I’m having terrible brain zaps coming off of Effexor

My doc prescribed 10 mg Prozac to mitigate side effects when I was weaning off Effexor, which did help tremendously. I would not hesitate to try the Cymbalta while weaning. I was on 150 mg of Effexor and successfully weaned to 75 mg. After that, I ended up not completing the withdrawal because there was too many life events going on for me and I was not in the right mindset to continue. I plan to start again in the beginning of the year when life slows down a little bit and take it much more slowly. I can totally relate to what you are experiencing and I will pray for you and everyone that is in this situation. It is horrible.

Dear Valkyrie: I'm so sorry you have such terrible brain zaps. I had them when I was coming off Lexapro a few years ago. This may sound stupid and useless to you, but when the zaps happened to me I dove into them and tried mentally to become part of them and considered them part of my mental life and examined them with curiosity and tried to learn and understand from them. Something like this might help you (or not!).
Regarding Effexor and Cymbalta, I was on each of them (seperately) for about a month or two each. I don't recall which caused which symptoms, but one of them caused me to have to urinate about once every 15-30 minutes, and the other only allowed me to urinate 2 or 3 times a day! I stopped both of them, of course. They didn't help my depression and anxiety symptoms either.
Sorry, I haven't tried cannabis to help with these symptoms/side effects, but it is probably worth trying on a test basis. I am considering cannabis in the future, but in the state I am in it is not quite legal yet. You never know what will help you until you try it. Believe it or not, the best anti-depressant my doctor and I have found for me is RITALIN (!) which we usually think of being used for calming younger people. I have treatment resistant depression and extreme anxiety and we had tried almost everything else, so my Doctor said "Why not give Ritalin a try?" and it worked!
I know how bad the brain zaps can be, and I hope you can find something to help with tolerating them and that you find a substitute for Effexor and Cymbalta. I wish you all the best.
Best regards,
Warren
P.S. A side note: In my experience with getting off of various anti-depressants, despite what my doctors (whom I respect and love dearly) have said, I have always found that withdrawal effects were the same in terms of intensity and duration whether I tapered off or whether I went "cold turkey". So now I always go cold turkey. I know what everyone is different, so I am not recommending this, just passing it along as information.

I am sorry to read that you are suffering the horrible effects of trying to leave Effexor behind. I have been through it myself and it can be horrible. I have been on 450mg of Effexor/Venlafaxine (along with a lot of other psyche meds) for 25 years. At this point Venlafaxine is part of my DNA.

My doctors have approved my request to titrate off of Effexor we began two weeks ago by dropping by only 37.5mg (the smallest they make) so far so good. The last time I tried it myself I went to fast and very bad things happened. Then again I tried to ease the pain with alchol and marijuana, so there's that.

Before we started on Effexor I changed my diet, started exercising and titrated off of Seroquel and Lorazapam/Ativan. I also read a book “Brain Chemistry” by a doctor Palmer of McClain and Harvard (I recommend the book to everyone) Mayo Clinic could probably help just as much.

Each of these changes made the next one possible. I've also been able to stop some of the drugs prescribed to treat the side effects of the drugs I was on. Seems like for every psych med I drop I get rid of two other drugs that treat the side effects.

We also found that many of the drugs I have been on suppress testosterone(T) leading to a host of problems. When tested I was low on T on all test, one critically low. Together we decide to boast my T while decreasing my meds. The idea is to hopefully limit my suffering while I try to detox my body. Right now I feel the best I have in decades.

Of all the drugs I've taken Cymbalta is not one of them so I can not comment.

I wish an easy journey. They say the brain zapas go away, I hope that's true the last time was a nightmare.

I just want to tell you how touched I am by the time you lovely people took to respond to my post. Yesterday was one of the worst days of my whole life. I don’t need to describe that misery here, because you understand it. To me that is everything. Thank you my fellow soldiers in this battle. I started Cymbalta last night and so far the brain zaps have completely disappeared. It is a blessing and an answered prayer. Thank you so much for your support, your thoughts, and your advice. It makes me believe this world is a far better place than most people imagine.

I have used the tapering suggestion that was offered by another member, and it has worked well for me. I am currently on 37.5mg, and have been at this dose for quite some time. Over the past few days I tried emptying some of the medication out of the capsule and adding it to my coffee in the morning. I tried this over the course of a few days, and noticed that I was feeling much more tearful than usual. Granted, I have recently undergone a horrible and traumatic experience, and this may be a contributing factor, but the depth of my sorrow was so great that I surprised myself. Is this a common reaction? I will certainly ask my neurologist about this on Wednesday, but wondered if anyone has had a similar response. As a side bar, since tapering off of this drug, I am sleeping better and having less headaches, which is a very good thing. Thank you very much for all of your help.

Hi, about three weeks ago I lowered my dose from 75 to 37.5. I lasted about five days before having to up again to 75 and eventually to 150 (I got to a really bad place). But yes, for the time that I was on 37.5 I was very tearful. I cried like 5 times a day and every time I talked to my parents or my husband. I'm not usually a crier but I couldn't stop. So sure, it must be the lowering dose.

@ave13
I've been on Effexor 150XR for 15+ years and tried 2 times to cut to 75XR. Cannot be be done. If I want to reduce I've got to go to non XR and then then slowly begin to reduce beads. I feel for you as I know the horrible effects of withdrawal. Nightmares, felt like I was in another world. Keep trying as you are young with a life ahead of you.

Unfortunately, all research on stopping antidepressants is relatively recent. Here's a 2019 article that explains why reducing the medication must be done very gradually and over a long period of time--thanks to a doctor who was also a patient and was shocked to discover withdrawal could be as bad as it is: https://www.madinamerica.com/2019/03/peer-support-groups-right-official-guidelines-wrong-dr-mark-horowitz-tapering-off-antidepressants/
The article includes a link to a support group that the doctor found helpful.

in reply to @njoys Thank you very much for this valuable information. Yes about the withdrawal. In fact, my PCP initially wanted me to drop from 150mg to 75mg, which I did try without success, naturally.

in reply to @ave13 Thank you! I failed to mention the nightmares because I thought they were unrelated, but now that you have shared this information, everything is making sense in terms of the tapering. Young? Well, I suppose at 62 I am young, but I do have a very old soul.
Thanks again