Posted by Dave001 on December 29, 2004, at 20:35:11
In reply to Re: effexor withdrawal symptoms, posted by Stryker88 on December 26, 2004, at 5:41:18
> I am on 150xr and I want off it to, but you guys are scaring the crap out of me. I have gone off Zoloft before but the Effexer hell withdrawl stories sound terrible. I asked my pharmacist and he said Paxil and Effexor are the two worst to get off!!! He said one of his patients went BLIND yiikes from stopping Paxil!!! OH DEAR THIS IS SERIOUS HEALTH CONCERN
What you read here about Effexor withdrawal is not representative of what happens to most people. You must consider that the Effexor patients experiencing the worst symptoms of withdrawal (many of which symptoms may not be causally linked to Effexor) are probably also the most likely to voice their opinion and seek support for their experience. Thus, extrapolating from only one cohort of Effexor users -- the one's experiencing the worst withdrawal, combined with the usual complications of drawing conclusions from a non-controlled environment, is bound to give you a very exaggerated perception of what to expect.
FWIW, I cross-tapered from 450 mg/day Effexor to another drug in a matter of a few weeks, and I did not experience any noticeable discontinuance symptoms. Any pharmacist who would tell you that one of their patients (pharmacists don't have patients, BTW) went blind from discontinuing Paxil is incredibly irresponsible. You might want to ask your pharmacist why there has never even been a case report of blindness following SSRI discontinuation, as such would be quite interesting to the medical community, to put it mildly.
Some people even feel great after stopping their meds; maybe you will too.
poster:Dave001
thread:425043
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041228/msgs/435493.html