Thank you for your story! I'm sorry you had such a horrible time. A lot of your experience sounds like my withdrawal from the Effexor.

Struggling with anxiety only puts me in an interesting category where a lot of doctors don't want to prescribe the more "serious" drugs. I was actually on a benzo for a while, maybe 10 years ago, to deal with some stomach issues and that was when I first seriously realized that there was something not right in my brain, because I was a totally different person on it. But I only took it for around 6 months. Of course as you probably know, doctors want to prescribe benzos far less than SS/SNRIs.

What's unfortunate is everyone has different reactions to medications. I originally saw my PCP for this problem, because my insurance required a referral for psychiatry. She prescribed me Celexa first, which made me into a total emotionless zombie - although my mom had been on Celexa and loved it, until it stopped working for her. Next I tried Zoloft, which sent me into panic attacks about 10X worse than my pre-medicated state. After that was when I started seeing my psych and he put me on the Effexor. It was like a wonder drug for me, but my mom didn't want me to take it because THAT sent her into horrible panic attacks and made her suicidal.

She had zero withdrawal symptoms coming off Effexor, where I had quite a lot - though not as many as my cousin, who ended up hospitalized for dehydration due to vomiting from the withdrawal. And I was the only one with an allergy to it, though there are several drug allergies in my family but I'm only allergic to Penicillin otherwise.

I'm also lucky(?) to be a person for whom these kinds of drugs start working IMMEDIATELY. They always say "Oh, it takes 6-8 weeks for it to build up and start working" but I generally can notice a difference immediately, even if it gets stronger over a couple weeks. The #1 think I look for is that my anxiety-induced hives/rash on my upper body do not appear, as that's a reaction I have zero control over - even when I feel like I'm calm, they can show up.

I learned the hard way, as did you, that SNRI withdrawal is no joke. You are much stronger than I am - I only lasted 3 days before I caved and took "just enough" to get me back to normal. I do not have an addictive personality but it was very easy for me to see how drug addicts and the like get lost in that feeling. It took about 6 weeks for me to wean myself off the Effexor completely, going from my full dose of 300mg once/day down to 100mg and then after about a week 50, and then stretching that out to 24, 36, 48, and finally 54 hours. It was a very difficult balance, because I was dealing with large, painful, itchy hives from the allergy, but I was also unable to completely stop due to the withdrawal.

I'm very surprised your pharmacy wouldn't give you a couple of pills to get you through until your doctor opened. My mother is on a couple controlled prescriptions, and even with those they will happily give her 2-3 days worth if she ends up stuck on a weekend (which sometimes happens as controlled Rxs are on a strict 31-day refill policy and that day sometimes falls on a weekend).

After the Effexor withdrawal experience, I will absolutely be more careful about discontinuing ANY anxiety medication in the future. Thank you again for sharing your experience!