I know exactly how you feel. I Will never be the same and I know it sounds strange, but I've had to grieve parts of who I was that feel dead after going off Effexor. I also take benzos daily, drugs I NEVER took until I had the debilitating panic and anxiety I suffered after Effexor. I was so suicidal for years that I started cutting with razors because I can't kill myself since I have 2 children who need their mother. The biggest frustration through all of this has been that doctors and psychs and even relatives didn't believe what happened to me ...
I have been taking his medication for many years and was never told of the debilitating side effects. I would love to be part of the suit and help.
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I have been on this medication for 22 years - a number of them on Effexor then changed to Pristiq, then back to Effexor xr once the Pristiq (400mg) stopped working & added Sertraline which then gave me Seritonin Syndrome in February 2016. I have tried on many many occasions to stop this drug without success for all the reasons that many others of you have experienced! I have been in and out of hospital since the Seritonin Syndrome with major depression as they stopped the Pristiq immediately which threw me into a major depressions - I experienced HELL first hand and nothing would fix it except ECT, 300mg of Effexor XR, 125mg of Quietapine, and now 100mg of Lamotrigine. I believe that the Effexor & Pristiq have induced Tardive Dysphoria in me and I blame the Pharmacutical companies and Psychiatrists who told me that antidepressants wouldn't do any long term harm! They did help when I needed it but in the long term - they have ruined my life!! I'm scared I will never get off all this medication - especially Effexor XR which I am again trying to get off and have only decreased by 37.5mg and can notice the depression feeling and tingling in my head already. Been very irritable as well, and this is just a small decrease.
I don't think I can do it anymore....I can't feel joy anymore....been three years. I just eat benzos to keep from crying...I'm so numb. I also now take 50mg pristiq...but nothing works since stopping effexor after 11 years.
Hi, after 16 yrs of taking a 75mg dosage. I thought my life was fine, and i no longer needed this drug, since I was only using it to 'prevent' future depressions. I tapered off fine, and thought I was going to be ok, through exercise and healthy eating. However, this last weekend I had a minor disagreement with one of my best friends over something of no importance whatsoever. She stopped talking to me to teach me a lesson, she says she cannot admit certain behaviors from me. My world caved under after this. I feel completely unsupported, like everyone is sick of putting up with me and the world would be better without my shitty personality. But I don't know if this is a realistic assessment of this situation, or it this is the withdrawal talking. I am starting to have suicidal thoughts all the time. I spend all day telling myself that this will pass if I can survive another day, but I am scared. Before I took antidepressants I was depressed, but didn't have suicidal thoughts. What the heck! This stuff is more addictive than heroin. This is such a scam, I am so sad I trusted my doctor unconditionally, even thought I always thought that the argument that I should take it for at least 10 years, to prevent beind drepressed when I was older, was weird. I wish I was living in the USA so I could join your class action, but unfortunately I live in Portugal. Sad.
My mother was trying to taper off this drug under a psychiatrist's supervision. I witnessed the horrible withdrawal symptoms she was experiencing. After several weeks of struggling, she committed suicide. I would be most interested in participating in a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer of this drug.
I have been on Effexor XR for over 15 years and have tried unsuccessfully to completely discontinue this drug. I will be making another attempt to do so again in the next few months with the help of an APRN. However, again, the cost of this process is overwhelming. Insurance does not cover this..at least mine doesn't.
If I would have known then what I know now, information about dependency on Effexor and the SEVERITY OF DISCONTINUATION AND WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS (which was NOT DISCLOSED TO ME BY THE DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED IT OR THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES IT) I would have thought, not twice, but TEN times before ever taking this drug.
SHAME ON YOU MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AND WYETH. You have taken YEARS!!!! from me and then try to tell me "it's your depression or anxiety coming back--you need to stay on the Effexor" when I have experienced withdrawal...and after only 24 hours!!!! All for the benefit of your almighty DOLLAR and drug company kick-backs.
Thank God for the internet and availability of information we have now. I will continue to seek more information about class-action suits in an effort to try and re-coup some of the costs. I'm sorry "guest" was censored so that contact could not be made. Good luck to you and God Bless.
Maybe this is a beneficial drug in some instances but all of us should be in the hospital coming off of it.
Reply to me here if a class action is available in the US. Thank you.
I'm a "spouse of Effexor". This med almost ruined our marriage and my husband's life before I figured out it was the med causing everything I'd grown to dislike and despise in him. When I was figuring it out and researching it, I came across this site (and posted way back then, in 2013) and others (wish I could mention some of these other, very HELPFUL sites, but keep googling and look for forums discussing anti depressants and surviving them). I told him it was me or the med.....
Anyway, my husband has been withdrawing since fall 2013. His highest dose was 187.5 mg. He could take larger drops more often early on, but we started slow (he put me in charge of it) and I only reduced him when he felt okay. From the beginning, I opened the capsules and removed contents. He was on a generic when we started his withdrawal, and I needed a little scale to measure it out, but when his generic came consistently from Teva, I could finally just count out tiny little beads from his capsules (because they were mostly similar in size).
When he was half off, he said he could feel a blanket of fog lift out of his brain, and shortly thereafter, he apologized for all the c**p he'd done that he NOW knew wasn't right. He felt better than he had in a long time, but we wanted him off, so we kept going (since getting totally off is the goal).
Eventually, his ORIGINAL anxiety came back, so he's dealing with that. For a few weeks, he needed Klonopin to function during tense meetings at work, but we stopped and maintained whatever his then current dose of Effexor was for about 6 months until he felt more stable. From then on, I withdrew fewer and fewer beads at each drop. When he got down to 40 beads (approx 40 mg), we withdrew 4 beads about every 6 weeks (or longer if a big work project was in there somewhere and he couldn't afford to be irritable, which followed for a couple of weeks after a drop). When he got down to 20 beads, we withdrew 2 beads per drop. Now at under 10 beads, we only withdraw 1 bead per drop every 2 months. Right now, he's on week three of taking only 8 beads (approx. 8 mg) of generic Effexor per day. It might take another year or so, but eventually we hope he's off this med without any withdrawal effects--not withstanding the original anxiety he's always suffered from.
He hasn't seen his psychiatrist in over a year. She was willing to prescribe him whatever dose he wanted, but she didn't think he'd ever get off it and offered no real help (other than to tell him he'd probably always need meds). He hasn't needed a new script (yet) because as I took out beads from his capsules over the years, I saved them in a container. For awhile now, I've been using empty capsules (purchased from amazon) and counting these beads into the capsules.
I look at it this way: does it matter how long it takes to get off if it means you CAN get off it? If you never start, you'll never know. If you start now and it takes 5 years, you'll be off in 5 years. If you never start, in 5 years, you'll still be on the FULL amount--or higher or mixed with other drugs. I don't see how a person's body can handle this for an entire life. My husband says (and I concur) that if he was still on the full amount, with the way it had affected his life and health, he'd be dead by now.
Good luck to everyone.