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Mental Health Venlafaxine - Do you take it?

Rybee

Rybee

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Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
1,305
Hi Peeps,

I'm currently taking 375mg Venlafaxine and I'm honestly just so fed up in life. I've lost a bit of grip on reality over the last 6 weeks and I can feel myself sinking deeper and deeper down into a spiral of depression. I'm convinced it's no longer helping and I just want to live a life free from daily medication but I'm terrified of the consequences.

I get horrible WD symptoms even after 6 hours or so of missing my dose (extended release tablets) and I've read horror stories of people trying to get off of the stuff.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking... I just feeling horrible right now and want advice from anyone who's come off of it.

Rybee
 
I'm sure some people have a hard time coming of SSRI's/SNRI's. I'm one of the people who don't- I have stopped that at will many times with some mildly annoying side effects like 'brain zaps'. Keep in mind some of those horror stories you've heard may not apply to you....at least in degree. That said- you're on a pretty high dose of that shit. I think it'd be best to taper and then get on another AD that would work for you. I always found that AD's worked for a short period of time for me- then I had to switch when my body became used to them.

Are you also in therapy? Those AD drugs can really help- but when combined with therapy I feel they work best.

I no longer take AD's because of the weight gain and they make drinking too enjoyable for me. I've come to the conclusion that it's best for me to stay away. However, I may avail myself in the future for severe depressive episodes. The less frequently I take them- the better they work.
 
Yeah I get horrible brain zaps when I accidentally skip a dose. I feel that my mind vacates my body, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing or why.

I've tried loads of different therapies with different people and never found it of much help to be honest.

I honestly think it's going to take me a year or so to get off of it, I'm so sensitive to W/D symptoms. Lately I've been getting horrible nightmares, night sweats, high blood pressure, palpitations, fatigue and just emotionally numb. To be honest this has been more evident when stepping up from 300 to 375mg so I might just try to cut back a little and see how it fairs.

Hmph. Fed up :(
 
Hi,

I have stopped from venlafaxine 300mg. Like you, it helped at the beginning for a short time, but stopped helping. I think SSRI-is essentially help people by increasing neuroplasticity, so making any kind of changes to brain chemistry brings changes to emotions/thinking/mood. So it hasn`t to do with low serotonin levels. That`s one theory I have read and believe and I`m not a specialist. Somehow I went back to where I started. So I stopped.

So when stopping it, I was expecting it to be bad too and had read horror stories. I actually tried cold turkey to get off fast, thinking I can take a low dose when I get bad and want to. I stuck to cold turkey. The withdrawal didn`t last long for me, two weeks max. Felt generally ill, but it was the winter and I had a mild cold too so it was impossible to separate the two. But certainly nothing horrific. I would say not to be afraid and do it, I got better after I stopped, the medication didn`t fit me. I switched to a high dose of bupropion, antidepressant with stimulating properties but the main reason for taking it is to have more energy in mornings and wake up. (No stimulants available here) I don`t believe SSRI`s work for me. Bupropion actually helps me somewhat and higher energy means less depression.

The withdrawal certainly for me wasn`t bad suffering or comparable to benzo withdrawal. I did have brain zaps, I would get them whenever I would quickly move my eyes left to right. So I could even make them happen at will, and at times found this amusing. At the beginning they could be physically felt and seemed similar to a brain restart. But having them wasn`t suffering. Their intensity decreased fast as time went by and after a week they could be barely felt. I was pretty active during the wd actually. After two weeks, it was totally over. And with SSRI wd-s the good thing is, you don`t crave the drug, which makes things a hole lot easier.

And to make things smoother, you can taper ofcourse. That`s actually what my doctor suggested, but I wanted a change fast.

Good luck :)
 
Venlafaxine worked terrible for me. It was anxiety in a bottle.

I am going to move this to mental health, OP :)
 
Its a very strong antidepressant.

Can't say I've gone through SNRI withdrawal but I'm going cold turkey off paroxetine now and it supposedly produces the worst withdrawal of the class. Hang in there!
 
I was on venlafaxine for a while. Worked great at first, but pretty soon I started becoming (more) psychotic than I was... and I was getting brain zaps before I could take my next scheduled dose! (I can't remember if it was XR or not.) Getting off it was no fun at all, but once the zaps went away things became better.

As the others have said, good luck and hang in there! You will get through this; just be patient. I hope you find something that works well for you, whatever it may be.
 
If you are withdrawing from Effexor, make sure you taper properly and take the lowest dose that's produced. Don't decide to quit taking Effexor without consulting your doctor.

I've taken Effexor, but it made me feel like I was a zombie and I didn't care about literally anything.
 
I`ll add to my previous post that I do not recommend cold turkey as I did. I`m a very impatient person and the fact I did and ignored my doctor`s situation does not mean others should.
 
Wow, thanks for the replies guys. Gives me some comfort that I'm not alone at least.

I couldn't sleep for beans last night so took a fair amount of diazepam, which is prescribed to me, and I ended up waking up about 4PM and missed my 8AM Venlafaxine dose by 8 hours. I took it as soon as I woke up but I felt absolutely horrible up until about 9PM. I honestly felt like death. This has just reinforced my feelings that it's not something that I want to be taking anymore, I hate to be so dependent on something.

Max2x, thanks for your input - I appreciate it. I've never actually heard of Bupropion, just reading up on it now. I do like how you mentioned about suggishness because Venlafaxine does make me incredibly zombie like. I'm just writing my dissertation for my masters of law degree, I'm so close to finishing and graduating but I have zero energy or 'botherdness' to carry on which is killing me. I probably sleep 12 hours a day and for the other 12 hours I just daze in and out of daydream mode.

I've had enough of the horrible lucid dreams, my mum passed away 6 years ago and I always have a recurring dream about her which is quite distressing. In the dream I see her and ask her why I can see her, I've got quite used to it now and I soon pick up that I'm in a dream and wake up. I used to like it because it was nice to be with her, but now when I realise it's just a dream I find it so distressing.

You guys have given me a bit of confidence to go and see my GP about it. It definitely worked for me in the past and because it's not working now I just shrugged it off - so it's quite nice to relate to those who've said they've experienced the same.

For those who said they've come off of Venlafaxine, did you choose to be medication free or did you try another medication?

Really, really do appreciate the input. So good to know that other people can relate to how I feel.

Thanks guys :)

Rybee x
 
Rybee said:
who've said they've experienced the same.
For those who said they've come off of Venlafaxine, did you choose to be medication free or did you try another medication?
Click to expand...

I went on another anti-depressant, I've been on all the SSRI's/SNRI's (no MAOI's or tricyclics). From my years as an amateur anti-depressant literature researcher- I'd say bupropion might be a good place to start. It doesn't have the same side effect profile (sexual side-effects) and withdrawal syndrome as with the SSRI class of AD's, but it was super-activating for me. I was like hypo-manic on it (I have to admit I loved that aspect of it). However, like all other anti-depressants in my case, it just stopped working after a while. I think just about all psychiatric drug interventions have to be viewed in that light- they'll just give you a leg up for a bit while you use therapy to re-learn how to live better.
 
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