Coming off of Effexor..

[Paulina7770]

Has anyone?  I've been trying for over 50 days now...got to 37.5...stopped that dose and had debilitating withdrawals for 2 solid weeks.  I finally started the 37.5 again and don't know what to do.  I'm addicted to this medicine, but am currently suffering severe withdrawal symptoms!  My doctor doesn't know what to do.  I'm tired of this.  I found a book called "The Antidepressant Solution" written by a doctor, but I'm waiting for it to come in the mail.  I'm praying this is my answer.  I don't know how much longer I can hold on:(....I really feel like suing the drug company AND my doctor for putting me through this for 8 years.  I now know I've been taking the Effexor for the last 8 years to actually counter-act the withdrawals not keep my original anxiety at bay!!!  Anyone???

[Paxiled]

Imipramine won't help with effexor withdrawal, will just add the side effects of imipramine.  You should wait until you've finished withdrawing from the effexor before you go back on the imipramine.  The problem is, they have different mechanisms of operation, that's why a different class of drug won't help with your withdrawal.  That's also in the book.

[Paulina7770]

Thank you so much for the feedback.  I do have physical and mental withdrawal symptoms.  I am going to call the doc today to see if he can put me on my old medication (imipramine; had zero trouble with it) to come off of Effexor.  I hope this will help me.  Thanks again.

[Paxiled]

Withdrawal symptoms are both mental and physical.  Just depends on the person, and the drug.  Effexor is a tough one.  The book will tell you to taper as slowly as you need to, but it's not necessarily true the drug has just been preventing withdrawal.  Unless you cured your anxiety through therapy or some other way, drugs don't cure anything, they just treat the symptoms.  That's usually the best we can do, since therapy doesn't have a great record of curing anything either.  But when it does, it does; drugs don't.  You may go through withdrawal to discover you still have the anxiety problem, or at some point in the future it comes back.  That's just how it sometimes is.  

I had a terrible Paxil withdrawal, and never recovered from it, so I'm back on meds again.  They aren't working, but there you go.  Some people go through withdrawal and get problems they never had before, such as depressed people ending up with anxiety attacks and vice versa.  But they're not technically addictive, so the drug companies don't have to advertise them that way, and most people do get off them without tremendous difficulty.  Not comforting when you're one of the many who don't.

I'd say the most important thing is to stay positive, don't let your anger overpower you.  Save that for later.  For now, go as slowly as it takes, but know that it will be hard but at some point, if you don't rush it or have a doctor who denies it like I did, you will come through the other side.  

[juliesculpt]

I was on effexor 75 mg for about 4 years.  It worked fairly well, but I still had to keep xanax on hand for breakthrough anxiety, and it wrecked my blood pressure, so I decided to cut it out.  I did a very slow taper, by just removing some of the grains in the capsules every 3 weeks or so, depending on how I felt.  I would feel a little bit weird each time I stepped down, but this decreased as the dosage got lower. the beginning cuts were the toughest ....but I would wait until I felt stable on a reduced dose before reducing again ..and so on until I was down to just a few granules then quit...all in all I think it took me around 6 months, maybe even longer, but it really wasn't bad. I was also taking a supplement regimen called neuro replete and cys replete....they are nuerotransmittter supplements which help a lot, but are quite expensive and not easy to find. If you access to any naturopaths or alternative med docs they may know more, that is how I got them.  I hope this helps!

[Joyous22]

Are your withdrawal symptoms physical or mental? I've certainly experienced dizziness and diarrhea. But with the mental stuff, it's hard to know if your original depression/anxiety is coming back or if the Effexor withdrawal is causing it. Can't they put you on another SSRI while you are at the 37.5 dose for a few weeks and then take you off the Effexor?