Posted by Cazzie on October 5, 2001, at 8:41:13
Hi, just wanted to share this with you. I have been on Effexor and Xanax for depression/anxiety for 3 years and various other SSRIs prior to that combo. I want to get off my meds because I want to get pregnant next year.
I wound up addicted to 2mg a day of Xanax after a particularly stressful period in my life. I won't go in to details about how I got on it etc except it was under a doctor's care. I didn't even know I was addicted until a script ran out and I didn't renew it. Two days later I was into the biggest panic attack I had ever had and severe muscle cramps, disorientation, "sponginess" (if anyone understands that feeling- it was like nothing felt solid anymore). After that my doc just prescribed me some more - until recently. I told him I wanted to conceive soon and didn't want to do so while dependent on drugs that would affect my baby.
In his opinion (sorry this is long winded) I hadn't been on a large enough dose to be a problem coming off of it cold turkey and the previous panic attack was a coincidence. Ok says I, bowing to his experience...
You guessed the next bit.
I looked up Xanax withdrawal on the web and found that it is not so much the amount as the length of time on the drug that affects dependence. I took all that info to my doc and he agreed to try a very slow reducing regime and prescribed .25 mg tabs so that I could control the amount of reduction.
Well, I am down to .375mg per day after a few months. I experience a "bump" every .125 reduction and take an antihistimine to help me sleep and analgesic to combat the muscle pain and wait until I am stable for a week before going down again.
So, at this rate I have two or three more weeks to go before I am down to 0! I know these amounts sound really small but the effects on me were not small. I have had no panic attacks and remain on 75mg XR Effexor daily.
Effexor is the next to go I hope. Although Effexor has had the least side effects of any antidepressant I've tried, I do know how nasty coming off it can be - even after just skipping a couple of days while on holiday or whatever I hate the "shock" syndrome.
Thanks to everyone that contributes to this forum it has been a great resource for me over the years.
Caz
poster:Cazzie
thread:80343
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010927/msgs/80343.html