Posted by Petra on January 17, 2005, at 22:02:40
In reply to Re: Effexor Withdrawl - I did it, so can you » Wanda C, posted by dancingstar on January 17, 2005, at 19:58:42
Hello there fellow AD users. I have quit Effexor XR twice in the past 2 years. I feel your pain. When I first tried to quit, I went down from 225 mg to 150 mg and the withdrawal was severe. I had a fever, dizziness, night sweats, headache, nausea, nightmares, ect. Weaning down from 225 to 150 to 75 to 37.5 was not an option for me. The only way I was able to wean off was to open up the capsules and divide the little beads into smaller doses. I used a razor blade to divide the doses into little piles on a piece of computer paper. If you divide a 75 mg dose into four, you get four 18.75 mg doses. Divide it into six and you get 12.5 mg doses. So basically it's just a matter of deciding what dose you want to take each phase of your weaning off. I would go four days on each dose before going down. It took me 5 weeks but it was painless. A much better way to wean off. Now I know that when you break open the capsule, you are destroying the extended release capacity of the pill. It does not matter. It worked for me. Here are the exact doses I took going down every four days(some people may need 7 days of each dose). 225, 187.5, 150, 112.5, 75, 56.25, 37.5, 18.75, 12.5, 7.5. So once the dose is divided you just lick the tip of your finger and press down on the beads and they will stick to your finger. Just stick the dose on your tongue and drink plenty of water to wash all the beads down. I hope those of you that are suffering will try this method. It works. God Bless, Petra
poster:Petra
thread:12459
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050113/msgs/443525.html