Posted by DebraA. on September 13, 2002, at 15:28:25
In reply to Re: Withdrawal From Effexor, posted by jannbeau on September 12, 2002, at 10:51:37
Hi There. I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know that after several weeks of "tapering" down off my 375 mg dose of effexor, I finally went cold turkey 14 days ago. It was holy hell the first 5 days - brain tremors, anxiety, nausea, diarrhea, extreme fatigue, etc. I thought I was dying. But I had decided to wait it out because I felt very strongly that anything that felt this bad to get off of had to be something I NEVER wanted in my system again. After the first two days of withdrawal I decided that I needed to put all my normal activities on hold until I got through this. So, for the next 3 days, I canceled all my appointments and practically stayed in bed the whole time - trying to sleep and rest. I drank tons of water, tried to eat right, and didn't drink any alcohol (alcohol seemed to exaggerate the already bad symptoms for me). The ordeal reminded me of when I had a major depressive episode. On about the 5th or 6th day, I started having "waves" of feeling better which as the days have gone by have been progressively increasing. On day 14 I am still dealing with some extra anxiety, and I've still got some of those brain tremor things (although much more mild than at first - they also seem to be more present in the evening that during the day).
I'm not sure I would recommend the "cold turkey" route for everyone. For me though, I could hardly take the "slow death" of tapering off versus the "sudden death" of just quitting altogether. I just wanted to get it over with. I can say with great confidence that you will get through this and it will pass. I can also say that I understand that feeling of "this is never going to end" too. I think my first post to this website simply asked the question "will this ever end?" It will so hang in there!
Sorry I wrote so much. Good luck to you.
poster:DebraA.
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020906/msgs/119756.html