[monstermash]

I have tapered off venlafaxine or effexor all the way from 300mg in increments of 37.5mg (sorta... at first I jumped from 300mg to 150mg which i do not ever recommend). This is my second day at 0mg and I feel brain zapping all the time and I just puked twice within the last two hours. Please if anyone knows of some remedies that have worked or know when this will end please let me know.

I think a serotonin med (like an SSRI) will get rid of the brain zaps. I take Cymbalta (similar) and have read a lot about tapering. Lots of the taper info. says to taper by 10% each time you cut the dose, so that would make you go from 37.5 mg to about 33-34 mg. Some people have to go that slowly to make their withdrawal symptoms manageable.

There are some sites online about nutritional supplements to help with the withdrawal symptoms, too, but I have not tried them. 5-HTP might help.

I hope you get rid of the symptoms. I tapered from 120 mg/day Cymbalta to 60 mg/day last year and it took me 5 months. Those SNRIs are tough meds to get off of and Effexor is the worst.

I agree w/ jo thorne on the ssri method. I've stopped effexor twice. The first time was awful but the second time I had a prescription for 10mg prozac and that made it much less unpleasant. Sorry but nobody will be able to tell you how long the zaps and any other issues will last. It is different for each person. Good luck... I know you're feeling very very bad.

[pinkflower17]

Originally Posted by monstermash

I have tapered off venlafaxine or effexor all the way from 300mg in increments of 37.5mg (sorta... at first I jumped from 300mg to 150mg which i do not ever recommend). This is my second day at 0mg and I feel brain zapping all the time and I just puked twice within the last two hours. Please if anyone knows of some remedies that have worked or know when this will end please let me know.

This is kind of random, but you can take a couple doses of a really long acting SSRI to help with the SSRI withdrawal syndrome symptoms. Prozac is a good one for this, it has a ridiculously long half life so it kind of self tapers off.
It took me months to come off of Effexor, not to discourage you. I had to go super slow.
Hope you feel better soon.