Posted by apenname on June 30, 2005, at 9:04:03
In reply to Re: Effexor Withdrawal, posted by tigs on June 30, 2005, at 6:02:10
I'm surprised at your doctor's opinion. When I told mine about my symptoms he said "I guess you are just one of those people that needs to drop the dose slower: take half a dose of 37.5mg."
I don't think I can explain how useless I think cold turkey is when you are fighting withdrawal: an opinion I've formed between trying to think about neurochemistry and medicine interactions scientifically, my own experiences with stopping Effexor XR, and reading other people's experiences. I've been trying over and over to come up with a way to write a post how I think that your being tough is great and wonderful but all you are doing is ... like trying to run up a hill that's being washed out from under you. You can be as tough as you like, but you're still not going to make it all the way up that hill unless you stop and try another method. Maybe that method is exercise, or vitamins, Claritin, or meditation. Maybe it's taking a smaller dose and seeing if it keeps the wave of symptoms away. And what's most important: keep you from falling into that deep dark suicidal pit.
I also want to give you credit for dealing with all the symptoms: it is a tough experience to go through, and way to go coming out of isolation to post!
The Effexor web page FAQ doesn't list depression specifically as a withdrawal side effect, but they list a number of things that I personally would confuse for depression while experiencing them or would cause me to be depressed.
As for fending off depression: Don't forget that there's normal life-is-a-pain depression that everybody out there has to deal with. I agree with rabble_rouser that it's a good idea to work on developing skills to deal with depression.
But I'm not a medical doctor, just a patient who's trying to be educated on what she found herself going through. Good luck!
-apenname
poster:apenname
thread:518620
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20050611/msgs/521458.html