Micool: effexor battle

[Micool]

Hello everyone. A brief history...

 

I started Celexa around 2006. Transitioned to Effexor XR in 2013 my dose ranged from 150mg to 225mg. I tried coming off Effexor in September 2022. 150mg to 75mg for 4 weeks. Then 0mg. I was in extreme emotional distress. I felt very unsettled with overly frequent bouts of hysterical sobbing. I thought it was my depression and emotions. Then it hit me. My Effexor! Or rather my LACK of EFFEXOR. Once I realized this I felt a bit better. I restarted my Effexor dose that evening 150mg. Slowly improved to feeling stable and "myself" around December 2022.

 

I lost all faith in my psychiatrist. We did not titrate down using the 37.5 mg dose and she was very hesitant to reduce my dose. After my emotional and psychological breakdown, she apologized sharing that she did not know that Effexor had a 37.5mg dose.... I can't determine if she intended for this emotional spiral or simply didn't know there was a 37.5mg... 

 

Now that I am stable I have been working with my primary care doctor to titrate down. During my physical she said that she would be willing to help me slowly titrate down would be willing to transition to IR instead of XR when the dose got smaller or take XR every other day or every third day.

 

I requested to titrate 150mg to 112.5mg even though I feel that is still too much of a drop. This allowed me to get ample 75mg and 37.5mg. I decided to go rogue cut 37.5 by around half by removing beads...

 

I started with removing beads from my 150mg every few days as follows.

1 bead     12/28 - 12/29

2 beads.  12/30

3 beads.  12/31 - 1/7

4 beads.  1/8 - 1/10

5 beads.  1/11 - 1/12

6 beads.  1/13 - 1/14

7 beads.  1/15 - 1/17

8 beads   1/18 - 1/19 (147mg total dose consumed)

10 beads  1/20 - 1/26 (146mg total dose consumed)

50 beads. 1/27 - present (as of 2/5)  from my math I am taking around 131mg (each bead is around 0.375 mg)

about 4-5 days into 131mg  I started feeling less myself and slightly anxious and depressed. Profound nightmares where I wake up in a pool of sweat. So I think I have  titrated down too much. 

 

I'm feeling somewhat doomed to staying on Effexor... I've done more research and I believe I will probably move on to dropping my dose by 5%. Or I will embrace being on effexor and accept my fate. So I came here looking for supplements by way of an article by Adele Framer 

[Altostrata]

Welcome, @Micool

 

You may already have seen Tips for tapering off venlafaxine (Effexor)

 

On 2/5/2023 at 12:49 PM, Micool said:

I started feeling less myself and slightly anxious and depressed. Profound nightmares where I wake up in a pool of sweat. So I think I have  titrated down too much. 

 

When did you make your last decrease?

 

I wrote that article. We don't have any supplement recommendations to reverse withdrawal symptoms, but many people find fish oil and magnesium supplements helpful, see

 

https://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/36-king-of-supplements-omega-3-fatty-acids-fish-oil/

 

https://survivingantidepressants.org/topic/15483-magnesium-natures-calcium-channel-blocker/

 

You might try a little bit of one at a time to see how it affects you. Please let us know how you’re doing.

 

 

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