Posted by Liz7711 on February 22, 2006, at 13:20:14
In reply to Re: Cold Turkey Effexor-Energy, posted by Liz7711 on February 22, 2006, at 13:17:40
Ignore the comment "just had the last one on Saturday" near the bottom of my comments, I had cut and pasted part of my message from an earlier post!
> Benbetter: You are brave to go cold turkey, and I'm glad it's getting better. But I personally have concerns for people going cold turkey, I am wondering if that is connected to still having problems a year later etc. Maybe it is not connected, but as bad as cold turkey withdrawal feels, I sorta think perhaps our brains suffer more DAMAGE from withdrawing so fast. Since you've been off already 18 days, if you are still having symptoms, I'd suggest taking maybe 10 mgs (open the capsule and count beads) for a couple weeks...then go down slowly from there--just a thought to be kinder to your body and brain.
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> I just recently finished tapering off (about a month ago) after being on 150 for 2 years and I am having NO side effects. I learned the hard way--I went down to 75 for 2 weeks (only I did not have any side effects from that), and then just stopped. I was sick as a dog for a week, dizzy as hell, so I went back on. Since I had been off for a whole week, I decided to go back on at 1/4 of the 75 mg. tab to see if I could handle that. I opened up the capsule and divided it into 4 parts--I think it was about 55 beads, and took them with yogurt, being sure not to chew the beads.
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> I took that amount for about 2 weeks, then would go down about 5 beads per week. When I was down to about 25 beads, I basically went down about 1 bead per day, just had the last one on Saturday.
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> It took me 2 months to taper down that way, but it's worth it--I had no side effects this way, other than some irritability which is to be expected.
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> I believe from what I've read about other's experiences, that if you try to go off too quickly, you will have more side effects, and not only that, but they will persist after you have stopped. As I said earlier, I really think that the power of this drug in our bodies is such that it actually DAMAGES our brains to go cold turkey. That's my belief, so I urge people to go as slow as possible.
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> Good luck, hang in there.
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poster:Liz7711
thread:603175
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20060117/msgs/612077.html