The Forums › Forums › Medication › Antidepressants › The "fun" of Effexor withdrawal › Re: The “fun” of Effexor withdrawal
I’ve always had really weird dreams. They’re responsible for some of the really weird sketches I’ve written, and really wild costumes I’ve designed. Over the past week or so, as I taper off the Effexor, they’ve gotten weirder, but nothing I’d really call nightmares. My brother once told me that some expert had said, “People can’t read in their dreams.” That’s funny, because I’m always reading books and letters and signage in my dreams. I wonder if this is a case of an expert being wrong, or just more proof that I’m a freak of nature.
My psych and I decided it would be best if I were totally off the Effexor before starting anything else. In this case, that “anything else” is Ritalin, which is, I gather, the standard first drug you try in cases of ADHD.
After reading all the horror stories, and discovering that around 79% of patients experience long and severe withdrawal symptoms when they try to get off Effexor (contrary to the 7% or so that Wyeth-Ayerst was claiming until the FDA ordered it to ‘fess up), I find it rather hilarious is that my psych’s plan for getting me off the Effexor was 10 days at 37.5 (that’s half of my regular dose), a few days at zero, then on to the Ritalin. Especially when so many people report that the withdrawal symptoms continue for months after they’ve been off the drug.
Another funny thing: of the four women who were on duty last night, THREE of us have taken Effexor. So the other two (who are now off Effexor) were able to not only empathize with the brain zaps, wobbliness, and headache I had last night, but were able to tell me what else to expect, and what methods worked best to help them get off the stuff. One just tapered off over a long time. The other used the Prozac method, which she said pretty much eliminated all of the withdrawal symptoms. I must look into this further.
As for me, this morning, I’m feeling a little better. Maybe my nightly dose of Seroquel helped a bit, or maybe I’m getting used to the lower dose I’d created by dumping out half the beads from my last 37.5mg. I still have about a month’s worth of the 75mgs, so I can dump most of the beads out of them, and extend the tapering-off process for myself.
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