Posted by zinya on October 3, 2003, at 14:44:14
In reply to Effexor Club Collapses, posted by KimberlyDi on October 3, 2003, at 11:49:24
First, greetings again to "old friends" here Willie and Kim... and hearing your anxieties about withdrawal...
Willie, i think it's important to remember that if there's anything this website has to teach us all, it's that drugs like this affect everyone differently... When your time to withdraw comes, just go VERY slowly.
And I'm glad to see that BJL even belatedly has discovered that too. I'm in the process of doing what i have advocated doing here, just based on my limited experience, of opening the capsules and dividing up the granules to reduce VERY gradually, and so far so good.
I am going through a phase again of some weight gain which had happened for me when i was on the way up, after starting at half the 37.5 level (19 mg) and then moving to 37.5, my appetite had dropped but weight stayed the same on half the amount of food... Only after about a month at 150, did that weight begin to come off. But once I'm completely off Effexor again, I will give some time to see if as I suspect, my metabolism will return to what it was before Effexor.
I think you should plan to give some time too, Willie and BJL, post-Effexor, to seeing what happens just naturally in terms of weight before thinking of going on another substance... It's quite conceivable (though unpredictable, i think, cuz each of us is unique in how we process this drug) that going off Effexor by itself will yield some positive effects for weight loss.
I'm down to 37.5 now (and planning to stay -- HOLY COW! Writing this just made me realize as I looked to count up how many days i'd been on that level so far -- I fell asleep last night without taking it -- after only 5 nights at that level ... Yikes, well, i'm not going to take one now and screw up my daily timing -- and the amazing thing is that i haven't had any side effects yet. I'm in shock as i write. On the 3 or 4 occasions that this happened previously - of falling asleep before taking my nightly dose, I awoke in a dripping sweat about 3-5 hours later and had to change clothes etc., which was a wet reminder to take it ... but this time, a minor miracle in a way that i haven't had any effects yet... But I'm under NO illusions. I will resume the 37.5 tonight at usual hour (and just hope I make it til then without weird S-Es) and, as I was ABOUT to say when i looked to see how many nights i'd been at this level, i plan to stay on it for at least a couple of weeks and then down by 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc.. and then at the end -- which you might consider too BJL, as I've said here before is my plan, I will go to 1/4 dose every other day before finally quitting. I read too many nightmare stories here not to prefer "Safe over sorry" by trying to see if I can go a faster route offramp.
A friend from here - "mercedes" who Kim and Willie knew too - is tapering off now as well and already down to 75 from 225 and i've been encouraging her too from here on out to add an extra week to however long she's already thinking of staying at a certain level. I really think the final stages of the offramp are the biggies ... As some have said here, a drug like this really 'restructures" the brain in some ways and to think that such a restructuring will not require VERY gradual de-restructuring seems too naive.
I'm not going to opt for an alternate A-D like prozac in part cuz i'd already tried every other A=D at some point over last decade and had to quit due to some intolerable S-Es ...
Like Kim in a way, one of my main reasons for going off now is my heart, which i've never had a concern about before in my life. But my heartbeat on Effexor became so alarming that even gardening was now an aerobic exercise, that it made me fear what could happen if i actually resumed REAL aerobic exercise. I just want to get back to where i can do that and hope that with walking and swimming i can re-modify my metabolism again in a way that once years ago always gave me real energy and had restructured my metabolism (daily swimming especially had totally transformed my metabolism for the better - as i always used to say, it became the best addiction i ever knew)... That's what I'm looking toward from here...
wishing you ALL the best,
hugs,
zinya
poster:zinya
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030928/msgs/265256.html