even two. During that time i had a high stress event in my life and went to the next higher dose again daily. Now the event has eased and i slowly reduced back to the lowest dose. I also started doing minor weight bearing exercises for the bone loss.