[ofthevalley]

My pnp wants me to decrease Effexor from 300 to 150 and add Zoloft 50. Should I expect to feel pretty bad with that sudden decrease? I'm a bit worried.
Zoloft is also the drug that made me manic but she says that won't happen with the mood stabilizers I'm on. Fingers crossed.

[LucyG]

I went off 150 mg of Effexor 12 years ago. I wasn't so worried that I would die, I was more concerned that I wouldn't as the withdrawals were soooooooooooo horrible. I was so dizzy I couldn't hold my head up, freezing cold in 90 weather so I was bundled up in as many clothes as I could get on. My eyes were so sensitive to light that I had to go buy some clip on sunglasses to put on my regular glasses to wear in the house. I had a lot of electric zaps in my back that was like sticking my finger in a light socket.

Unfortunately this is par for the course for about 85% of people who go off Effexor from my research at the time. My doctor told me that the literature says ADs aren't addictive and don't have withdrawals and it had to be something else. My Pdoc was out on a family emergency so I was stuck trying whatever I could to help myself.

What I would recommend to you is the book Breaking Your Prescribed Addiction by Billie Sahley that will tell you how to come off meds without being deathly ill like I was. A lot of what she uses are amino acids and other nutrients to give your brain what it needs to function. I've read her book but it was after I was off the meds so I can't speak to how well it works.

Good luck!!

[MobiusPsyche]

I decreased at that rate and it was uncomfortable for a week or two but then it got better. Good luck!

[Yours_Truly]

I would suggest asking your pnp to decrease the Effexor in the smallest increments & over the longest length of time possible, in other words, slowly titrate. The one time I ran out of Effexor cold-turkey (completely my fault) for an entire weekend it was nausea from hell. Believe me you don't want to go through that ever. No saps or anything though & I quickly recovered once I was back on the Effexor. Good luck discussing this with your pnp.

[-jimi-]

Adding Zoloft might take care of some of the withdrawals. Still the cutting in half makes little sense, why not taper more slowly? I know docs must suck at maths because they can only think in cut in half.

[splitimage]

The smallest capsule available of effexor is 37.5 mg. I'd recommend very gradually reducing by that increment. That's what my addictions Dr. does when she's taper people off it.

I've heard really unpleasant things about coming off Effexor, so my advice would be to go really slow.

splitimage

[Unrigged64072835]

I would try to go slowly. My old pdoc took me off of it within a week and I had withdrawals for about a month.

[qwerty68]

Like others have said taper down 37.5mg at a time. Yes, the withdrawals can be horrible.

I didn't know about it when I tapered completely off effexor, but magnesium really helped when I tapered down on Gabapentin. It seemed to have helped when I got off Geodon recently.

[ofthevalley]

I ended up doing the cut and I feel okay. Had a couple of miserable headaches but aside from that I've been okay. I won't do that fast of a taper again. I was just worried about adding the Zoloft and still being on a high dose of Effexor. My Ono made it sound like a big deal.
Thank you for all of your replies, I truly appreciate the help.

[ofthevalley]

Still getting bad headaches but otherwise I'm feeling okay.