Posted by Jiggitykid on July 27, 2004, at 7:33:46
In reply to Re: Effexor withdrawal?, posted by rolie12 on July 26, 2004, at 22:24:52
I'm not a doctor, but my personal experience is that the zaps will go away after the withdrawal is complete. Your doctor is simply one of the thousands of doctors who has been "convinced" by the drug company that withdrawal doesn't exist.
You *should* begin to feel improvement in about another week, then by the end of the month you should feel more in control. Moodiness and crying jags are also "normal." Very vivid dreams come with the package. Take care driving at night because you might have halo-vision, which goes along with the zaps.
The best things you can do for yourself: 1) Let yourself off the hook. What you are experiencing is normal and not in your control. Give yourself permission to ride it out. 2) Tell those around you (the ones you can trust) what is going on and let them read some of the posts here about withdrawal, so that they can support you and not think you're sick or mean or crazy, etc. 3) Print out the testimonials here (look in the archives) and take the stack to your doctor. She needs to be informed. Whether she'll believe you or not isn't the point. We are not a noisy minority. This is COMMON, and anyone who refuses to believe this is lying to themselves.
ANYONE READING THIS: If you take Effexor, low dose or not, works for you or not - odds are that you WILL experience this withdrawal when you stop.
Please take care of yourself and give yourself time. It will get better - check back here and keep us posted. My withdrawal took the steps of two weeks for the bad stuff, a month for the general stuff (like the mood swings, etc., which my doctor tried to tell me meant that I needed to go back on something), and two months to feel my personality and LIFE come back. Take care!!
poster:Jiggitykid
thread:12459
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040724/msgs/371068.html