Antidepressants - Venlafaxine Withdrawal

Introduction

These notes were prepared from action taken on a programme of venlafaxine antidepressant reduction based originally on information taken from various web sites. This allowed simple and effective elimination of venlafaxine without withdrawal problems. This approach could be used for eliminating other medication which builds dependency. Section 6 also gives details of the complementary activities, which were followed to overcome the depression, none of which were recommended by any of the medical staff involved. Even when the non-medical recipe had clearly worked, the consultant psychiatrist was still in denial with regard to the benefits of the path we had chosen.

This information comes from the information prepared and applied for one person. The writer is not a medical practitioner but does have a technical PhD and was therefore happy to investigate and evaluate information available.

In this case the venlafaxine was not effective in alleviating or eliminating depression but its use did coincide with the appearance of several unwanted side effects; suicidal feelings, shakiness, rapid heart beat, excessive perspiration and at the higher levels a foggy brain preventing any clarity of thought. This is not surprising as, in preparing this note, I have discovered that for most of the period of the illness the prescribed dose was far more than the recommended maximum even though both consultant psychiatrists repeatedly stated that we were well within it.

The approach described here could be used either for elimination or for reducing the dose to find an effective level at which side effects are minimised. The manufacturer’s web site states it to be a good drug because it works in 45% of cases as opposed to only 35 % for other antidepressants. This obviously still leaves a significant percentage who are suffering from the negative effects of the drug but who are deriving little or no benefit.