Yep Effexor has very hard withdrawal symptoms and the same with paxil. It felt electric zaps in my brain for a while. Combing that with mood swings and getting worse depression symptoms. I hated every part of it and it is overwhelming. I At these withdrawal times I keep reminded myself this is not forever with hope it will get better afterwards. I’m glad I got off these drugs.

Note: everyone’s experience may differ from me or others.

ssxx6767xxss (imported) wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2023 5:55 am Yep Effexor has very hard withdrawal symptoms and the same with paxil. It felt electric zaps in my brain for a while. Combing that with mood swings and getting worse depression symptoms. I hated every part of it and it is overwhelming. I At these withdrawal times I keep reminded myself this is not forever with hope it will get better afterwards. I’m glad I got off these drugs.

Note: everyone’s experience may differ from me or others.

You're the second person in the past, roughly 18-hours I've heard describe the withdrawals from Effexor as "electrical zaps." I was on that drug for a short time, and I didn't feel that sensation when I came off of it, despite not titrating down from it. Yes, not my proudest moment in following care guidelines from my doctors.

I guess I was lucky. Because in addition to yourself and the other person a few hours ago, I've heard many others describe difficulty, and downright agony, coming off that drug when it was no longer desirable to be using it as prescribed.

I had been weaning off of Zoloft 50 mg since March 3. Per my doctor's direction, I am supposed to take 25 mg for 3 weeks, then 12.5 mg for another 3 weeks.

For me, so far, so good.

sftineun (imported) wrote: Fri Mar 10, 2023 5:36 pm I had been weaning off of Zoloft 50 mg since March 3. Per my doctor's direction, I am supposed to take 25 mg for 3 weeks, then 12.5 mg for another 3 weeks.

For me, so far, so good.

That should be the least painful. Withdrawal from Zoloft can be quite a chore, sometimes painful -- i.e., headaches, which can be fierce. OTOH, it is not nearly as painful as withdrawal from effexor, which can be a bear, and can sometimes last 6-8 weeks.

kristoff wrote: Fri Mar 10, 2023 7:36 pm That should be the least painful. Withdrawal from Zoloft can be quite a chore, sometimes painful -- i.e., headaches, which can be fierce. OTOH, it is not nearly as painful as withdrawal from effexor, which can be a bear, and can sometimes last 6-8 weeks.

Strangely, I came off of Effexor with little difficulty. Which was quite surprising to those who knew about it.

And I'm definitely aware those problems exist, and am sympathetic to those dealing with such a withdrawal.

I also don't have problems with narcotic painkillers. I've never understood how people get addicted to them. I had them after my my wisdom tooth extraction, and my penectomy. I took them as prescribed, and when the pain was done, I felt no need to go seeking more.

Guess I'm just weird, or perhaps lucky, on these things.

When I was in rehab recovering from the broken leg and the open-chest surgery that paralyzed me, I was in a lot of pain, so the docs put me on the Fentanyl patch, telling me it was not addictive.... It didn't help all that much, but they claimed not to have a lot else they could do...

Later I was having episodes every few days of severe abdominal cramps, with ballistic vomiting and similar out the other end... Docs said they didn't have a clue as to why, and sent me for a bunch of scans and tests to look for a problem.

I stayed on the patch after rehab and still had a significant amount of pain, so went to a "Pain specialist" doc, who played w/ the dosage and switched me to two smaller patches switching alternately... I still had the vomiting issues, still had pain, and my GF was complaining that I was acting like a real bastard (Fentanyl has a reported side effect of negative mood shifts) plus it was a royal pain to get the scrip renewed every few months....

Finally I decided that it wasn't doing me enough good to be worth the hassle, so I was going to quit.... I had a week or so with no other things planned so I went cold turkey - and had a week of pure hell, cramps, vomiting, screaming shits, etc.... But I stuck it out and after the hell was over felt a LOT better... In retrospect it appears that I was getting the vomiting episodes when the patches were starting to wear out and so starting into withdrawal...

I have since insisted that my health record shows an absolute prohibition on opioids - I went through hell to get that monkey off my back, and I'm not letting it back in the room.... This seems to annoy the docs that want to pump me full of them every time I have any sort of procedure that calls for anesthesia, but I tell them to find an alternative, no matter what....

I will say that this is going to be somewhat of a concern when I go for the surgery, but hopefully they can find non-opioid pain killers - I believe codeine fits that category, and I've done OK w/ Tylenol 3 in the past when I had my wisdom teeth out...

I've ended up off most prescription stuff, including all the pills they like to give SCI patients as I found they didn't do anything for me... Only stuff I'm on now is for blood pressure, omeprazole for reflux, and of course the estradiol patches. I do take a long list of supplements but those don't have the issues the doctors push...

WheelyCurious

From:

Adapted from Sexual Pharmacology Fast Facts By Robert Taylor Segraves, MD Phd and Richard Balon, MD

Published: Sep 15, 2004

https://www.menshealth.com/health/a1952 ... -stoppers/