Posted by baddog55 on December 31, 2003, at 19:11:37
In reply to Re: Effexor withdrawal - my approach, posted by John2222 on November 26, 2003, at 17:56:44
I have been reading this board for about three days, and thank God for you all. I have been on Effexor 75 mg XR for only 4 months, but I needed to get off because of memory loss. My Dr gave me two starter packs and told me to take one 37.5 each day for 7 days and then one every other day and I would be all done! HA! The withdrawals are awful. The brain shivers are the worst, along with chest pain bad enough to make me go get an EKG yesterday. It came out fine, but when I told my dr. that I thought it was because of Eff withdrawal, she didn't believe me either. Maybe it was indigestion, maybe I was getting a cold, etc... So I Guess I'm on my own, (with all your help) Anyway, I'm posting because I'm really interested in tapering more slowly than she says, and I have gotten some good tips here. I'm not a stupid person, but I really need your help! I took a 75 mg cap today, pulled it apart, divided the grains into 3 piles, and cannot for the life of me figure out how to get them back into the capsule without them going everywhere! There has got to be a trick to this, but not being a jr. pharmacist, I must be missing someting. Help?
> I was taking Effexor XR 112.5 each day for about a year. My approach to reducing with minimized agony was SLOW.
>
> 1. Reduce no more than 37.5 each time and stay at any new level for 2 weeks.
> 2. Or alternate 112.5 and 75 every other day for a week or two and then go to 75.
> 3. Then stay at 75 for a week or two.
> 4. Then reduce to 37.5 for two weeks (again alternating 75 and 37.5 if necessary)
> 5. Then go to heal food store and buy a bag of empty gel caps (they are cheap).
> 6. Put one half of the 37.5 in one gel cap and one half in the other.
> 7. Then reduce to 18.75 (approx) for two weeks.
> 8. Then alternate 18.75 one day and nothing the next day for two weeks.
> 9. Then either stop or alternate one day on and two days off for awhile.
>
> Seems like a long process, but the staggering really helped me.
>
> The reason I stopped taking Effexor was that I felt much better and the higher levels of Effexor just made me want to sleep/nap all the time, although I must say it really really helped with anxiety and depression together.
>
> Good luck. I personally think it is/was a good drug for me, but it is definately hard to tape off without discomfort.
>
> John
>
poster:baddog55
thread:1016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031231/msgs/295235.html