Hello. I'm a previous longtime member of SA link to my thread.. I have tapered down off venlafaxine, doing my best at a slow managed taper but still had very difficult withdrawals and continue to be ill. I'm still on a low "maintenance dose." I also have developed Cervical Dystonia. I've been on the drug now for about 20 years (as of 2026). Maybe a little longer. I'm pleased to find this site was created. Thank you.

Hi @umbra

Welcome to the forum!

 

This is a volunteer-run, community forum aimed at helping those who are tapering and/or experiencing difficulties with psychiatric medications and withdrawl syndrome. We are not medical professionals and cannot offer medical advice. We simply offer support and opinions which you could use as talking points with a medical provider knowledgeable in withdrawing off psychiatric medications.

 

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8 hours ago, umbra said:

I'm a previous longtime member of survivingantidepressants.org.

Could you confirm your username on SA?

8 hours ago, umbra said:

I have tapered down off venlafaxine, doing my best at a slow managed taper but still had very difficult withdrawals and continue to be ill.

Are you able to update your signature? It stops at 20mg in 2019?

8 hours ago, umbra said:

also have developed Cervical Dystonia

Im sorry to hear

8 hours ago, umbra said:

I've been on the drug now for about 20 years (as of 2026). Maybe a little longer.

It is good you taking a long time to taper, slow is the way to go.

What kind of Venlafaxine are you taking, extended release, or instant release? Also what brand?

8 hours ago, umbra said:

I'm pleased to find this site was created. Thank you.

Pleasure, glad you found us.

In the mean time this is what I would do if I were you:

 

-Stay Hydrated 

 

-Eat a good clean whole food diet, avoiding processed foods and sugars.

 

-Stay away from caffeine, alcohol and antihistamines and any other psychoactive substances.

 

Supplements are to be avoided initially, as they often irritate our nervous systems. Try to get your nutrition through food.

 

Down the line, you may wish to introduce Fish Oil and Magnesium. Those who can tolerate them have found them calming to the nervous system. Be careful try one at a time and start low and see how you get on should you choose to try them.

 

A daily walk is very important as much as you can manage, if you can manage it. Gets you your fresh air and Vitamin D does wonders for your mind!

 

You are very welcome here and I hope you find the site supportive.

Chippy

Thanks Chippy. My username on the SA site is Emma1. It was changed before switching to read only for anonymity.

My signature hasn't been updated since 2019 because I've made no changes since then. Except that I'm taking extended release, varying brands from one batch to the next and likely sloppy dosages, since I'm getting from the farmacias here in South America.

I've joined this site now because last week I discovered they've been breaking down the XR caps into my 10mg dosages (taken 2 times a day). Since then, I've found out reading on the SA site that the XR can be made into immediate release by crushing or dissolving in water before taking.

If you're able, I would like to be pointed to the right place to learn more about tapering. If I want to take more control and start measuring doses for myself, I want to understand whether it's best to count beads or weigh, the methods used, and also how to make liquid doses. Also whether I should continue taking the extended release or crush them to make it immediate release?

I'd thought that dividing the extended release into smaller doses meant you get beads with release times that vary from capsule to capsule, making your dosages vary as to when the drug is going into the system. I don't entirely understand how it works

Any support you can give about understanding more about what it is I'm doing managing my longterm 20mg/day doses would be super helpful. Let me know. Thank you.

1 hour ago, umbra said:

Thanks Chippy. My username on the SA site is Emma1. It was changed before switching to read only for anonymity.

Pleasure, I have updated your link above to be to your thread. Hope that is ok?

1 hour ago, umbra said:

My signature hasn't been updated since 2019 because I've made no changes since then.

Makes sense then!

1 hour ago, umbra said:

Except that I'm taking extended release, varying brands from one batch to the next and likely sloppy dosages, since I'm getting from the farmacias here in South America.

Thank you for confirming. It really is best to stick to one brand. Changing brands has been seen to be destablising.

1 hour ago, umbra said:

I've joined this site now because last week I discovered they've been breaking down the XR caps into my 10mg dosages (taken 2 times a day).

Ok, XR is designed to be taken once a day hence Extended release. Opening the capsules does not make the drug IR. The beads themselves have this technology built into them.

1 hour ago, umbra said:

If you're able, I would like to be pointed to the right place to learn more about tapering. If I want to take more control and start measuring doses for myself, I want to understand whether it's best to count beads or weigh, the methods used, and also how to make liquid doses. Also whether I should continue taking the extended release or crush them to make it immediate release?

Of course. We can help you on here if you need, but here is our tapering guide and document on bead counting to get you started.

Tapering Information

Tapering Capsules That Contain Beads

You are going to want to take this slow as you have been on the drug for a long time.

I would suggest you count the beads and weigh them. To start off, it may be more convienant to just weigh, save counting lots of beads! It is up to you. :)

SA do say you can make a liquid from the beads, we currently suggest tapering the whole way with beads, this does make the final stage difficult to slow taper, you could when you get to that point, look into making the liquid as per SAs guidelines using the beads. https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/forums/topic/272-tips-for-tapering-off-effexor-and-effexor-xr-venlafaxine/

These would then be IR and splitting the dose is required in this case. I believe some do switch to IR for the final stage, so there is another option. But you can deal with this when you get that low.

1 hour ago, umbra said:

I'd thought that dividing the extended release into smaller doses meant you get beads with release times that vary from capsule to capsule, making your dosages vary as to when the drug is going into the system. I don't entirely understand how it works

No it is fine to divide the capsules and count the beads :) There are at least 2 different systems from what I understand, Effexor ER which has different size beads and sorting them into sizes is needed, as explained in our document, or the generic brands which sorting isn't needed and they deal with the XR tech inside each bead, no sorted required or possible. We suggest you discard any odd beads in a generic capsule that are bigger or smaller than the others.

Chippy

Thanks Chippy.

From what I read online the extended release is just a coating on the beads that delays digestion. This can be made into immediate release by crushing the beads, cutting up the tablets, or dissolving in water.

Thanks for the information on this.

7 minutes ago, umbra said:

From what I read online the extended release is just a coating on the beads that delays digestion.

Pleasure.

I believe it is more complex than that to allow the extended release to work. I think it’s released in layers, but either way it is done so each bead is time releasing. As you said if you break the bead or dissolve it in water it becomes ir.

Welcome to the forum.

@Chippy has linked you to some good information guides, as you're familiar with SA, I'd also recommend reading some of the information there- this site is considerably newer than SA.

That's not to say the information here isn't good, or that SA is better. A lot of the information on SA can be quite old. However, it is a good thing to inform yourself as much as possible to make decisions about your health and wellbeing.

Of course, SA is no longer active, and there's no replacement for talking through ideas with others to help you come up with a plan, so it's good that you're here.

Thanks for the welcome.

I've read a bit more this morning but it's a slog dealing with all of it. I'd so rather not. ☹️

At this point, I'm just taking 20mg/day of venlafaxine which apparently is extended release, divided from the 75 or 150mg capsules. I'm not clear on how that works, if the beads are staggered to release over time, and they've been broken out into smaller doses, doesn't that mean I could be getting one 10mg capsule that releases in 2 hours and 4 hours, and the next 10mg capsule with beads that release after 6 hours, 8 hours? What am I not understanding about this. It seems to me this is inherently irregular dosages. I'm wondering what would happen if I dissolve the beads, making it into immediate release. So I'd get 10mg around 8:30am and 10mg around 8:30pm. I'm just concerned what side effects I might get if I make this change so I'm just considering it. Anyone has any thoughts on this?

2 minutes ago, umbra said:

At this point, I'm just taking 20mg/day of venlafaxine which apparently is extended release, divided from the 75 or 150mg capsules. I'm not clear on how that works, if the beads are staggered to release over time, and they've been broken out into smaller doses, doesn't that mean I could be getting one 10mg capsule that releases in 2 hours and 4 hours, and the next 10mg capsule with beads that release after 6 hours, 8 hours? What am I not understanding about this. It seems to me this is inherently irregular dosages. I'm wondering what would happen if I dissolve the beads, making it into immediate release. So I'd get 10mg around 8:30am and 10mg around 8:30pm. I'm just concerned what side effects I might get if I make this change so I'm just considering it. Anyone has any thoughts on this?

Hey I moved this back here. We like to have one thread and keep everything together.

You don’t need to worry about the beads. They have the xr tech built into each beads matrix. So when you get to one bead in your taper you still get coverage. With Effexor xr there are variations in the sizes and each bead has more or less coating and this effects release time. So when you get to one bead of Effexor xr you don’t have full coverage.

Wait, is cervical dystonia a symptom of withdrawal? Is this why ever since a couple months ago, sometimes when I twist my head to look at something, my neck twists funny and I pull my muscle with a lot of pain?

On 5/25/2026 at 4:01 PM, ALonelySoul12 said:

Wait, is cervical dystonia a symptom of withdrawal? Is this why ever since a couple months ago, sometimes when I twist my head to look at something, my neck twists funny and I pull my muscle with a lot of pain?

It is hard to say.

What I can say, is that I have had all kinds of joint and muscle issues that I never had pre-drug.