The second morning after I started tapering down I had severe anxiety that woke me up in pain. It felt like a large knife was plunged into my chest and came out my back. It was extremely painful. I had several more of those during the day and lot of other anxiety issues and went back to the normal dose that night.

I fear tapering off for that reason and because 30 mg makes me gain weight. I thought cutting my 45mg pill in half would help avoid the weight gain but it was too much of a drop off.

I struggled badly with effexor taper and I thought I was going slow. I was at 150 mg and took 112.5 for a week 75 for the next 37.5 the week after and suffered for almost 2 weeks after, felt like a zombie. I should have gone slower and did the 37.5 every other day for week., then every third day, and so on. I think that would have been easier. I will always have my tinnitus to remind me how awful and worthless that drug was for me.