Hi

Hi I only started these in July and I'm on 300mg and feel terrible if I forget to take it I take 150 in morning and 150 at yea time but I feel so tired with it I to am a mother of 2 and feel like I've already put my family through so much I now take 150mg pregablin day and night this helps my anxiety. I hope you feel better soon💗🙂

This medicine helped me immensely but I also noticed shakey and emotional if I forgot or if I were late taking it, but its the one drug which helped and gave me a full life back, its a bugger going off also I know also but the pros outweigh the cons for me. Hang in there.

Hi Steph,  I'm sorry you are in this state.   Are you still experiencing anxiety and depression on 225 mg ven?  Ven has a very short half life, 15 hours, so when we miss a dose we pay the price!  Imagine doing a cold turkey stop!  Not advised!  It is a sad state of affairs when a drug makes us keep taking it because coming off is so difficult.  This is withdrawal, which is caused by a dependency, not because you "must need" the drug.

It is possible to get off of Ven safely, but doing so requires a very slow taper.  You are obviously quite sensative to the drug and so will likely do best to taper at a rate of 10% of the previous dose per 3-4 weeks.  That can even be too much for some, in which case 5% is better. 

Of course, the pills aren't made in such increments, and the doctors only seem to know how to work with how the pills are dosed, so they tell their patients to wean down by increments of how the pills are made (75 and 37.5 mg in the case of the XR version).  But this means a 50% cut each time!  It is much too much!

If you are still having depression and anxiety despite 225 mg, then it isn't working for you anymore.  Did it ever work?  For some, it works in the short term, but then symptoms recur.  In actuallity, this is tolerance withdrawal, meaning that you start to have withdrawal symptoms even though the dosage hasn't been changed.  

If I were you I would look into counseling to help you learn skills to deal with your emotions, because the drugs only ever put a bandaid on your emotions, blunting us so we don't care.  That is what happened to me:  19 years of being on ADs and still feeling depressed and lacking feelings of self-worth, low self-esteem, negativity, etc. that have always been a part of my life.  I am now finally learning to love myself, nurture myself, and deal with the emotions, something I wish I had learned years ago rather than numb out on the pills.

So, if you wish to come off Ven, you can do it. If you are only staying on because you fear how you feel when you have missed a dose, that is not a good enough reason.  These drugs have negative health consequences over the years.  

I have created a thread to refer to on how to come off psych meds safely, for those who wish to do so.  https://patient.info/forums/discuss/withdrawing-from-antidepressants-and-benzos-safely-485891?page=0#1809368