The First Week off of Effexor...

Monday, November 5th, I took my last dose of 150mg of Effexor and I thought to myself. Do I really want to keep going? Anti-depressants have not really done me any favors. Hell, I think they are ruining my life. Why do I want to continue to intoxicate my brain with this bullshit anymore! This was the day that I stopped cold turkey.

Tuesday, November 6th, extreme exhaustion  Luckily  I had the day off and just moped around the apartment all day. I took a nap during the afternoon and I felt better. Not much more here....

Wednesday, November 7th, Well hello withdraw side effects. It's funny, I didn't even realize what it was until after I went here: http://forums.webmd.com/3/anxiety-and-panic-disorders-exchange/forum/3049?pg=24#355 I was starting to experience every single one that people were talking about:
- moderate nausea
- exhaustion
- headaches (you'll laugh about this if you know me personally. I'll get into that whole can of worms later)
- Sinus pressure including a runny nose that would turn dry and bleed
- light headed

Thursday, November 8th, and here we go.... I felt more of the same from yesterday but now include:
- Vertigo
- Vivid Nightmares
- Brain Zaps

Friday, November 9th, exact same symptoms as yesterday. I believe this is how I'm going to feel until I can ride the wave out.

-The nausea is moderate and becomes more severe as the day goes on. I do fear that I'm going to probably sick up at least once by the end of this purely from the nausea. Eating food makes me feel worse even though I feel starving. The food goes down just fine if I eat early but once I've had my fill (which appears to be much less than a normal meal aka half a sandwich) I'm done. I believe that the smell of food would set me off right now. It's 5:45pm and I'm pretty sure I wont eat dinner. I think I can work on the nausea with some medication that I have left over from my anxiety because it used to make me feel like I was going to be sick every morning. I'll try and bring those with me and see if that helps.

-Exhaustion is pretty moderate, leaning towards severe. I'll need a nap when I get home. Even though I went to bed at midnight, I tried to wake up around 7:30 and it just was not happening. I stayed in bed for an extra hour before I finally pulled myself up and out of the house.

-Headaches, well, I don't really notice any major changes in my current pain. Again, I'll talk about this in greater detail in tomorrow's post. So, if I'm experiencing "headaches" as a symptom, I don't really know.

-My sinus pressure isn't so bad today. The drippy nose is gone but I still feel... "boogery"? yeah, I'm just going to call it that. Where you feel like your nose is just stuffed and gross. Not pain really, just sort of hanging about like it could turn into a sinus infection if I don't keep up with my fluids.

-Lightheadedness/ Vertigo are going to go in the same category because I'm feeling both right now. Vertigo comes and goes but it's pretty light. Mostly just feels like my world is randomly shifting if I move too fast.

-Vivid Nightmares... HOLY CRAP! I had two yesterday after a nap and damn! I woke up with my heart racing and then my next thought was I should totally make these into slasher films! I'm actually sort of excited about these because most of the time, they are lucid dreams so I don't wake up in a panic like it's real or anything. I guess I just have a whacked out imagination :-)

-Brain Zaps if you aren't aware are freaking crazy. It sort of feels like your brain just got shook up and thrown into tank of very angry electric eels. It's sort of a hazy feeling when it does occur. My vision instantly goes blurry and all thoughts are gone for a second. Some say that they hear stuff, sometimes I do in my ears like when you hear wind blowing really hard outside your window. Your hearing gets muffled as well during this time so I'm guessing that's why people hear stuff. /shrug. I don't know. I just roll with the punches.

I will continue to keep a journal of how things progress throughout this crazy time. There are loads of people out there who want off of this horrible stuff and are scared. To be quite honest, I think anti-depressants really wasn't the answer for me after all of this. Even if I was diagnosed with Severe Depression. My doctors should have told me what this was going to be doing to my body!

I will not rage about that now.... Perhaps later :-)

~Ash