What can help supress withdrawal symptoms from Effexor?

Question

My wife made a major mistake going to the state run mental health clinic for mild depression. To make a long story short, she ended up on daily doses as follows:150 Mg Effexor XR, 200 Mg Lamictal and 5Mg Abilify. Her therapist, a certified mental health practitioner, and I are in agreement. She didn't need these meds, and should not be on them. He mental state has gone dramatically downhill since starting the pills from mild depression to self mutiliation, which she NEVER did before taking the meds! The physician at the state run clinic has refused her repeated requests to be weaned off the pills, and the physician at the local free clinic won't have anything to do with the situation, and his office staff has prevented us from even seeing him. We cannot afford to take this to a pay as you go physician. We have been told we are on our own.

She went cold turkey yesterday. This is day 2, and she is experiencing severe nausea, nightmares, and mild agitation.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Very Bad Idea!
Please do this with your Physicians help.

You can really get into long term withdrawl problems if you are not careful.
Severe withdrawal symptoms can develop from patients on any level of dosage, so if you're taking a low dose don't think you're necessarily safe.


Effexor withdrawal symptoms can easily last two months or more, and some people don't feel back to normal even after a year of discontinuation.

Because effexor has a 'half-life' of about five hours, withdrawal symptoms can develop from missing only one dose.
(The half-life refers to the amount of time it takes the body to metabolize one-half of the drug.) Five hours is a frighteningly short half-life for a drug of this nature. It almost guarantees problems.


One Harvard study found 78% of patients experienced withdrawal symptoms from discontinuing effexor xr making it the only drug worse than paxil in this regard.
http://www.join-the-fun.com/effexor-with...

http://www.doctorslounge.com/psychiatry/...


As withdrawal time increases, so does the frequency of the shocks, before they wane completely. At their peak, "brain shivers" have been associated with severe headaches. They may last for a period of several weeks after the last dose, but usually resolve completely within a month. However, the effect may only last a few days.

There is hypothetical and anecdotal evidence that Omega 3 supplementation can be very helpful to alleviate the symptoms of brains shivers.

Answer 2

Effexor Withdrawal Symptoms

Answer 3

DO NOT QUIT COLD TURKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Effexor has the absolute worst discontinuation syndrome of an antidepressant. Effexor is a medication people utterly loathe to have taken. It is not uncommon for someone to fire doctors during or immediately after they quit taking Effexor

Your doctor should be recommending that you reduce your dosage by 37.5mg a day every week if you need to stop taking it, if not more slowly than that.
You shouldn't be doing it any faster than that unless it's an emergency. Yes, that means if you've maxed out at 375mg a day it'll take 10 weeks to get off of Effexor . Believe me, it's better that way. Also, once you get down to that last 37.5mg a day, ask your doctor for a Prozac prescription or samples. Generic Prozac will even do. 10mg a day is all you need. Even with the proper discontinuation stopping the last 37.5mg can be hellish. Taking two weeks worth of Prozac will make the discontinuation a lot easier. So when you're off of Effexor and you cannot function, get on the Prozac for a week or two, then stop taking the Prozac. You'll find you'll have either no discontinuation syndrome, or it won't be nearly as bad.

Answer 4

Withdrawal From Effexor

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What can help supress withdrawal symptoms from Effexor?
My wife made a major mistake going to the state run mental health clinic for mild depression. To make a long story short, she ended up on daily doses as follows:150 Mg Effexor XR, 200 Mg Lamictal and 5Mg Abilify. Her therapist, a certified mental health practitioner, and I are in agreement. She...

Answer 6

I am weening off of Effexor right now and I just had to revamp the schedule (per my doctor's advice) because the withdrawal was too painfull. My psychiatrist started lowering my dose by 75mg/day. I was at 225mg/day so I then went to 150mg for 4 days. I had no trouble with that. However, I then had to drop another 75mg down to one dose of 75mg a day...and the trouble began. My symptoms were not severe until I went to 37.5 mg which was today and I cannot handle that. My doc told me to go back to 75 mg for at least 7 days and then cut that by 1/3 for a week, and another 1/3 and so on. Maybe your wife should take the 75mg dose to see if that helps her for a while longer and then she could cut back slowly after that.

Take comfort that once it is out of her system this will be over, just help her get through this very difficult part.

Answer 7

I've had experience with Effexor, and going cold turkey is definitely not the way to get off with the most ease. The drug is powerful and (as I'm sure you've realized) has some pretty awful withdrawal symptoms. The best thing to do is lower the dose by a small amount each week.

She won't be able to get rid of the symptoms, but they will be more manageable if she gets off gradually. Have her drink as much water as possible, but other than that there's not much she can do except grin and bear it.

I wish the best of luck to you and your wife.

Answer 8

I can't believe that "Her therapist, a certified mental health practitioner, and I are in agreement.' about getting off the drugs but the MH practitioner doesn't know how to wean off Effexor. Search the web, there are 100s of sites which discuss thos very problem. The basic answer, which I followed in getting off Effexor, was to reduce the dosage by 10% each week. Going cold turkey could kill her. What a crazy idea that was!


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Answer 9

Some doctors are giving Prozac to people who have stopped Effexor, to lessen the withdrawal problems.

You should ask your wife's doctor about this. She could take liquid Prozac; it's easier to control the dosage, and then if and when she wants to stop the Prozac, it will be easier for her.

Many people have trouble stopping Effexor, so you're right to seek more advice and help.

Answer 10

She may have headaches and be tired. She may experience some "brain shivers" (I don't know how to describe this one). She may also feel hyper-emotional.