Being Dependent On Meds to function..

When I stopped Effexor the first cut was so horrific that it took me half a year to dare cutting it out totally. And I was on a low dosage. I remember the huge relief every day when I got to take my dosage because I started to get withdrawals about 3 hours before next dosage was due. Every day. I just took it because the withdrawals were bad. It had stopped working after three months.

I'm glad I cut it out, the last cut wasn't as bad for me. There are several methods for quitting Effexor, like taper out real slowly. They even make pills for it. (Of course they say the pills are not for tapering but why else make them in 25 mg that can be split???)

If you are on the extended release you can open capsules and count the granules and decide how many to take. Taking away one every second day might be doable. (Just remember you can't remove from the capsule, you have to count the ones you are taking because there is not the same amount in all of them, just roughly). If you swallow the granules whole without damaging them (easily done with some yogurt), they are OK to take without the capsule, and yea I have asked the manufacturer (of the original Effexor).

You can also taper in another antidepressant as you taper out Effexor. That is probably the most humane way, but then you need a doctor who know what he/she is doing. The choice of that AD should be one that causes the least withdrawals.

You omitted it has to be he same class of med if she is going to slow cross tapper, Cross tapper with an ssri and serotonin syndrome may kill you.

First of all I said you need a good doctor for this. It's not like you are doing stuff like this because someone on the Internet said so.

And you CAN taper with an SSRI. It is done. Some people even take two SSRIs at the same time.

But it is up to the doctor to decide what dosage you need down to before it is safe to add the SSRI.

Like I said. A good doctor knows things like these.

You would have to be be near the end of a wash out, to cross taper ssri to say a snri to be resonably safe. Tapper straight over on a SSRI to another
. say 100mg sertraline to next day 20mg Lexapro no wash out nothing. ENGLISH don't do this, I learned this trick from America. if I change ssri to another they want me to wash out even thought same class. they saycome back in 2 weeks for your new med. ME I carry on using my old med right up to the new one with meds I make sure I have left. THAT WAY I GET NO WITHDDRAWL OR START UP , I make my own mind up if I trusted English doc,s I would be a cabbage

How did you know that you had clinical depression? I just "suspect" that i do...

Told by shrink . They stab in the dark I no I have bipolar but don't want to take Bipolar strong AD s and mood stabilisers . so make do with SSRI,S and 4 mg ativan a day is my mood stabiliser . so he said clinical depression I don't believe him.

Yeah... I guess there's no "test" for it, right??