Medication Withdrawals

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For the past few months, i've been on a medication called Effexor. It has done a world of good, giving me happiness in a placebo type of way. Anyways, my pharmacy was out of Effexor last time I went and I was only able to get five of them. I was supposed to go back for the rest, but I can't get them until tomorrow, leaving me without for two days already. Yesterday, I started feeling familiar withdrawal feelings, dizziness accompanied with what I can only describe as "brain shivers". Today, they've become much more pronounced, to the point where I slept for sixteen hours and missed work, waking up only to feel sick. I feel extreme depression coming on, much moreso than i've felt all year. I'm just starting to realize the grasp this terrible drug has on me, it enslaves me! Is anyone else on similar medications which cause this type of reaction? How do you deal with it?

I was on Effexor for 2 1/2 years, been off it for 4 1/2, and I'm about to go back on it. The withdrawal is a bit problematic. It's not so bad if you do a slow drawdown over the course of a month or two, but it did give me muscle twitches and make me irritable for about 6 months. These meds can be dangerous to stop cold turkey like that, and now you see why.

Yes! Same drug too. I was on Effexor for a couple years. It didn't really do any good for me. They kept raising the dosage and it still never really made me feel noticeably better. I got the same dizziness when I'd forget to take them for even a day. The second day would be really bad...and I can't even imagine going 3 days. The "brain shivers", as you call them, seemed to happen when I turned my head, or even just my eyes. I also felt like I'd get a little bit of this withdrawal every day at a certain time...like it was wearing off...but my doctors said it couldn't wear off. Of course, they also told me that you don't get withdrawal from it.

Since it wasn't doing me any good, I decided to get off it. It SUCKED. My doctor gave me prescriptions for 1/2 of what I was taking, then 1/4, then I took half a pill (1/8), ....but every time I actually tried to really stop, I'd get the dizziness back. I ended up breaking open the pills and just taking some of the little beads whenever I started getting dizzy. STILL, even after being down to that small amount, it sucked when I actually did stop. I felt like s**t...and I had to do it at work. I will never go back on that crap.

However, if it is HELPING you when you are on it, maybe it's not really that bad for you. If you're getting headaches and stuff like I did, I'd consider a different drug, but if it's helping you, it's up to you whether the withdrawal symptoms are worth it.

It can do amazingly good things for some people; my reaction was traumatic, and coming off of it was a challenge because the option of lowering the dosage gradually was not an option. Talk to your doctor, and taper off your dose.


M.

How weird that you can't get your meds from the pharmacy when you're running out of them. Isn't there any other drug store you could be getting the script filled? Probably this won't help anymore since you can now get to your regular pharmacy already, but should this happen again. I guess it is never a good idea to go off a psych drug cold turkey, whether the drug was doing you good or not.

I was on a different anti-depressant but on the second day I took it much later and I got this terrible shaking feeling, so now I take them at the same time everyday. I haven't had any problems with it since.
I have to go off it soon.

I just got off of Effexor after five years. I honestly don't feel like it did anything to me positively.

I had the same withdraw problems - if I missed the dose by even a half hour, I'd start to get the horrid brain zaps and feel very irritable. I also worried about the long-term effects of the drug on me after doing a little bit of research on it.

I tried sometime last year to taper my dosage on my own, and while I succeeded in halfing my dose (from 150mg to 75mg), when I went down to half a 75mg tab, I started getting major withdraw symptoms, so I stayed at 75mg for awhile. Only when I was put on Zoloft in June was I able to successfully taper down my Effexor dosage, and I've been off of it for two weeks now (but I'm on 100mg of Zoloft now, too, heh).