Sunday, February 09, 2003

Bye Bye EffexorXR

I'll be very happy when I'm tapered off of the EffexorXR, the side-effects are driving me nutz. Basically, I've gotten well enough for the past 2 months that my last visit to the therapist resulted in the decision that I've undergone enough treatment/meds and that I'm ready to try doing without. (I feel good, I'm content, I have goals and plans - and I have my mental checklists to determine whether I'm doing okay or if I would need to restart treatment.) You can look at that decision as one that is a result of my choosing to "take back control" of the healing process (for the majority of the 8 months, I was very much just following doctor's orders). The funny thing about the disease is that choosing to take back control like that, to say, "hey, I don't want to be taking more medicines, I want to be taking less" is in itself a sign of recovery. (The pharmacologist was getting ready to put me on lithium to attempt to correct what he perceives to be a minor case of bi-polar disorder. At the time of the visit I was okay with the idea, but within a few days I had re-thought the strategic direction that I wanted to go with my therapy.)

So, at the moment, I'm attempting to fast-taper off of the EffexorXR, going from 225mg per day down to zero in a bit under 2 weeks. I've only taken 75mg/day now for the past 3 days (previously I was taking 150mg/day for about a week) and I have 2 pills left. While not as intense as they were a week ago, I'm still having withdrawal in the evenings (I normally take my meds at 9pm). Hopefully, 2 more days of 75mg/day and I'll be through the worst of that as well. If not, I still have one more refill left of (90) 75mg capsules which would let me stretch out the tapering time a bit more.

Oh, and the side-effect that bugs the heck out of me? Those darned falling-asleep twitches when my body attempts to put the muscles into a relaxed state. Basically, it's drift off, twitch (amplified into a full-body or full-limb twitch) awake, drift off, twitch awake, drift off, twitch awake. In certain positions or conditions I can even get into a cycling twitching where it's less then a second between. All of this would be rather scary, except that i can exert conscious control over it (stopping it, sometimes I'm even able to "excite" the phenomena) - which is dandy that I can, except that I'm trying to pass off control to my sub-conscious so that I can sleep! Fortunately, I still have 10 or 20 of the prescription sleeping pills to get me through rough nights when my mind gets worked up over the twitching and I end up staring at the ceiling. (I try not to get upset... but some nights it's just darn annoying, especially if I know I need to get up early the next day). Of course, the downside to the sleeping pills is that I'm a zombie for 8-12 hours (even if I get up at the 8 hour mark).

posted by Wuphon's at 9:55 PM