Posted by KaraS on December 19, 2004, at 19:15:51
In reply to new/effexor tapering/brain shivers, posted by chemicalxkisses on December 19, 2004, at 18:41:28
> Hi, I was searching for stuff on Effexor withdrawal and came across this site, and it's really interesting. I'm eighteen years old, in my first year of college. I first started having problems with depression when I was twelve, and told my parents I needed help when I was fourteen. I tried St. Johns Wort first, which, of course, was totally ineffective. I started psychotherapy and Zoloft. This worked for about a year or so, and then I started getting depressed again. So I tried Celexa, Paxil, and Wellbutrin, before finally settling on Effexor XR, which has worked pretty well. I was given Provigil and told to "take as needed" for my oversleeping. Later in the year, after I began seeing a new p-doc and went through a battery of tests (sleep study, MRIs, neuropsychological studies, etc), I was diagnosed as bipolar, and immediately came off the Provigil, which was seriously screwing me up. I was prescribed Depakote in addition to the 150 mg of Effexor I was on. Last year, I quit Depakote cold turkey, I'd only been on it for a couple months, because I felt like it was taking away too much of my personality. Not a smart decision to make without telling anyone, but that's what happened. And since then, I've been totally episode free for over a year. I wonder if maybe the interaction of Effexor and Provigil caused what appeared to be bipolar rapid cycling. Anyways, I finally told the doctor, and he was a little disappointed in me, but it worked out okay, and I am now, very slowly, tapering off Effexor.
>
> At the moment, I'm done to 37.5 mg. I was greatly encouraged to read about "brain shivers," because all this time, I never knew what to call it, I just knew it felt like a weird type of dizziness, like there was water sloshing around back and forth in my head for a second. I thought I was just weird. I've experienced brain shivers on Zoloft and Effexor, after missing even just one dose, which sucks. Once, I didn't take my Effexor for three days, and I was having cold and hot flashes, brain shivers every few minutes, and nearly falling down the stairs as a result. I guess I'd just like more information on all this, it sounds like Effexor has a somewhat notorious reputation around the online communities. Anyways, I'm sorry this was so long! Thanks for reading.
First of all, why are you going off of Effexor if it has been working so well for you?I went off of Effexor very gradually. I only had problems for a couple of days at the end when I went off the small fraction of a pill that I was still taking. I took a small amount of another SSRI for a couple of days at that point and that took care of the problem. The best thing to get is Prozac because of it's really long half-life. It substitutes for the Effexor so your brain is happy but it's long half-life makes the discontinuation problems go away. A lot of people on this site have used other SSRIs to go off of Effexor. You can search for the posts and find what they have to say.
Good luck!
poster:KaraS
thread:431795
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041217/msgs/431811.html