Calendar and Bead Counting

I have decided to start my withdrawal on August 2nd, not the 1st since it falls on a Sunday. I also have decided that I am going to be using the bead removal method decreasing 10mg a week until I reach my goal of NO EFFEXOR! I made an excel file with the exact count of balls and time I will be doing each, I will post a picture below. I am also going to be dropping more slowly when I reach the 30mg dosage since I have been frequently seeing that the withdrawals start to get worse around this dosage. I will only take out 5mg per week when I get to 30mg. So it will take me about 4 months to completely withdrawal. November 28th will be my last day! Here is a sample of what one of my calendars look like:

For example on August 2nd I will be taking 140mg which is 140 Balls, I will have removed 10 balls in one capsule. On the 31st I will be down to 100mg and 100 Balls, taking out 50 balls. I will be sure to count the balls in the capsule because the effexor xr generic has significantly less balls, which I think is better. I read somewhere that the non-generic has about 400 balls? All I know is that I am taking it slow. I am using this method because I know the effects of withdrawal that I felt from just missing a single dose of Effexor. It wasn't fun. Speaking of side effects, I was just thinking about making a list of the "strange feelings" that I have been having for the last 6 years on Effexor. Here are a couple I thought of:

• Vertigo & Dizziness - Contstantly feeling like my ears are full and my equillibrium is off. This was even worse when I was taking trileptol. So bad that I couldn't go into large stores like home depot, the isles would make me too dizzy. Now it is better, but still there.
• Nausea
• IBS - I am not sure if this is a life long one or due to Effexor
• Foggy Mind/Confusion - I have always been quick to thoughts and such, I have noticed and it has gotten progressively worse that I don't think as clearly as I used to. I sometimes have a very hard time finding a specific word.
• Sweating - I sweat constantly and I also get hot flashes.
• Anxiety - I grew up being very social and not having much anxiety. Ever since I started antidepressants I find myself being anxious talking to strangers and sometimes even friends/family. I get this feeling of being uptight.
• Feeling my heart jump - This doesn't happen all the time, but I do get it enough to talk about it. I sometimes feel this faint tremor or funny beating which happens only for a second or two.
• Headaches - I remember having my first "migraine" in the rehab right after starting Effexor/other drugs. I have learned to live with this splitting pain in usually half of my head every time I get a headache.

That is about it. I'm sure there is more and I'm sure that I will think of them later.

For now I am going to go buy a weekly medicine holder so that I can open my capsules ahead of time and make weekly batches. I'm thinking this will help me not make any mistakes!

Vitamins and Supplements

I just ordered these vitamin/supplements from amazon:

• Solaray - B-Complex, 100 mg, 100 capsules
• Vitamin C 1000mg Two Stage Time Release - 250
• Ultra Omega-3 (500 EPA / 250 DHA) 180 sgels
• Source Naturals Magnesium Malate, 1250 mg, Tablets, 360 tablets

I am hoping these help in my journey to withdrawal! I have done a lot of reading from others who have had the experience and took tidbits from them on what to do. I appreciate the vast amount of people who are making posts and blogs about Effexor withdrawals and congratulate those who have successfully come off of it! Your posts make me strong.

Here is another link to posts I have been reading:
http://www.steadyhealth.com/How_To_Reduce_Effexor_Withdrawal_Symptoms_t200730.html

More later...

Books, Schedules and Checklists

I am reading a book called "The Antidepressant Solution." It has great detail on how to successfully taper off a wide variety of drugs. I have also found some good links today on people going through similiar withdrawals:
http://www.topix.com/forum/drug/effexor/T5BFCFPKBBB0625NP

I am going to use the bead method for tapering off Effexor. I cannot decide how to do it yet, whether it be 3 beads a day or 10 per week. I do know that I have an amazing husband who is willing to stand by my side even if I "go crazy" as I told him. Without him I fear I would have been on this addictive drug forever.

I have decided that I will be doing a check list every day of withdrawal symptoms to monitor how I feel. I will also be allowing my body to taper correctly, meaning I will not go down to a lower dose unless I feel stable enough to do so. I have read that many times you will feel the effects of tapering happening too quickly. Which makes me think I will be doing the 10 beads per week. I have counted the beads in my generic effexor XR 150mg and there are 150 beads. They are all around the same size. I noticed about 5 which are smaller, but I don't think that matters that much. So apparently there is 1mg in each bead. So on the first week I will be at 140mg, then 130mg and so on. If I feel significant symptoms of withdrawal during any week, I will wait antoher week to taper it down. This is not a race and it took 6 years of my life being on this drug, I don't expect to feel wonderful too quickly without it.

Oh, I am also going on a new schedule routine. I am infamously bad with schedules. I go to sleep late, I wake up late and I don't eat at proper times. I want to change these things. I decided to make a schedule that includes eating, working out, working on my business and relaxing, etc. I believe that following a structure will make the withdrawal effects less noticable. I will be focusing more on my new schedule than only on how I feel. That is what I am hoping for. Plus, the exercising/eating better will help me shed some pounds that I have definately gained in the last few years.

All and all I am exicted for this new change.

My Happy Pill Story

It is July 28th, 2010. I am going to start tapering off Effexor XR 150mg on August 1st. I am excited about this and also scared. I am at the point that I am ready to be free of drugs though. I am finally at a point in my life that is calm. I have a wonderful husband and a wonderful future to make happen. The tapering of this drug is going to take me a few months. I have been researching and reading so many message boards and blogs on "effexor withdrawal" that I decided to make one myself. I want to share my story with others that are going through the same thing I am. I want to spread the truth about antidepressants and other drugs that we are being lied to everyday about from our doctors. The doctors don't know any better though; they only know what they are told by the companies with the money. They know what the girls in business outfits give them samples of.

I am going to stop being cynical and get back to the reason I am writing. I have decided that I am going to take control of my life and embrace my true happiness. Here is a little back story about me:

When I was 15, I was prescribed Serefem (which is basically prozac) for "PMDD." PMDD was supposed to be causing my bad cramps and emotional times around my period. I truly think that PMDD was just made up to sell more prozac. It didn't affect me much, my teenage years were okay. I was prone to depression but I thought it was normal. Then when I turned 20 I became manic after taking small doses of amphetamines (diet pills) mixed with smoking weed and having high ups (my business making a lot of money) and very low downs (my grandma dying and my father in general.) I was going through a lot of emotions too quickly and wanting more out of life. I wanted to work hard, study more, party more, love more. I just wanted more. Soon enough I was in the hospital with full blown "psychosis" and a diagnosis of Bipolar. It is completely accurate that I went through psychosis. That was a journey that was unlike no other and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. However, I don't regret it. I wouldn't be who I am today unless these things happened to me. Anyway, I was in and out of psych wards and holding buildings due to my family thinking I was a harm to myself. The doctors couldn't come up with a diagnosis for a long time, which is why I don't truly believe I am "bipolar." I believe I went through psychosis. In actuality, if psychosis happened to me in the 40s I would have probably been doomed in able and had a lobotomy. If it happened to me 20 years ago they would have labeled me "schizophrenic." Bipolar is just the new way of saying your crazy in my view. So why did I go through psychosis? Anyone can go through psychosis for a variety of reasons. I have done my research and it seems to me that psychosis is a re-evaluation of your brain. It is simply your ego restarting itself. I read a book about psychosis and it helped me greatly see that I wasn't the outcast I believed myself to be. It actually made me happy that I went through the experience to come out the better person I am today.

Onto the pill part. I have taken a lot of drugs. Antipsychotics, antidepressants, etc. I was on geodon, cymbolta, serefem (prozac), effexor, trileptol and trazadone. I am probably forgetting some but I will digress. The antipsychotics took me out of my psychosis but they made me feel like a child and a zombie. Eventually I kept having more episodes of severe depression. It wasn't quite psychosis, it was being suicidal. I felt like no one truly understood me. I felt like others would be afraid of me if I told them what I went through. I thought that my family was afraid of me "going crazy" again. I just didn't want to exist most of the time. I am sure the side effects of the drugs had a lot to do with the suicidal feeling, but doctors still said it was because I was bipolar and a bipolar person gets extremely high and extremely low, being in the extreme low would cause suicidal thoughts. Whatever. Sounds logical, but after going through an experience and now experiencing the side effects of antipsychotics, and antidepressants, I was probably just not in the mood to live, strange as it sounds. Eventually I started drinking a lot and kept ending up in the same holding place for being who were suicidal and harm to themselves. My family found a rehab that said they took in people who were majorly depressed. They also did drug addicts and eating disorders. I ended up staying there for 30 days. This is when I was put on effexor for depression, trileptol for mood stabilization and trazadone for insomnia. I felt the normal side effects of all of them but my doctor said I had to keep taking them to feel the good effects. I became stable and not suicidal by the time I left the rehab. I still wasn't right though. It is hard to explain but I felt strange. I swallowed my strange feelings and went on with my life. I promised myself that I wouldn't "go crazy" again and these strange feelings are just part of who I am as a person. I still thought that going through psychosis that there must be something chemically wrong with me so of course I will feel strange. In actuality I think now it is the side effects for the drugs that I have been on for 6 years now. Don't get me wrong, I think it was probably right to put me on these drugs at this time in my life as it is for many. I think that the drugs gave me a "bandaid effect" which helped me hurdle the depression I had for my experience through psychosis. I just wish that my doctor would have told me the withdrawal effect of Effexor. This is why I am writing this blog.

I have successfully come off of trileptol and trazadone last year. My husband noticed that my vertigo and sense of claustrophobia went away after I stopped taking the trileptol. My "mood stabilizer" wasn't even stabilizing my mood; it was just making me dizzy, dizzy and anxious. I found out that the dose I was on wasn't even high enough to do what it was suppose to do; it was only high enough to give me the side effects. Trileptol wasn't hard to come off of, nor trazadone. I still have the trazadone that I periodically take when I can't sleep. I really don't like doing that though, so I will probably stop. Onto: Effexor. My doctor originally said that I would be able to come off of all the drugs except for Effexor. He said I should take this drug for the rest of my life. At the time I didn't care so I didn't question him. He even said in the future when I get pregnant I could be on effexor and it would be fine. Really? I didn't feel that terrible so I thought maybe Effexor was my wonder drug. The strange feelings were still there, but I was happy none-the-less. I met the love of my life and realized that we might someday have a child. I was happy to think that I could still be on my wonder drug while being pregnant someday in the future. So then why would I want to taper off my wonderdrug? A few weeks back I ran out of my prescription of Effexor and was given the generic for the first time. I am not sure if that matters or not but I accidentally forgot to take it ONE day. I didn't realize it until later in the night when I started having those "strange feelings" of mine but elevated. They were all there, the nausea, the high feeling, the ice cold sweating; feeling like my brain was going through some kind of crazy shock treatment. I then realized I didn't take my medication and went to the computer to look up what happens when you miss ONE SINGLE DOSE of Effexor. I was shocked to see the vast amounts of message boards, blogs and answer sites that had people saying how terrible they felt on withdrawal of Effexor. Even missing one single dose can put someone through complete hell for 2 weeks. I decided that this is no way to live life. When someday my husband and I decide to have a child, I will definately not put that child through the hellish withdrawal from effexor straight out of the womb. I feel so bad for all of you who have been given Effexor for simple things such as headaches and slight anxiety. I will get through this though, and I hope everyone who tries to withdrawal does successfully and posts their stories to help others who have been blindsided to believe in the wonder drugs of society. I will post more later on how I will start my withdrawal from Effexor.