Posted by lethe on August 1, 2003, at 4:53:05
In reply to Anyone had success on Effexor XR? , posted by jp on October 24, 1999, at 14:59:14
Am coming off effexor xr after a year and a half, and it is so much more a comfort to read here that others are experience similar withdrawls to me. I was terrified at my first symptoms, those brain shock sensations are the absolute worst, and I think because I was mainly usning effexor xr to control my panic disorder the symptoms brought back in force the constant thought, especially at night, that I wasn't going to make it through this. One thing that helped for a little while was my own kind of tapering, instead of taking decreased dosages, I lengthened the duration of my dosage, I started to take my pills every 36 hours instead of 24. This seems to help a lot. Before I tried to get off effexor xr by just doing the cold turkey thing (mainly because I didn't have the funds to keep going!) but after the longer time between my dosage, (I stretched my last weeks dose over 2 weeks) I didn't actually start to feel withdrawl for a few days after I had my last pill.
However, I wish I had stretched them even further, as now I am facing the full brunt of withdrawl, and it is still pretty damn scary.
Did anyone else use effexor xr for panic disorder and found the panic attacks worse after coming off it? When I do get sleep I have the most vivid violent nightmares, and I am so tense when I wake up all my back muscles are cramped up. (but this maybe because I am sleeping on the floor! Korean style:) )
The main reason I want to stay off effexor xr is I am scared of long term effects and I don't trust my doctor here much-I am currently wokring in Korea and he doesn't speak too much English-he actually gave me pancreatic cancer treatment pills to combat the nausea!
Anyway, I am still here, and I am still surviving the withdrawl. I hope I can hang in!
poster:lethe
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030728/msgs/247270.html