Venlafaxine nightmare

[yello123]

I have slowley weaned off Effexor 75 mg with the help of my Doctor. I have Cervical Dystonia and am in pain all the time. The side effects from coming off effexor are so horrible. It has been 3 weeks and I feel like it will never get better. The brain fog, nausea, insomnia, weekness in limbs, overwhelming tired feelings, dizziness, and nightmares are making it unbearable. Does anyone have any advice since my family is trying to help but does not understand how horrible it is.

[AnxiousSilver]

I have never done regular Effexor, but I did do Effexor XR in the past. It's a shame because the pill helped a lot with my GAD, but it also jacked up my blood pressure to unsafe levels, so I needed to come off of it.

That was also during a time period where I was was on this huge med pill merry-go-round, and it was brutal for me. I know that during that time, I was also given a mood stabilizer pill. (that I am not on anymore)

IDK if the mood stabilizer was to help me with my med merry go round or not, but my next psych (who was soooooo much better and sadly now retired) took me off of the mood stabilizer, because he was a big believer in the lesser the pills the better.

I wish I could be more helpful to your situation. Being on Effexor XR was during my days of jumping from one pill to the next with a different psych back in the day,

The best advice I can give, is to keep your Psych/PCP (whoever is in charge of your pills) updated with your concerns, and see if he/she can come up with any suggestions to help you get rid of the remaining side effects.

[Adhe2004]

Hi, I am wondering how you are doing now? I am tapered down to 37.5 of Effexor and starting to feel poorly. This isn't the first time I've tried to get off this med. My psychiatrist added Paxil this time to see if it helps with the side effects of tapering this time.