Withdrawals

Carl,   I feel for you.  Venlafaxine was not the right Rx for me.   And I was on it for a short duration as well.   The withdrawal for some people (not everyone) can be very upsetting.  I can tell you that I wanted off of the drug once I realized all of my symptoms (racing heart, soars in blood pressure, anxiety, irritability, night terrors) were all associated with withdrawal of a medication that was of no assistance to me.    I was erroneously brought up to 300 mg and slowly was brought down to 37.5 XR.  The road from 37.5 to 0 mg was a long one.  It took me a total of 3 1/2 months to finally get off of the medication completely.   

As of 1 week ago, I am drug free.   That is not right for everyone, but that was the best thing for me.  The road from 37.5 to zero was the most difficult.  I would slowly taper and be given different ways of doing it by my PMD and the psychiatrist he referred me to to help me get off of it.  The best solution for me was to count pellets (it must be the XR form though).   I would decrease a couple of pellets every couple of days.  Each pellet is roughly 1 mg.   Each time I dropped 1-2 pellets, I could tell.  I was extremely sensitive to the drug.   But after 2 days I would level out.  The dropping of 1-2 pellets although I could still tell, was manageable.  My doctor did give me some benzodiazepam to assist if the symptoms were too difficult.    I would take one at the end of my work day if I had struggled and was having increased symptoms.   I wanted nothing more than to be off the drug completely, and I wanted to speed the process up.  But slow and steady won the race.  Days that I would drop more than 1-2 pellets, I would have increased irritability and I would end up back-tracking again.   

I am sure that others may say that this is not a good way to do this, but this was the way that worked for me.  The benefit of this group is that you can share from each other's successes and failures.  

Are you trying to go drug free or will you be trying another medication for your anxiety? Maybe you need something like diazepam or propanalol to help with the anxiety? I've been told that sometimes switching to another medication before going medication free helps some people as the side effects are less but as you've already come off ven that's not going to help now. Have you tried sertraline or citalopram before?