Effexor withdrawal, how long to endure?
919855
Going cold turkey in NOT a good idea. You could begin to experience a lot of bad side effects like dizzyness, nausea, headaches- to the point of being incapacitated. I would have to know what type of Effexor you are taking to know how long the withdrawl will continue- extended release, or regular?\n\nPlease talk to your doctor and tell him/her that you want to stop taking the Effexor- and find a way to gradually wean your body off the medicine.\n\nThere are tons of forums and Q&A sites on the web you might want to check out. Here are 2 to start with. Hope this helps!\n\nhttp://www.thedoctorslounge.net/psychiatry/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1013\n\nhttp://www.medhelp.org/HealthTopics/Effexor.html
886773
i was on wellbutrin for a good 2-4 years & i started to get REALLY tired & completely lacked all motivation. i had memory problems & was really unable to function intelligently. finally, i changed medicines a few times & now i am on effexor xr. i also discovered i had anxiety, which was something doctors had never really paid any attention to in the past.\n\nwhatever you do, DO NOT STOP TAKING THE MEDICINE ON YOUR OWN!!!! really really really bad stuff can happen!!! i made that mistake & i started feeling all sorts of really bizarre things & couldn't sleep... i have also heard you can have weird visions. so, don't do it on your own!!!
89811
it can be detected by a standard whiz quiz for up to 3 days, as far as withdrawal that can be a painfull proccess that can takes months, just help in any way you can and be prepared for a long bout of depression and anxiety
435095
If you is on Effexor you is getting help for depression. Go back to your GP and tell him/her what you wrote here and they will get you PROPER help
772926
Please reconsider taking these meds.  Yes, sometimes they can feel good for some time, but it doesn't last indefinitely and when the side effects get very bad, you can't get off them and things quickly go downhill.  Withdrawal can last for years and cause physical and mental horrors.  Check out www.benzoisland.org if you'd like some answers to your questions, and for much more info, including published studies, go to benzo.org.uk
224488
if it`s been for while tell dr. do not drink or self medicate you`ll dig that hole deeper. cymbalta is GREAT paxil has some bad withdrawal.the others didn`t work for me exercise is really good also
91035
Run don't walk to the nearest doctor and get some good anti-depressant medication. Don't give up. If one type doesn't work, there are four more types to try. All the different types of the drug approach the problem differently. It can take up to three weeks for you to even notice a difference.\n \nAfter you begin to see a difference in your outlook, get involved with a good Bible believing church and spend time with God (prayer and Bible reading) every day.\n\nI know there might be Christians who believe that simply going to God with a repentant heart will make all the difference, BUT, if someone is struggling with depression, they can't think clearly enough to do that.\n\nSerafem (Prozac) is a gift from God to me, and I wish my Dad had been given the opportunity to have anti-d's and his dad, and his dad....what a history of depression in the family!\n\nAnyway, good luck, and I hope you will give this serious thought.
404844
Good for you, you must be feeling much better, :-).\n\nI hope you're going off it with your Dr.'s help though and haven't just decided on your own to stop taking it.  If you quit 'cold turkey' it can take several week's to start to feel better, but if your Dr. take's you off it, they will 'wean' you so that the withdrawal isn't so bad.\n\nThe Dr. will gradually lower your dose so that you don't feel much discomfort coming off of Celexa and that's the safest, easiest way for your body to adjust.  \nAll the best to you!
425156
I am surprised you could hold out 4 days. Your doctor will write a prescription that will knock it out almost immediately. It is worth the money.
78136
Talk to your doctor. If you want to come off it, then ask him to help you. It is important to follow a gradual withdrawal program as stopping suddenly can cause an array of troublesome symptoms, the most common being dizziness, which can last for days on end. Flu-like feelings, including nausea, headache and fatigue, are also common, as are intense feelings of anxiety, irritability or sadness.\n\nIt is important to recognise that when you withdraw from a drug, many of these symptoms can also appear. Some people experience alarming sensations of tingling or burning in various parts of the body; ringing in the ears; blurred vision; or flashing lights before the eyes. Some people even describe a feeling of shock waves pulsing through their arms and legs, as if they had been zapped with a jolt of electricity, a condition sometimes called lightning-bolt syndrome. This is what is known as "discontinuation syndrome" and should NOT be misread as some form of "relapse". Make sure that your doctor is fully aware of Discontinuation Syndrome. There is plenty of information on the web.\n\nAs for needing more...personally, I don't believe ANYONE needs to take antidepressants. These drugs are inherently harmful (in a variety of different ways) and do not cure ANYTHING. It is no different to smoking weed to feel more relaxed, or snorting coke to get high. Psych drugs disrupt the normal chemical operation of the brain creating a false sense of mood. It cures nothing. And the longer you take it, the more likely you are to suffer from many of the drug's seriously ill effects.\n\nSeek non-drug solutions. Check out http://www.alternativementalhealth.com or perhaps http://groups.msn.com/psychbusters/alternativehealth.msnw for more info.\n\nMike\n\n--\nDecoding Psychiatric Propaganda\nhttp://groups.msn.com/psychbusters
372119
seroquel although a new anti psychotic, made me feel like a zombie. I have been through so many diagnosis's over the past several months and low and behold I am no longer bi-polar 2!  Coming off it was a relief, I do however miss the sleep. While hospitalized they forgot to give it to me for a week and strangely enough the effects were minor.  Ask your doctor for a sleep med if only for a short term to get yourself back on track. The new ones are great but expensive and better yet non addictive... but then again they said effexor wasn't either.  Get some sleep meds.
895778
Yep - I've got it too.\n\nI used to take Effexor, but it killed my libido and the withdrawal effects are super-awful (I now kind of understand drug addiction - vomiting, dizziness, the whole she-bang) I took a lot, though, 150mg so that didn't help.  The med helped the anxiety a ton, though. So much that I thought I was better and decided to wean myself (bad idea - don't do it - you will be sorry 3 months later and have to spend another 3 months getting something new into your system)\n\nI am now starting Prozac.  So far the only bad side effect is I can't take it before bed or I don't sleep well.  It is too soon to tell if it is working - so it isn't helping much yet.  Hopefully soon.  \n\nGood luck.  Go to a psychiatrist - they can prescribe meds and have much more background than a family physician so they will have experience with lots of meds.
218537
I was on Effexor for quite a while and didn't experience any weight gain. \n\nBelieve me, I know it's really hard to, but if there is any way to get yourself to, a little exercise can help - even if it's just a walk. \n\nWishing you lots of luck. Get well soon!
962415
Ive taken zoloft for years.  Missing one dose has caused a lot of problems with me and my emotional state.  It isnt good to do that because you throuw your whole system off for weeks, and that is why they say that prescriptions usually take 4-6 weeks to kick in or whatever time frame:  so that your body can get used to it, and the inhibitors within the drug can take it's sweet time to effect your brain and fill in the chemical imbalances.  I also take thyroid pills and I get knocked off course if I miss one dose, and it lasts a couple weeks for me (even if I continue taking it again) to even get back to normal, and I feel down and depresed the entire time.  it isnt worth it, try your hardest to remember to take them, especially zoloft, you dont want to continue feeling miserable until your body gets back on course, do you?  That is why you are taking them in the first place.  Ty and think of ways you can remember to take them, I have so many pills it's gotten easier for me to remember, but missing a dose can really mess up your mind and cause your body to slow down with whatever is going on that you need it.  Good luck, Ive been in the same boat for 12 years
867759
How to Stop Taking Paxil, Paxil CR: Your doctor should be recommending that you reduce your of the CR dosage by 12.5mg every four days. You should probably make it five days because Paxil's discontinuation syndrome is so harsh. That means putting up with the suck-ass side effects for longer, but trust me, it really sucks less this way.  Based on the 15-20 hour half-life.  If your doctor says something that's slower than that, go for it!  I'm all for slower discontinuations.  Four to five days is the fastest you can step down the dosage.\n\n\nHow To Safely Stop Taking Psychiatric & Anti-Epileptic Medications\n\nLots of people hit this site wanting to know how to stop taking their crazy meds.  That's understandable.  There are many good reasons to stop taking the meds.  There are also many bad reasons to stop taking them.  I'll try to help you sort out the good from the bad reasons.  But if you do have good reasons, you have to stop taking the meds safely.  Sudden or rapid discontinuation can lead to many problems.  This guide is just to use to make sure that you and your doctor have worked out a good discontinuation schedule for a medication, presuming you have the luxury for such. \n\nYou must work with your doctor! You are not qualified to make this decision on your own.  Got that?  What you and your doctor need to do is work out a discontinuation schedule for any medication.  This is the reverse of the titration schedule (if any, which I'm actually against), which was the plan of how your dosage was increased.  The discontinuation schedule is the plan of how you'll decrease the amount of a med you'll take.  Ask your doctor what it is based on.  There are three things a discontinuation schedule should be based on:      \nthe half-life of a drug \n\nlooking for the return of any symptoms \n\nexperience with taking someone off a med \n\nThe last one is either other people going off the same med or you coming off of the same or other meds.  Or both. \n \n\nIf you're lucky enough to get an explanation from your doctor, the half-life of a psychiatric medication is often explained like this, "It's out of your body in that many hours, but it's still in your brain." That's a gross oversimplification, but it's close enough for government work. Here's a way to picture the half-life in action. Take a glass and fill it half full with some beverage. Now fill it the rest of the way with water. OK, now empty it half of the mixture out and top it off with water. Keep doing that until you have something you'd drink and that could pass as water. The number of times it took to do that is the half-life, expressed in a quantity of water, of a particular beverage. Try it with a different beverage and you'd get a different half-life. Half-life means how long it takes for half of the metabolites to get flushed out of your system. The half-lives of meds is expressed in time because the process of adding water to the glass is more-or-less constant in your body. And in the environment for the half-lives of radioactive materials. So using Effexor (venlafaxine), if you're down to your last 37.5mg dose after 20 hours you'll have 18.75mg left in your body. Twenty hours after that you'll have about 9.4mg left. And so forth until it's gone, about 80-100 hours after your final 37.5mg tablet. Please, don't get all Xeno's Paradoxical on me, after four or five passes, as it were, a med is so broken down that the effects shouldn't be noticeable. The only real variable is not if it's four or five times the length of the half-life, but if you metabolize the med quickly or slowly. These half-life numbers are the based on the arithmetic mean averages from clinical trials and studies. Read the pharmacokinetics section of the med's PI sheet carefully to see what the known range of a drug's half-life is.\n\nAll right so where does this "In your brain bu
362652
It's pretty fast.  He might experience some minor withdrawal symptoms after a week, but I think it takes more like a month or two before you are addicted.  Plus, if hes only taking 1mg it would be pretty easy to cut that back to 1/2mg per day then 1/2 every other day then none.  After a couple of months though it is a nightmare.
87491
I was on it for a while, but it never seemed to help me at all. I am now on Effexor, and it is working for me. But different things work for different people. Just make sure you talk to your doctor about it and keep him/her up to date so he/she knows to make adjustments or not.