I have decided to wean off Pristiq 50mg after taking it for 2.5 years. I was prescribed it for depression which I have no seriously suffered from for a while now. I previously went off this medication at age 18 cold turkey and went through a month of quite horrible withdrawal symptoms including dizziness, agitation, altered vision, "brain zaps" (I experienced this as a kind of clicking feeling when I moved my eyes around) and other unpleasantries. My depression came back but I don't know if this was due to this or other things going on in my life at the time.

This time myself and my doctor have gotten a compounding pharmacy to make my prescription into 10mg capsules to make the weaning easier. My doctor recommended I take 40mg then reduce the dose by 10mg every 3 weeks. The process should take 3 months to be completely off the drug.

I'm pretty worried about what's going to happen, and considering this is going to take 3 months I'm worried that it's going to be 3 months of the above withdrawal symptoms. I'm also pretty worried about my depression returning even though it's okay now. I really don't want to have to keep taking them any more.

Has anyone successfully gone off this medication?

I will update this post with my experiences if anyone is interested.