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Ilyas Mohamed's avatar

Thank you for this piece @wairimu ,

when coming of the medication did you taper it off , meaning progressively lowering the dose of the medication until you do away with it

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Wairimu Ndung'u's avatar

Hello Ilyas,

Thank you so much for reading and your question. I really appreciate your keen interest.

For venlafaxine, I tapered to the lowest dose before getting off. I had been taking it for four months at that point starting at the lowest dose 37.5 mg for a month, 75 mg for two months, and finally 37.5mg for a month before getting off.

From what I understood, this drug has a shorter half-life so I may have needed another short-term drug to help with the most difficult symptoms in the withdrawal phase. However, I found that self-driven psychoeducation helped me get through that taper and again when I got off Concerta for ADHD a month later. I just wished my psychiatrist would've initiated this as part of treatment and quality standard of care.

I feel it was a trade-off in that a slower taper for Venflaxine may have meant staying on a drug I no longer needed considering long-term side effects. It also didn't align with my treatment goal at the time —finding the right maintenance drug hence switching to a mood stabiliser (lamotrigine).

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

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