Posted by rabble_rouser on July 10, 2005, at 4:42:32
In reply to Effexor taper frustrations, posted by grrrly on July 8, 2005, at 7:08:58
Hi Grrrly,
sorry to hear you are going through the mill at the moment. I have had similar troubles with doctors in the past in England - in the UK our doctors are not quite so flexible in their approach.
As SLS and penname will tell you, what youre experiencing is very typical of effexor withdrawal. The first time I went through it, I experienced extreme dizziness, aggression (nearly knocked my best friend out), 'electric shocks', brain wobbles, headaches (but yet no flu symptoms - odd) etc etc. That was in 2003 and my doctor claimed to know nothing about it then. Its tough to argue with them when you're feeling that way.
Compared to what I have read about, it sounds as though your discontinuation regime is different to that which many others have used. Most people have had success with little steps down, say 15-20mg drops.
I have recently been on it a second time, and whilst my doctor now acknowledges the discontinuation syndrome, he 'recommended against breaking doses apart'and told me to go 1 week - 75mg every day, then one week 75mg every other day, then 3 days etc. I knew this would be harder work (In '03 when I was on 150mg, I missed a dose one day. Wibble. Zap. Grrrr. Not fun), so rightly or wrongly I went out and bought some clear gelcaps (little empty tablet packs like the effexor comes in) and split the doses this time.
I chose to then adjust according to how I was feeling. I was personally lucky because I discovered a range of vitamins and minerals (amino acids) which totally smoothed the withdrawal and side effects for me whilst on Effexor. For this reason I came off quickly, but the beauty of the gelcaps is that you can carry around a little 'emergency dose' in case you start to lose it.
This is what has worked for me (thankfully!) There are many other approaches all over this board - I hope you find something that helps!
rabble
poster:rabble_rouser
thread:524884
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20050611/msgs/525658.html