Understanding Medication Discontinuation Syndrome
Medication discontinuation syndrome can happen when a person stops their medication abruptly. In general, medication should be tapered off slowly with medical supervision. But since we don’t know precisely how slow is slow enough for each individual, sometimes tapering off the medication can still result in some withdrawal symptoms.
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Usual withdrawal symptoms are things like fatigue, irritability, diarrhea, headache, anxiety, or feeling like you have the flu. These symptoms typically last a few to several days.
There have been some who have experienced electric shock sensations when stopping Effexor and some other serotonin agents such as Cymbalta, Paxil, etc. This is very unusual, but I’ve heard patients describe it as a “brain shock” that was worsened with movement. In the literature, reports of these symptoms last up to 5 days.
The origin of these sensations is not entirely clear, but thought to be a form of paresthesia (which is the sensation of feeling tingling or creeping on the skin). Paresthesias result from our nerves being activated in a particular area when there is no apparent trigger for the activation – for example, feeling a pinprick on your skin when you haven’t been pricked by a pin.
The electric shocks have been helped by adding back the medication that was discontinued and tapering it more slowly or adding another long acting serotonin agent such as Prozac.
Therefore, stopping medication abruptly is usually not a good idea, especially if you have been taking a particular agent for a long time. It’s best to discuss a tapering schedule with your doctor so that you can have the smoothest transition possible.
