Replacing Effexor with Prozac

[Shakti]

I am having terrible withdrawal symptoms from Effexor. I was on a small dose 37.5. When I started going to taking them every other day, I became foggy, felt drunk and nauseous. I have been throwing up all morning and didn't sleep last night. I cant seem to get warm. My doctor suggested replacing Effexor with Prozac for 2 weeks, then weaning off the Prozac. Should I just suck it up and withdraw from the Effexor? Would replacing with Prozac help?
Thanks for your opinion.

[salvator here]

Yeah, I know its hard, probably the worst WD symptoms from Effexor even than coming off Tramadol for me. All that.. vomiting and diarrhea for almost a month, and headaches also. It started to subside after the 3rd week and and I started to feel better after a month or about that. You'll feel better, know that it won't last too much longer. That med is brutal to come off. I didn't replace it with another AD med, rather at that time, the doctor gave me ativan to help with the symptoms and it helped a lot to get to sleep. Sleep was the best medicine actually. It's becoming hard to get a doctor to prescribe a benzo these days in the US, but that helped the most.

Just my opinion since you asked.

Good luck :)

[Shakti]

Is atavan compariable to Xanax? I have xanax, but haven't taken any yet.

[salvator here]

Yes it is and if I were you I would go ahead and take it. The Xanax will help you get through this more comfortably IMO; it did for me.

[Shakti]

Ok I'm going to try that. I also got some anti nausea meds (zofran). I'm waiting for that to kick in. How did you taper? My doc is saying one every other day, but that's no good for me. I'm thinking of breaking open capsules and taking away little beads to go more slowly.

[salvator here]

Trying to remember.. I think it was maybe around 2002. Believer it not, I didn't even tell my doctor and went off it own my own, and man it was rough. So I didn't even have any taper. Maybe it would have not been as bad had I tapered off it. I remember being in bed and crying with muscle spasms and sweating profusely and waking up with the bed soaked after nightmares. I was glad to be off it though and I recovered completely from it.

Its hard to tell though, because I was also drinking heavily at that time always felt like crap. I did get through it and didn't replace it with anything. I didn't use ativan every day though, I would skip a day to avoid tolerance.

As far as Prozac, its not all that bad and like Zoloft to me (mild), I was off and on Zoloft throughout the years was even able to get off it without any side effect whatsoever. It sort of took the edge off at times, but was not a magic pill.

What you are going to need to do during this time, is clean living. Eat healthy foods and exercise when possible and work up a sweat. Hot showers also helped me get through it. Drink water.

Of course, take my advice for what its worth and follow your doctors advice. I wouldn't really know about breaking open the capsules and how you would even measure out a dosage, so I guess I wouldn't (personally) do that.