Anybody ever go off Effexor?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Okay, so I’ve been taking 225mg of Effexor daily for 9 years. And sometimes I miss my dose, either for lack of planning or just Not Giving A Damn, and that very day (usually) the self-pity, suspicion and alienation that are usually no more than a darkly recurring theme in my daily life surge to the fore and send me on a little depressive tear. I mope. I stew. I seethe. I lie down in front of the psychic garbage truck and wallow. I post scary emo-nihilistic trolling shit to the internet, including the SDMB. I even get Pitted for it (well…once, anyway).

So. Anyone else take “Satan’s Tic-Tacs?” What has happened to you when you miss a day? Ever try to taper off? Kick? Have you gotten the electrical storms through your nervous system? The moments…hours…days of cold black relentless rationalization that you do not belong in the real world? The REALLY NEAT DREAMS?

Tell me about it. Iiiiiiiiii’m listening…

2

I tried a few years ago. It did not end well. I take 75mg a day.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will always need my happy pills.

3

What did your psychiatrist say when you told him/her that you want to go off it? There are so many antidepressants out there that I am sure if you’re not happy with how Effexor is working for you there are other options to try.

4

I went off of mine on 9-18-11. I did some research and read about the tapering system of taking one little ball out of the capsule a day until you were down to nothing. I decided I couldn’t wait that long so I just did it cold turkey. It was not thaaaat bad. I was expecting the brain zaps to be the worst of it but they weren’t. They were worse when I used to miss a dose or two and I would take it fairly quickly so as not to have to endure the zings in my head. I think the crying and anger were the worst of it. I had a short work week so that’s what made me do it then. I had wanted to get off of them from the first time I experienced the brain zap things. They scared me. I was kind of looking forward to the vivid dreams but I didn’t have them. Lol! I did a lot of reading about the withdrawal symptoms before I did this and was truly expecting it to be horrific but it wasn’t. I think that I am one of the lucky few. I think after having read about so many people’s bad experiences with coming off Effexor ER that this drug should not be prescribed. I work with people with intellectual disabilities and many of them are on Effexor on very high doses. When their medications are changed without any input from them (because they are profoundly MR or non-verbal), I can only imagine their suffering and not being able to let anyone know how they feel or what they are going through. I can say for certain that I will be a much stronger advocate for my clients when I attend their psychiatric appointments.

5

I quit cold turkey during my divorce 8 years ago because my dickwad doctor refused to allow me to stop taking them. Sorry Doc, I’m the boss in this equation, and I wanted off this shit.

I was only taking 75mg per day.

The withdrawal was pretty bad. Took almost two weeks. Spent large chunks of some days feeling like I was in a brain-taffy puller.

But I tend to agree, if the withdrawal symptoms for a small dose are that bad, this drug should NOT be in use.

6

150mgs, which I stopped cold turkey at the same time as Lamictal and Seroquel.

Brain zaps. But my budding aphasia stopped and reversed, so overall, it was a win. But, dear God, the brain zaps. Those were not fun. And I’ve been told that, sometimes, for some very unlucky people, those brain zaps last forever. That would be bad.

7

If I go off it, I get a floating head feeling, like I have the flu. Quite honestly, I feel “stuck” on it (although it works for me), as I couldn’t go off without going on something else. It’s hard to go off!! I take 75 mg a day.

8

I’m still coming to terms with that. I have to pretty much give a kickback to my psychopharmacologist - a consultation fee 4 times a year - to keep the scripts coming. And the Big E, although it keeps the pits of despair mostly shallow and navigable, does nothing but instill a certain complacency about my many anxieties, which I keep feeling I might have faced down long ago “if only.”

(If only what, I don’t know. My immense capacity for self-delusion has rendered me pretty much immune to therapy - cognitive, rational-emotive, or group. So I take the pills, get by day-to-day, and now and then take a few steps toward growth, often destabilizing. A perfectly lovely coffee date with a woman was the cause of my most recent flip-out.)

9

Satan’s tic-tacs - how appropriate. From my experience with Effexor, I think the cure is worse than the disease. I get teary just thinking about what I was like back then, especially when I missed a dose.

However, I had a great GP who knew about the importance of coming down very slowly, over a matter of months, and I took his direction to a T. I suggest you do the same.

I must admit, haven’t had a recurrence of depression since 2004, and I do miss those Effexor dreams. Damn, it was like living two lives, your life in dreams seeming as real, and even better, than real life.

10

Two questions from someone who has not yet been prescribed any sort of pills:

A. What are these mysterious “brain zaps”?
2) For those who have accepted the necessity of antidepressants, how does that make you feel? As a stubborn person, I can’t imagine ever admitting to myself or anyone else that I actually needed a pill to get through the day.

11

I’m wondering what these brain zaps are, too, and how people would describe they feel like/what happens. I think it might be what I’m experiencing when I try to sleep (sometimes) at night (not on any meds, though…although I have gotten used to taken promethazine to help me sleep–after quitting that, came the weird sleeping patterns that feel like “brain zaps” if anything).

So what’s the dope on what they feel like to other people?

12

I’ve only ever felt them in my lips, not my brain, but then I’ve never gone off antidepressants cold turkey, only slowly weaned.

When I was ready to start weaning, I got some sample packets of the 75mg and the 37.5mg that reps give to doctors to start patients on them gradually, and that really helped to titrate down. Then I after a while, I took th 37.5 every other day, then every three days, etc. until I finished them.

13

I’m on 225/day too, and have gone off twice, rather rapidly actually, with minimal problems.

I went down 75mg/week, halving the dose (opening the capsules, halving the medicine inside) at the end. Brain zaps and headaches annoying, but dealwithable.

Both times I went off because I felt it wasn’t working; both times I went back on when I realized just how dark things got without it. For me, it keeps the very worst parts of depression at bay.

I’m speaking to a doc next week about trying to find something that does more than take the edge off. I’ve been on/off (mostly on) E-fex-fex-fex for about 6 years now.

14

My exboyfriend went off them cold turkey (insurance snafu, would not recommend). He described it as a hellish experience. The main complaints were: severe restless leg syndrome at night, a constant noise in his ears like a whirring helicopter and dry mouth.

15

I’ve never been on Effexor so I can’t answer your first question. But to answer your second question, those of us who take medication for our depression don’t enjoy the thought of living day-to-day reliant on pharmaceuticals, any more than those with diabetes enjoy using insulin, or those with high cholesterol enjoy popping drugs for that. But we need them, and we are thankful that they exist. Depression is debilitating. The world closes in on you. You feel hopeless, alone, fatigued, and you’ll do anything to stop it. But there is no respite: either you can’t sleep, or you sleep fitfully, with haunting, disturbing dreams. One of the worst things about depression is that you can’t trust your own mind. That’s the one thing non-depressed people can count on, even if everything else goes to shit. When you lose your mind, you’ve lost your humanity, and where do you go from there?

*statsman1982, long-time sufferer of depression, and recently diagnosed as bipolar.

16

I went cold turkey off the big E in 2005-ish. My dose wasn’t nearly as high as yours. It was hellish (every side effect in the book - except cool dreams!) and my mood was terrible for weeks after the physical stuff stopped, and then I felt… better. I haven’t used anti-depressents since and am doing pretty well.

Conversely, a good friend of mine in her mid-20s who has been medicated since she was 13, and was on a high dose of Effexor for many years, gradually tapered down and then quit it this past year. She had much less physical withdrawal than me, but her mental state has steadily spiraled downward in the months unmedicated and now along with the depressive issues she’s experiencing some unsettling OCD thoughts and behavior that was not a problem before. She’s going back on Effexor (tomorrow, I hope, I’m worried about her!) and might need something else at this point, too.

17

Thank you statsman, a perfect description of depression. I wish you well, I really do.

rhubarbarin, I’m also in two minds about Effexor. It was hell, it really was. But I felt “normal” while I was on it, and the only time I felt the old black dog coming back was when I missed a day or two of doses. I was talking to my son, Robin (which is a male name, which means “little Robert”), who said he had a friend who tried to kill himself by driving off a bridge when he was coming off Effexor. That’s the point - it’s a great drug - it works. It’s just coming off it which is the problem.

18

I’m currently on 150mg of Effexor and 300mg of Welbutrin daily. If I miss the Welbutrin it’s no big deal, just take it tomorrow. Missing the Effexor is a horrible experience that I would do just about anything to avoid. I get the zaps up both of my arms, around the back of my neck, and across my eyes. I become intensely irritable and paranoid. My hands shake and everything sounds too loud.

My doctor tried to switch me to Pristiq, the “other Effexor” about a year ago. I didn’t get the zaps but it still sucked. All of my emotions were ramped up to the max and the mood swings were awful. I was furiously angry one minute and crying the next over something that shouldn’t have bothered me in the first place. I would laugh so hard that I had tears in my eyes while thinking that whatever it was wasn’t that funny. I felt like I wasn’t in control of myself. It was like I just along for the ride in my own body. I went back to the Effexor after a couple of months.

19

Longish post here. Summary:
– My experience and thoughts about Effexor.
– My experience, addiction, and nasty withdrawal with clonazepam (Klonopin)
– My description of “the zaps”, regarding clonazepam withdrawal.

Wonder why so many people here are saying they quit Effexor because it didn’t work out well for one reason or another, then talk about going back on it because, damn, I need it! There are so many other depressions meds out there one could try.

I used effexor briefly about 5 years ago, for maybe a year or so. As best I recall, I was using somewhere in the 175-250 range or something like that. I thought the benefits were only mild and subtle, not really worth continuing. And the side effects were:
(1) Caused me to have a devil-may-care attitude (e.g., I began taking four-hour lunch breaks from work because I just didn’t care).
(2) After several month, began to make me very jittery. Much later, another doc explained that it’s the norepinephrine re-uptake inhibition that does this. That means, basically, you have more adrenalin in your system.

Without medical advice, I read the manufacturer’s poop sheet, and tapered down very slowly – only half as fast as recommended. I thus quit, with no ill effects at all that I recall.

Sometime later, another doc tried Paxil on me, with immediate and very bothersome effects. I quit that in a hurry, after just a few weeks, cold turkey, with no particular problem.

At the same time, I was also using clonazepam (Klonopin) regularly, at a very low dosage. Now that is baaaaaaad shit! Even at a low dosage, I had a massive torturous withdrawal that took SIXTEEN MONTHS to get over, and even after that I didn’t feel right for another year or two.

I really really don’t want to use any toxic pharmaceutical witches brew brain potions again. But maybe I will need to. As noted above, there are plenty other toxic brain potions to try. I sure as hell don’t trust any doctors with my brain anymore, though.

I see several posters above have asked for a description of what “the zaps” are like, and I don’t see much of an answer yet. Me too, I want to know. I’ve read about “the zaps” but I don’t recall any mention of exactly where in your body you feel it.

I definitely got nasty brain zaps among the clonazepam withdrawal symptoms, for a long time. Note that this is not a SSRI or SNRI, it’s a benzodiazepine, and those have a baaaaaaaaad rep for addictiveness and being tough to kick. It literally felt like there were electrodes attached to my temples (I felt like Frankenstein’s monster getting jolted like that), with a sudden jolt going through every 30 seconds or so. I very literally could not sleep for more than 25 seconds at a time for several weeks because they kept jolting me awake. Don’t know how that compares with SSRI or SNRI zaps, though.

ETA: Conclusion: For me, it may be time, despite my massive misgivings, to try anti-depressants again. But I will definitely something other than Effexor!

20

I was on Effexor for about two months about eight years ago, and I had a very bad reaction to it. It made me more depressed – could barely get out of bed, and felt as close to suicidal as I’d ever been at that point. It took me a slow weaning to get off of it, and I did have the “zaps” – which felt, to me, like someone slapping my brain awake. You know when you’re falling asleep and you have a falling dream and you’re suddenly wide awake? It’s like that, except you weren’t trying to sleep when the falling dream occurs.

My sister, OTOH, was on Effexor with very good results for several years. However, she didn’t like the side effects that occured when/if she missed a dose. (She felt flu-like symptoms.) So like Sodalite up above, her doctor recommended switching to Pristiq; unlike Sodalite, Pristiq has been excellent for her. And IIRC there was no need to step down from the Effexor; it was a smooth transition for her.

Her doc also gave her Abilify, which as I understand it is a kind of “booster” for the Pristiq.

(Yeah, depression runs in my family, unfortunately. Me, I’m still trying to find a decent medication after going without anything for six years. Prozac used to work well for me, fifteen years back, but I tried it again two months ago and – now that I’m no longer “just” depressed but also have panic disorder too – it gave me a mood boost but also made me hyper-anxious and I truly felt like I was losing my mind. Now I’m on Elavil, a real old school tricyclic antidepressant. We’ll see how this goes.)

Anyway, I guess my recommendation for the OP would be to ask your doc about Pristiq.

Edited to add after reading the last post: I’m on Klonopin (clonazepam) as well, for the panic disorder – it was supposed to help curb the anxiety side-effects from the Prozac, but really I just had to get off Prozac before I felt better. The Klonopin definitely helped me, but I am slowly slooooooowly tapering down from three .5mg pills per day down to two 3/4 for two weeks, and now I’m at 2 1/2 so far. I know it’s a toughie to get off of and I’m determined to move as slowly as possible. (I also have Xanax but that’s only for when I’m actually experiencing a panic attack.)