Posted by bleauberry on September 20, 2008, at 18:10:27
In reply to paxil to effexor switch, posted by colleendias on September 12, 2008, at 18:30:52
Sounds crazy to me. Effexor and paxil are both the worst ADs to withdraw from. You would be just switching one of the worst for the another of the worst. And besides, since you mentioned halflife, the halflives of effexor extended release and paxil are about the same. So I don't know what the doc meant by a longer halflife. Maybe a few hours or something insignificant at best.
A rather popular method I am surprised he didn't mention is prozac, with a halflife of nearly a week, and not totally gone until 5 weeks. It allows a more gentle gradual withdrawal. Substituting prozac in place of effexor is a common strategy to get off effexor.
With prozac you just need to be cautious of not taking too much of it or too much of paxil at the same time. Examples of likely safe combos for withdrawal...15mg paxil + 2.5mg prozac; 10mg paxil + 5mg prozac; 5mg paxil + 10mg prozac; 2.5mg paxil 10mg prozac. Or even just switch straight across to 10mg-20mg. As you probably already know, you can cut paxil tabs to custom sizes with a knife, razor blade, or pill splitter. I believe you can also get it in liquid form for even easier custom dosing. For prozac, dump the contents of a capsule into a glass of orange juice, stir well, and drink a custom size dose. For example, 1/4 of a glass of OJ with 10mg prozac in it would be 2.5mg. With a glass with some kind of measuring printed or self-drawn on the outside, you can even get it as accurate as 1mg. The leftover stays good in the fridge for at least a week. Just stir it real good each time since prozac will not dissolve.
I don't know, if you are to switch to effexor, I don't see any possible way that is going to be easier, and could likely even be harder. I mean, everyone has testimonies of how bad paxil is to get off, but those testimonies are even worse for effexor.
poster:bleauberry
thread:851699
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20080220/msgs/853153.html