Effexor withdrawal ... holy crap!

Post Reply New Topic

(Feel free to move this if this isn't the forum for it.)

I'm on Effexor, 75mg a day, and it's been great so far, until today. I accidentally missed a dose this morning.

Oh my god, I feel like I'm being shocked all over, I'm ready to throw up, incredibly dizzy and just ... weird in general. Has anyone else had this happen to them or heard of it? I only missed my dose by about 9 hours (which shouldn't be enough to make me feel this bad) but I googled it and I guess it's pretty harsh. Wow.

Any other bad reactions with medication/anti-depressants?

Effexor has horrid withdrawal. I hated weening off of it.

Side effects? Yes. A person I know got tinnitus from similar medication. It has not gone away.

You are not alone!

Effexor gave me withdrawal symptoms too. If I missed a dose, I was reminded of it about 4 hours later when I started getting weird perceptual problems. Not quite the "brain zaps" that others have reported, but disturbing nonetheless. These went away about an hour after taking the dose, and I never went through 9 hours of withdrawal, so I can only imagine how bad it would have gotten & how bad your experience is.

It was because of the fast onset of the withdrawal, and the chance that next time it happened I wouldn't have a supply right at hand that I told the doc I wanted off Effexor. Getting off Effexor was not easy. The only way to get off it was to switch to Paxil. Paxil had the same withdrawal symptoms but could be tapered off whereas below a certain daily dose, Effexor gave withdrawal symptoms no matter how slow the decrease. It was very distressing at the time to think that I was permanently hooked on Effexor!

Keep a container with an emergency supply with you, so as soon as you start to feel the effects you can take the missed dose. That's probably obvious advice.

That's good advice, thanks. I'll carry some around with me. I've been on lots of different anti-depressants and I've never had any discontinuation symptoms happen this quickly.

Right now everything is hilarious. I was crying an hour ago, and now I can't stop laughing. Wow. I'm tripping on serotonin.

I quit Effexor after it gave me homicidal ideation.

I remember missing a dose of Paxil for one day and having experiences like you describe. Additionally,I experienced rather clear suicidal planning. In both this case and the Effexor thing, it was clearly an invasive thought that was not my usual thinking. Right now I'm on 50 mg of Zoloft, and times I've forgotten to take it, I haven't noticed anything wrong.

That's quite the ride you're on! How long til you can take a dose & get back on track?

I took a dose as soon as I got home.

Honest to god, I'm laughing at potatoes.

I'm not a doctor but that sounds like a side effect. Might want to phone your doctor and tell them what is going on.

If I can't stop riding the Effexor dragon by tomorrow, I'm calling in sick and going in to see someone, definitely. I'm sort of worried that the giggles right now is just a phase from the sudden accumulation of serotonin when I took my missed dose, and that I might end up crashing later on.

I need an adult.

Idaho, red, Yukon Gold, or sweet?

Mashed, baked, boiled, or au gratin?

To the point advice follows:

Call your doc's office in the morning if not before. Tell whoever answers the phone that you need to talk to a doctor right away, whoever in the practice who is available, before you take another dose. He may tell you to change the time you take the dose in the evening, since that is when the last dose was taken. Taking a morning dose tomorrow may foul things up even worse. Or, it could be harmless - but you don't know. Given what you've gone through from one missed dose (and I'll bet he never informed you of the potential consequences of a missed/late dose), your doc owes you prompt advice on what steps to take to a) recover from the late dose; b) get back on a regular dosage schedule (including how to safely return to taking it in the morning, if that's what works best for you); and c) whether in light of this occurrence, you should continue taking Effexor.

Hang in there!

Thank you, adult! I will call tomorrow at least, if not go in person.

And they were yellow potatoes, uncooked, on the counter. Hilarious.

You're welcome! I hope I didn't come across as too bossy. I easily get into soapbox mode.

Post tomorrow to let us know you're back on an even keel, ok?

Personally, I never saw anything funny about potatoes. But parsnips have always seemed vaguely humorous. I don't know why...

With anti-depressant when i stopped the Zoloft.

I got brain zaps and a lot of other symptomps.

But the worst was the Haloperidol.

I got severe dystonia while withdrawing.

Imagine walking when your neck just get into a weird position and it hurt like hell, sometimes I even needed botox.

I had a terrible withdrawal episode in early April when I missed my dosage of Venlafaxine. And me missing my dosage was not my fault. It was horrible.

I was figuratively crawling up the walls in the small room I was in. It was so bright, and yet so desolate. I wanted to explode.

I hate missing dosages, that is why since then I log every time I take my medication on my iPad. Diligence.