Coming off cold turkey!

[Dan1975]

Hi,

Been on these for about 3 months. 75mg to start, the 150mg for a month. Really struggling with insomnia so have decided to get off them as quickly as possible in the hope of getting a decent night's sleep. Been suffering what I presume are the 'head zaps' and dizzy spells. How long are these likely to last?

I have been put on Mirtazapine, this apparently helps you sleep as well as deal with anxiety. This will be my last shot at the meds as I have had enough of them to be honest!

Dan

[Pipkin]

Hi Dan,

Sorry they've not worked out for you.

I've come off these twice before - both times cold turkey against my GP's advice but I just wanted to get it over with. I really recommend tapering but if you're determined, the effects lasted a couple of weeks for me and then went completely. The first few days were hard but nothing I couldn't cope with.

Good luck and let us know how you're getting on.

Pip

[Lizziesaurus]

Lots of luck with the cold turkey, I couldn't do it! To be honest I looked and felt like I was withdrawing from heroin or something :doh: tapering worked for me in the end, the zaps went after a couple of weeks.

[Richie J]

Hi Dan

I came off 300mg in december and replaced it with mirtazipine. Did a very quick cross taper but when I finally stopped taking I had pretty bad withdrawal symptoms, but luckily they only seemed to last 48 hour (still felt pretty rough for a week or so)

I did find that I started to get really good sleep from the moment that I started taking mirtazipine even before I stopped taking venlafaxine though.

Rich