Hi, I'm Sheila

Hi @Sheila, welcome! I'm also tapering Effexor. You've been on it for a long time, so take your taper as slowly as your own nervous system will allow. Taper Community recommends a Hyperbolic taper of no more than 10% each month. The doses will therefor get smaller and smaller as time goes on. The greatest changes in the brain happen at very low doses. Are you counting beads for your taper? This is what I do. I've been tapering extremely slowly and it seems to be serving me well. Effexor can be challenging due to its extremely short half-life. Here are some links to get you started: https://taper.community/resources/blog/hyperbolic-tapering-explained https://taper.community/resources/blog/how-to-taper-off-effexor-xr https://taper.community/thread/d41182b4-060b-4c2e-a1e8-da9e6777d7e5 I look forward to us supporting each other as we taper off this drug! Catina ❤️

Hi @Sheila, welcome! I just shared this on another welcome reply but I'll paste it here as well: "I tapered off Effexor over a long period of time, doing the hyperbolic taper, 10% reductions per month. Once I took the final step off it was relatively easy and the withdrawals didn't interfere much with my life. The hard part was sticking to the long taper, as I technically tapered longer than I had initially been on it 😅 Kind of scary as my Dr.'s plan was to reduce the dose by half for 1-week, then stop the next week. However, he was open and receptive to me tapering and said he would share that approach with future patients." At first I opened the capsule, poured out the beads (e.g., 15 beads) and per the capsule lid back on. I would get the month's supply ready in one go. As this progressed, I transitioned to a 0.001 mg scale to speed up the process. I rarely, if ever, noticed any effects when I would step down.