Hi, I suffer with Chronic Pain and take Effexor XR for depression/anxiety. I was taking paxil, but it did not work as good as it should, so my doc switched me to Efexxor XR.
3 months ago I tried to quit the Efexxor cold turkey, after 3 days I had this on again off again feeling of electric shock in my head and extreme dizziness. I also had a few strange siezure-like episodes, the only way to describe them is to imagine just sitting in a chair, relaxing, reading a book or listening to music and then zap!, your entire body goes into a convulsion for like 1 or 2 seconds. It happens so fast that you arent even sure if it actualy did happen. It is like my brain was short circuiting or something.
I heard that if you are trying to detox from effexor or paxil, it is easier to switch to the opposite drug and then taper down for a month. For example, you want to get off of effexor, so you switch over to paxil, then taper off the paxil over the course of the month. The brain zaps are supposed to occur less frequently doing it this way. I am seriously considering doing this as I need to get off of effexor, but I do not want to go through all the strange and unpleasant withdrawl symptoms.
As far as ssri's effecting opiate pain medication, I have heard that too. I wonder how much validity there is to this theory?
Thanks for listening, and good luck in trying to get off of the depression medicine.
peace
terry
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