Posted by collegeguy on April 16, 2004, at 21:37:24
In reply to Re: Effexor withdrawal - Increasing lebido?, posted by TanyaJean on April 16, 2004, at 13:53:18
I was on low dose (37.5 mg) of Effexor XR for just under a month when the side effects became too much for me and I decided to discontinue suddenly despite the fact it was helping my anxiety and depression (Effexor turned me into a practical narcoleptic). For about three days after I stopped the side effects were horrendous --dizziness, sleepiness and a general, very powerful flu-like feeling. I treated myself with OTC medications like Benadryl and meclizine (antihistamines) for the dizziness, and Excedrin geltabs for the headaches and fatigue (excederin has a small amount of caffeine in it).
When I saw my new pdoc (I had decided to switch doctors because my original doctor would not budge in her prescription of either an SSRI (or SNRI) medication plus Wellbutrin (if there were fatigue or sexual side effects) despite these drugs endlessly causing adverse effects in me), he put me on 5 days of Prozac (10 mg once a day). Prozac can be useful in treating withdrawal from other antidepressants like Effexor (which is extremely short acting) because it will temporarily (for the days following withdrawal) keep your serotonin levels high enough to prevent most of the cholinergic rebound that occurs once you stop the med and then taper out of your system very slowly on its own once you cease the short course. How exactly the prozac is used of course is something that needs to be decided by your pdoc based on your effexor dose and length of time on it, but I know for me it almost completely eliminated the withdrawal symptoms (some dizziness lingered for about a week though).
Good luck!
poster:collegeguy
thread:1016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040412/msgs/337048.html