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Anyone else have these withdrawal probs?

Posted , 8 users are following.

infestissumam
infestissumam

Hi there, I've read a bunch of forums talking about withdrawal effects but I haven't quite seen anyone talk about a few symptoms I've had. I get the normal flu-like symptoms and brain shivers, but I also have some weird ones. When I go to sleep, I get horrible sleep paralysis. I'll have it, break myself out of it, go back to sleep, and then get it again and so on. I also get this extremely loud ringing in my ears, so loud that I wake up because my ears are in a lot of pain, but this is normally just when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Anyway, the reason I'm actually posting here is because next week I'm going to start "tapering" off Effexor in the loosest sense of the word. I'm currently at 150mg (after a bad experience at 225mg) and my psychiatrist and I decided to switch medicines. (I have a really bad memory and, as we all know Effexor is pretty unforgiving sad). So, his idea of tapering is to cut to 75mg for a week and then go to Cymbalta. I'm not really sure that tapering over a longer period would do anything than make me miserable for a longer period of time, and I don't have the time to taper for months and months. So, any tried and true methods for helping subdue the symptoms or words of advice would be appreciated. :] Luckily, I'm going to spend that first week of withdrawal at the beach. I started taking it because of really bad anxiety (I have depersonalization/derealization disorder and had a very traumatic experience of depersonalizing for about a 3month stretch... yikes) Thanks for reading my ramblings and have a great day!

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  • penguinteacup
    penguinteacup infestissumam

    Posted

    Hi, I don't have sleep paralysis but I have been getting spasms as I fall asleep like I'll be almost asleep and then my body will jerk and my heart will jump like it's momentarily stopped beating. Like sleep apnoea but dr says it's not that and also it's now happening before I'm asleep. It happens multiple times every night making falling asleep a very lengthy process. I've been reducing venlafaxine for 18 mths but I'm starting to get to really small doses now (under 37.5 MG) so I don't know if this is as a result of that. Withdrawal is a nightmare!
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