Posted by Girlnblack on September 6, 2005, at 12:56:40
This is to all the people who are afraid to get off Effexor because of the side effects (as I was about 2 months ago) Obviously the side effects will be more severe depending on the dosage. The key to taking any drug is to take the smallest dosage possible to get a good result. That's what I did when I started taking Effexor. I was on 75 mg per day. A couple months ago I wanted to stop the drug for many reasons (weight gain, lethargy, interrupted sleep, etc) In conjunction with my internal medicine doctor (not the therapist I fired a year ago), I began 75 mg every other day and 37.5 mg on other days. The next week I did 37.5 everyday, the next week 37.5 every other day. After that I was finished. The only side effect I experience was dizziness. That was during the weeks of the step-down method. I never experience symptoms after that. Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones, but I know everybody can't have these horrible withdrawals that I see on this website. Effexor helped me find "myself" again and I'm happy I took it for 2 years. My therapist also wanted to increase the dosage and I refused. Remember - you don't have to increase a dosage just because a doctor tells you to.
poster:Girlnblack
thread:551412
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20050822/msgs/551412.html