Venlafaxine/Effexor withdrawal symptoms

I'd been on 1 x 75mg of Venlafazine/Effexor XR a day for quite a few years. The initial need for taking them, no longer existed, so decided I'd been taking them for far longer than what I should have been, and wanted to have a bash at discontinuing.

From past experience of changing to other medications, I was aware of the 'brain zaps', or 'electric shock' type sensations synonymous with the drug when discontinuing, but I've not quite been able to believe the side effects I've encountered at stopping them totally.

Knew going totally cold turkey wouldn't exactly be the cleverest thing to do, so instead of removing granules gradually from the 75mg capsules, which I've now read a lot of people have had to resort to doing, I found some old 37.5mg tablets, and took those for two weeks, before finally running out, and stopping totally.

I'd started to experience very frightening and vivid dreams, a couple of days after dropping down to the lower dosage, but nothing much else aside from that. After having not taken the lower dosage for one day, the brain zaps started. Ok, not pleasant, but was prepared for those.

Now, a week after having stopped totally, I think I must have experienced vivid dreams, or mild hallucinations during the night, pretty much every night this week. I've had really bad diarrhoea most days, felt extremely cold, and nauseous, and ached all over like I had the flu or something.

Has anyone else had such severe symptoms similar to myself, upon discontinuing Venlafaxine/ Effexor?

[whodunnit]

Hi,

No, stopping suddenlt is not a good idea with FX.

After "quite a few years" on this drug 2 weeks at half dose then nothing is bad news.

You know that already.

What you are experiencing is normal for many I'm afraid. Mostly these sorts of side effects last about 2 weeks but some may hang around for quite some time. You must remember your brain has been trained to rely on that drug for a long time and without it is struggling to perform.

It will be fine, just needs time Try sleeping as much as you can, don't get too warmm or hot as that encourages dreams, and drink lots of water.

Take care in future and always ask the doc what is the way to go. But of course you know that now too don't you?

Good luck and may this period pass quickly.

[effexhell]

Who is right.  I felt the same way when I was going through my withdrawal from effexor, and that was under direct Dr. supervision.  I had been on 37.5 for a few weeks, and my first day off of it was like hitting a brick wall.  with virtually all the symptoms you discribed.  I knew then that i'd be counting granules.  Even then, when i was down to 3-5 grains, I couldn't stop!  I ended up having to swap over to prozac to do the final transition to nothing.  and EVEN THEN it wasn't painless.  7 months later (after my brick wall day).  I started having my first effexor free and symptom free days.  I'm now 100% symptom free, and it's worth it ALL!

One trick i learned (that I read everywhere also) is to use benedryl.  Take some during the day, have a steady stream in your system.  It will help with your symptoms.  Not sure how it works, but it does!

If your interested in alternate methods, it may be worth looking into swapping to a different drug with a longer 1/2 life, like prozac (with a nice loooooong 1/2 life, which translates to hardly any withdrawal), get on that, and then get off of it....which will be easier than effexor.

there are many options, just make sure you have a dr that knows what they are doing, and believes in ssri withdrawl (withdrawal)!

good luck!