p.s. what was your name before "Washing Machine"?
He was Calandale. He and a few other people thought that it would be fun to change their names and avatars every week.
What were you taking before, how long has it been, and did you withdraw gradually or just stop taking it cold turkey?
thanks, all these name changes are confusing. oh well.
i was on effexor xr for almost three years. i have been thinking and planning of going off of them for over five months and i booked three weeks off work so that i didn't have any outside responsibilities to attend to. the average dosage is 150mg a day. usually when coming off of effexor, the dosage is reduced by 37.5mg then you let your body stabilize and repeat. it's also a similar process going on it. i only took 37.5mg per day to begin with so withdrawing gradually wasn't an option. also it has very strong acclimation/withdrawal symptoms so alternating daily dosage (ie, take one and then the next day not take one), is really hard on your body since you would withdrawal one day and then the next day you would acclimate. also, effexor at different dosages changes different neurotransmitter patterns. generally speaking, the low dosages target anxiety patterns and the high dosages target depression patterns. you need to let your body get used to the new dosage "step". i am fortunate that my body doesn't react that way to it so the physical withdrawal consisted mainly of altered auditory and visual sensations. i also had altered nerve sensations where i would get random firings of nerves that felt like little bolts of electricity traveling along my body. that didn't hurt for me (some people get severe nerve pain if they even miss one dose by a few hours) since i love the tingly feeling of small amounts of electricity and it made me laugh every time it happened. for me acclimating (going onto the medication) was worse than coming off. when i first started taking it, i was extremely nauseous and that feeling was so strong that it dampened out all of my other senses. and, of course, since the medication is a psychotropic, going on and off if will cause temporary emotional turbulence as your body finds its new equilibrium.