Taken off effexor cold turkey

[danielleo]

I have been on effexor for the last 4 years with great results i never wanted to go off. but heres the problem. i am 5 weeks pregnant with my second child, and my psych took me off the effexor cold turkey and put me on zoloft. well my depression and anxiety has returned with a vengence, i can't even function to take care of my 4 year old. this is causing great stress to my marriage, my husband wants to take my son to my inlaws until i get better. I went from 150mg of effexor to 100 mg of zoloft. my question is will the zoloft eventually work? i am on week two of no effexor and just zoloft. please help!

[remar]

Did your Dr think Zoloft was safer for the baby and that's why he took you off Effexor cold turkey?
I've taken several antidepressants over the years and for me Effexor was the hardest to quit.
I should know this but I'm not sure. I think Effexor is in a different class of antidepressants than Zoloft. Other members, please help me out with this.
Any antidepressant can take a few weeks to start working so try to give it a little more time.
I hope you feel better soon. Take care. Remar

[Paxiled]

Effexor is very hard to quit for many people; it and Paxil are the hardest.  So you may be suffering withdrawal, in fact you probably are.  Going cold turkey off Effexor is just never done, it's tapered off slowly.  Also, Effexor is an snri, meaning it targets both norepinephrine and serotonin, which why it's so hard to go off of.  Lots of changes in the brain.  Zoloft is an ssri, just targeting serotonin.  So they in no way substitute for one another.  Neither is recommended during pregnancy, but of all these meds Zoloft for some reason is seen to be the least problematic for the fetus.  This obviously should have been done before you got pregnant.  I'm not sure what to do now, but you should have tapered off the Effexor for your best health.  You might want to pose this question to Dr. Gould on the mental health forum and see what he suggests.  Good luck.