Posted by grrrly on July 8, 2005, at 7:08:58
I have been tapering off Effexor for a week now using a regime given to me by my doctor. I had concerns that it would be too fast a reduction, as I have experienced severe discontinuation symptoms in the past from accidentally missing a dose, but the doctor assured me I would hardly notice.
I was on 150mg Effexor XR per day, and the doctor immediately cut that to 37.5mg Effexor morning and night. Found I couldn't walk properly, was shaky, dizzy and felt generally unwell but no unpleasant electrical sensations or depressive symptoms. Also had to call in sick to work as I was definitely not functioning well.
After 3 days this was cut to 37.5mg in the morning only, which severely increased the severity of my discontinuation symptoms, I would fall over when trying to stand up, become teary-eyed, irritable and angry for no reason. Still not able to go to work.
Yesterday the regime called for me to skip a dose, which I did not cope with well at all. I started experiencing the distressing electrical sensations in my head, I couldn't stop crying and I vomited several times.
So back to the doctor this morning, who takes one look at me and sends me to the local hospital. I spent 5 hours there with them doing all sorts of tests to see what is wrong with me, finding nothing medically wrong of course. The doctor there insists that my symptoms cannot be due to Effexor withdrawal, as it will only cause mild flu-like symptoms!!! He was insistent that the tapering regime my doctor put me on is appropriate. He then started to imply that perhaps what I am experiencing is all in my head, and questioned me about possible stresses in my life that might be making me feel like this, and suggested that I contact the community mental health team for psychiatric assistance if I continue to experience problems. With regard to the Effexor withdrawal, his only suggestion was that I go back to taking the 150mg per day and see if I feel better! As I need to get off Effexor due to the side effects, this is hardly the advice I was seeking.
So I am left still sick and unable to go to work, with no appropriate tapering routine (still taking 37.5mg once per day) and the feeling that the medical professionals I am seeing have no idea of how severe Effexor discontinuation can be. I live in regional Australia so can understand that the doctors here may not have a lot of experience in dealing with SSRI withdrawal. I cannot get back to see my own doctor for several days, and would really appreciate any tips for coping in the meantime, and also any advice people have for communicating with my doctor when I do go back to him?
poster:grrrly
thread:524884
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20050611/msgs/524884.html