Table 3.

Examples of Group 1 members’ reasons for seeking support online.

Post date	Post content
16th January 2020	I think we can all agree that venlafaxine/Effexor is utter poison and anyone wrongly prescribing this should be prosecuted……so why has nobody sued their doctors and has there not been and criminal investigations etc? Sorry if this is a really dumb thing to as. I’m just angry that we are all in this position and being robbed of ‘living’. I’m currently trying to taper from 37.5mg and struggling to cope with life at the moment.
2nd April 2020	Doctor is suggesting I taper 75mg to 37.5mg. Take the 37.5mg for one week then stop. This is the only option I have to do it as they won’t call in anymore….has anyone done it this fast? I know its gonna be torture. I wanna cry just thinking about it. Please help.
21st April 2020	“Counting out those tiny beads is difficult especially in the midst of the brain zaps. I’ve put together four days worth so far, just generally feeling achy and foggy. Brain zaps are milder….last time I tried to discontinue rapidly ( at a doctor’s instructions!!) and they were intolerable. I’m tapering from a low dose so I hope it won’t take a year! I was only on 75mg per day”.
20th April 2020	“I started this medicine in January. My doc progressed me up to 150mg. I started last week to get off of it with the “help” of my doctor. She had me go from 150 to 75. I felt bad the next day so I bumped it up to 112.5. Felt better 4 days later and then dropped to 75mg last Tuesday (so 7 days ago). 48 hours after dropping to 75, I felt symptoms. It got better each day but it’s now getting worse again”.
17th January 2020	“Short story is in October my doc said I can just stop it once I hit 37.5mg. Took their advice and just stopped. Got very ill very quickly so did 2 weeks of one tablet every other day (docs advice again!) and ended up in A&E. The psych docs at the hospital sent me home with sedatives to help ride out the withdrawals as I refused to go on another antidepressant. The next day I found this Facebook group and decided to reinstate asap. My new doctors gave me 37.5mg venlafaxine called Bluefish which are 3 tablets within the capsule. I went from 3 - 2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 and now trying to cut the last tablet in half. This is now an issue for me as I’m not able to cut/measure the tablet accurately and now I’m suffering”.
16th April 2020	“I am currently on 112.5 mg/day of Effexor. Started on 300mg last April and knew within a few months I wanted off as my anxiety was worse, fear of being alone and long term and short-term memory loss. I started tapering August 2019 dropped 75mg every 7 days as per my GP. When I reached 75mg I had a seizure. My doctor put me back up to 112.5mg and I have been afraid to taper since. I had another seizure April 15th of this year and again today. I am actually just waiting for a call from the neurologist regarding my sleep deprived EEG. My MRI showed ‘something’ going on in the left frontal lobe….I know seizures are listed as a side effect but has anyone else had seizures, either while tapering or on a steady dose? UPDATE: my EEG results were normal and the ‘small white spots’ on my MRI they see a lot and apparently means nothing”.