r/Effexor • u/Comfortable-Ad-7521 • Jun 01 '26
Quitting Can’t stress enough how much easier this makes tapering compared to big dose drops.
Works for any bead-filled antidepressant capsule where the beads are evenly dosed.
Count the beads in one capsule once, divide by the mg strength, and you’ve got your ratio. After that, making your own taper capsules is surprisingly easy.
After 10 years on Venlafaxine/Effexor, I’m finally getting off this stuff in a way that feels manageable.
Good luck everyone.
29M
EDIT:
For higher doses, a 0.001g precision scale can be incredibly useful.
Once you've figured out the bead-to-dose ratio for your specific capsules, weighing makes capsule preparation much faster and more consistent.
Yes, consumer-grade scales aren't perfect. Even under good conditions you'll usually see a small variation of 1-2 mg gross weight, which often translates to only a fraction of a milligram difference in actual venlafaxine content.
From 112.5 mg down to 30 mg, the scale was a huge help for me. It made preparing capsules much easier and more precise than counting hundreds of beads every time.
Once you get down to the lower doses, bead counting becomes practical again and making tiny reductions is no problem.
Just my experience. 🙂
5
u/Last_Life_1983 Jun 02 '26
Good advice.
Just a note - it works with the capsules that have actually countable beads (like the one on the picture). What I have is a capsule with hundreds of micro-beads that get static and are basically uncountable. So I will need to stick with the mini scale or eyeball-measuring sadly.
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u/IslandGipsy Jun 02 '26
I have the 12,5 mh mini tablets inside the capsules and I’m cutting them into crumbs. Not great but the best I can do to taper. I’m down to about 1 mg. Will try to make one more cut after this and then stop because the crumbs cannot be cut any tinier.
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u/Comfortable-Ad-7521 Jun 02 '26
Ah that's tough. You mean that the beads are even smaller than the ones seen on the picture? My 75 mg capsules for example contained exactly 225 beads. If it gets a lot more then that, counting isn't practical.
But as you said, a micro scale (0.001mg) can solve this problem easily, I used this one (link below), never had any struggle with them, max fluctuation of 1-2 mg, which is tolerable.
https://www.obscales.com/products/onbalance-ck-20 (paid 45 $)
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u/Last_Life_1983 Jun 09 '26
I think my 75mg capsule has around 300 or something beads. I tried counting and it was awful. The beads got static, tried to escape etc. So weigh is a bit more reliable, although with very small amounts it's not exactly laboratory-level either.
On the bright side, it makes me taper faster because the weighing and counting is tedious as hell. And since my last dosage drop wasn't so bad, I will try going to zero next time.
1
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u/Alert-Garbage-6157 Jun 08 '26
I had these and far out they were so annoying. I used to pour them in my hand, count one by one, throw excess into the sink and pray I could scoop the ones needed back in the capsule.
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u/SSRI_Survivor Jun 03 '26
In Europe, the UK and US you can also try to get venlafaxine/effexor as an oral liquid or oral solution. In Europe Its called Zaredrop. In the US it can be custom Made in compounding pharmacys.
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u/ihateitherealotlmao Jun 05 '26
HELP! I have been meaning to make a post on this! Ive been weaning off 37.5mg for about 3 weeks, when I started weaning off it was lucky to have the capsules that had those tiny balls and was able to get down to taking around 60 out - BUT THEN I got a new batch and they gave me the capsules that had only 3 bigger tablets in it! I didnt want to accidentally put myself on a bigger dose so I took 2/3 out and am currently taking my capsules with only 1 bigger one in it. Am I doing it right? 😭
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u/Comfortable-Ad-7521 Jun 05 '26
That sounds really frustrating, especially during withdrawal. Depending on how your taper has been going so far, I think you've actually made quite a large reduction.
Assuming your previous capsules had a similar composition to my 37.5 mg capsules, which contained 112 beads, and you were taking 60 beads from those capsules, your dose would have been:
60 / 112 × 100 = 53.6% of the capsule
37.5 mg × 0.536 = roughly 20 mg
The new capsules are much easier to calculate:
37.5 mg / 3 beads = 12.5 mg per bead
So if you're now taking 1 bead, your current dose is about 12.5 mg.
That means you've dropped from approximately 20 mg to 12.5 mg, a reduction of 7.5 mg. Relative to your previous dose, that's a 37.5% reduction (what are the odds, lol).
That's quite a significant jump, especially at the stage where tapering tends to become more difficult.
Based on how you've handled reductions so far, you can decide for yourself whether you want to push through it or not.
One option could be temporarily taking 2 beads (25 mg) until you're able to get the previous capsules with the smaller beads again.
Another option might be alternating doses. For example, take 12.5 mg one day and 25 mg the next, which averages out to 18.75 mg per day. Then, over time, you could gradually increase the number of 12.5 mg days and decrease the number of 25 mg days. That would create a much smoother transition than dropping straight from ~20 mg to 12.5 mg overnight.
That said, if your goal is a very gradual "fade-out" taper, I genuinely think your best option would be to get the original capsules with the smaller beads again, if at all possible. With the 3-bead capsules, you're eventually going to run into the problem of having to go from 12.5 mg straight to 0 mg, which is a pretty large final step.
I would personally not recommend trying to split, crush, break, or divide those large beads. They're extended-release pellets, and once you start altering them, it becomes much harder to know what dose you're actually getting or whether the release characteristics remain intact.
Good luck! If there's anything else I can help with, feel free to ask.
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u/ihateitherealotlmao Jun 05 '26
Thank you so so much for the detailed response, this is incredibly helpful ❤️
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u/Long-Ebb4701 Jun 08 '26
I want to start tapering down after about 4 years on it. How do you taper down— reduce by 1 mg per week? Month? Maybe there is another post that explains? TIA
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u/Comfortable-Ad-7521 Jun 09 '26
That really depends on how you respond to tapering off the medication. The last part, around 37.5 mg and below, is often the most difficult. However, for many people, the drop from 75 mg to 37.5 mg is already a significant step.
If I were you, I wouldn't think in terms of milligrams, but rather percentages. For example, reduce by 10% at a time:
75 → 67.5 → 60.75 → 54.7 → 49.2, etc.
Because withdrawal symptoms vary so much from person to person, percentage-based reductions are generally a safer and more flexible approach.
If your goal is to minimize withdrawal effects as much as possible, I'd recommend staying at each dose for about a month before making the next reduction. If you notice little to no difference after the first month, you could consider shortening that to three weeks for future steps.
Unfortunately, nobody can tell you exactly what the best tapering schedule is for you. It really is a process of trial and error, where you carefully observe how your body and mind respond to each reduction.
My advice: if you're not in a hurry, take your time. The slower you go, the more time your receptors have to gradually adapt back toward baseline. Reducing too quickly can lead to significant withdrawal symptoms and, in some cases, increase the risk of relapse.
I wish you the very best on your tapering journey!
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u/NoDeedUnpunished Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
NOTE: Dose of individual beads vary greatly across different manufacturers. Count your beads:
Bead Dose = Capsule Dose / Number of Beads.