Depression

Over two weeks since I stopped taking Effexor.

I'm not having any headaches, but I feel so, so down. Like it's never going to get better.

I don't know if it's related to my brain adjusting to not being on the drug anymore, or if this is just my natural state.

I'm sleeping some 16 hours a day most days, and I wish everything else would just go away. I can't take it.

Update

I guess I haven't updated in about a week.

I took my last Effexor capsule over a week ago, and I never got the bad week that I expected to receive.

I do feel depressed again, however, when I hadn't been feeling so "down" without reason in a while.

I hope it is just a temporary valley.

So far, so good.

Updates:

- I'm still doing well. Well enough that I let myself have some caffeinated tea, when I had been avoiding caffeine for over a week because it accentuated the crazy.

- Due to a whole lot of combined reasons, my sleep schedule is all thrown off. Lately, I've been sleeping some 12-16 hours a day, and then I'm feeling overactive at night. I can't really blame this on withdrawal; I've been over-sleepy for years, and it was one of the main reasons I went onto antidepressants in the first place.

- I saw a sleep doctor yesterday. She was upset the first time I saw her, about two months ago, when she learned that I was taking Effexor, since the drug obscures diagnoses for the sleep study I was about to take. She was glad that I was aiming to get off of it. She has written my psychiatrist that in her opinion a mood stabilizer (like Lamictal) or a stimulant patch (Daytrana) would be better things to try for my sleepiness problems than something with the ups and downs that Effexor tends to give.

- I am very thankful to be on the sertraline. It seems to be what has made this withdrawal very bareable. :)

Cold Turkey(ish)

Whether it was a good idea or not, I haven't had any Effexor at all in about 36 hours.

My psychiatrist suggested tapering it down much more slowly than that, over a period of months actually. And I was discouraged, because then I'd be feeling cruddy over a period of months.

It's still Spring Break now; I'd rather feel hellish now and get it over with instead of consistently bad over an even longer period of time.

And has it been hellish? No, not yet. I'm having a horrible headache right now, and I can't sleep at all (which is, again, very strange for me), but no mood swings. Again, I think the Zoloft helps.

If it gets too horrible, I'll consider taking one of the 37.5mg capsules. I guess I'll know in a day or two whether I can handle this or not.

Wyeth's "Dialogues" website

In a sample pack of Effexor XR that my doctor gave me, there was a website "http://www.mytime2talk.com/" given as a resource that led to a WebMD site:

Dialogues: Time to Talk

I signed up for it today, and it's really corny.

Notes about this site:
* Every single page has a long list of warnings at the bottom, including the warnings about prescribing to adolescents and the warnings about mood swings when upping or lowering the dose. Only the official Wyeth page seems to mention brain shocks/zaps, however.
* There is a "Commit to Success" contract, which is incredibly cheesy.
It states:

I will
* Educate myself about depression and the ways it can be treated
* Take my medication as prescribed by my doctor
* Consult with a health care professional when I have questions about any aspect of my treatment
- [your name here]

#2 of that list makes me a little uneasy, since it is a corporate-affiliated site that does stand to make a lot of money if you don't question taking your medication.
* They'll apparently be sending me things in the mail. It was unclear what they'll be sending. Hoping they are honest about keeping my information secure, though.
* Except for the list of psychology-related addresses and the links that go directly to the Wyeth site, the text on these pages is on a really low level.

I wouldn't really recommend it.

How many beads are in a capsule?

Day 7 : Kind of dizzy. A bit of a headache. No major problems.

I thought it would be a good resource to count the number of "beads" in a capsule of Effexor XR so that if I were to taper down to less than 37.5mg I could know how many beads to mix into food/drink.

I counted all the beads in one 150mg capsule, a 75mg capsule, and a 37.5mg capsule, and got this:

150mg Effexor XR capsule : 486 beads
75mg Effexor XR capsule : 228 beads
37.5mg Effexor XR capsule : 124 beads

The size of the beads varies by a little bit, and I counted all conjoined-twin beads as one bead.

So, from this:
Half of a 37.5mg capsule : about 60 beads
One quarter of a 37.5mg capsule : about 30 beads
...And so on.

If I had an accurate scale here, I'd compare the contents by mass as well.

Day 6

Day 6: Not horrible today. Kind of moody in the morning.

Staying off of caffeine really helps avoid bad mood swings, although that isn't a terribly fun option for someone like me who often takes in a lot of coffee, tea, and caffeinated diet sodas.

But I'm still more wakeful than usual, for some reason.

Day 5, I

Day 5, morning : Caffeine makes things much, much worse.

If more obligations/responsibilities pop up for me today, I will likely start crying. I don't think I could take it right now.

Day 4, I

Day 4, morning : Pretty snappy/irritable early on, but again fine within an hour or so of taking my morning dose. Still doing fine, except for a mild headache.

This is setting itself up to be a pretty boring blog, isn't it?

Day 3, III

Uh oh. Okay, I'm still feeling physically okay, but my emotional state has just taken a swing downward.

I'm not crying, especially because I do realize what is going on, but I am feeling especially hopeless, with low self esteem, at this time.

I'm going to go make some tea and hope that helps.

Day 3, II

By this point, I didn't actually expect to be doing this well. I can't complain though. :)

When I've missed doses in the past, or when I went down in dosage of Effexor about half a year ago, I was definitely having very bad physical and emotional symptoms within three days.

Right now, I feel like my coordination is kinda shot, and my hearing seems not as good at the moment, but I am otherwise doing okay. I haven't had to take Ibuprofen today.

Maybe the twice/day dose of generic Zoloft is doing a lot of good in staving off withdrawal badness. I hope it stays that way.

Day 3, I

Day 3, morning : This morning felt sort of ominous. I was starting to feel some strange sinus pressure, more mild, localized headaches (different from migranes, but thankfully not as painful), and I was starting to feel emotionally fragile.

These are the first emotional symptoms I've experienced since I went down in dosage. I feel like a small part of me wants to cry, but I don't have any idea why or what about.

When I took my 150mg dose in the morning, the problems receded within an hour.

Avoiding withdrawal

Day 2 : Still some headaches, but they are manageable.

I have some hope that, unlike time I tapered down from 375 --> 300 mg, I have better sources of information about how to remedy, and perhaps even avoid, some of the really negative withdrawal symptoms.

A lot of people on different forums seem to be suggesting that Benedryl, or other sinus headache medication, may alleviate some of the strange headaches and flu-like symptoms.

Some anecdotal comments suggest that taking in good levels of Omega-3 fatty acids does a lot of good during SSRI/SNRI withdrawal, and I luckily do have a diet that does have high levels of Omega-3s (both ALA and DHA).

Also, at least one report (found here) mentions a case where 50 mg/day of sertraline (Zoloft) lessened Effexor withdrawal problems. I have been taking 75 mg/day of sertraline myself since the last time I took down my dosage of Effexor.

So, anyway, I'm hopeful. But I also remember it takes a good two or three days for the withdrawal symptoms from tapering down to kick in, so I am also watchful.

Day 1/2

On Monday, I took my morning dose of 150 mg Effexor XR, along with my other medications (50 mg generic Zoloft, 5 mcg of Cytomel) as usual, but that evening I didn't take my second 150 mg Effexor capsule. On Tuesday morning, I took the first 150 mg capsule again, and again left out the evening dosage.

Day 1 : Nothing terribly unusual, except that in the morning I was so awake that I needed no caffeine at all (which is very unusual for me). Headache in the afternoon, went away with Ibuprofin. Very sleepy in the evening, falling asleep during TV shows.

Day 2, morning : Woke up not remembering if it was yesterday or today. Still feeling alright. Headache in the morning, kind of localized to the left-front side of my head. Memory is slightly worse than usual, and I keep blanking when trying to recall recent events or relatively easy words/names.

So far, so good.

First Post!

Hi everyone.

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle the next few days/weeks(/more?) as I try to taper off of Effexor XR after being on the drug for over three years.

Don't get me wrong; the drug worked for me when other antidepressants didn't. But the side effects are awful.

The last few months, at 300 mg/day of Effexor XR (the extended release form), have in many ways felt like a blur. My brain feels blurry a lot. I don't feel like me in a lot of ways.

And if you miss a dose, which I've done several times out of forgetfulness or because I hadn't felt well enough to get out of bed and refill the prescription, it gets *bad*. A handful of times, I've ended up crying hysterically in the waiting room of a drug store just waiting for them to fill the prescription.

I remember on Election Day 2004, when I was taking a much lower dose of the drug, I hadn't refilled my prescription and had been out for two days. I think that's the first time I got "brain zaps," a kind of unpleasant wooshing in the brain, the classic symptom of Effexor withdrawal. Through the day, I was no longer able to turn my head from side to side without the "woosh" feeling, and I spent all my time in lectures that day just trying not to panic and bring attention to myself.

The maximum amount of Effexor XR I have ever been on was 375 mg/day, about six months ago, which in retrospect was much too high. The psychiatrist I had been going to thought that I was upset so often and having so many bad days that upping my dose would be a good idea. At 375 mg/day, I started getting horrible, persistent headaches, and I lost nearly all gauge of time. Against the doctor's instructions (I've made a lot of psychiatrists upset with me, I think), I went down from 375 mg/day to 300 mg/day.

I missed over half the next week's classes and my own teaching obligations that week. Two or three of those days, I wanted to spend the whole time huddled and crying in a corner of the room. I had no control over my emotions at all.

I don't want to be on a drug that has that much power. Maybe I do need to be on some kind of antidepressant, but if I can do anything about it, I don't want to be on one that kicks you in the head if you're late for a dose and leaves you wondering if you're really un-depressed or just so fogged up that it doesn't show anymore.

Spring Break is next week, and so I feel like now is as good as time as any to cut the amount of Effexor again, from 300 mg/day to 150 mg/day. It's a start.

Someday I hope to be Effexor free.