I'm weaning, too. I went on 75mg a few years back for depression, then weaned completely because I started an exercise/low-glycemic-nutrition routine that REALLY helped me a lot, and that routine along with the meds actually made me manic.
I went back on the stuff late last year due to prenatal depression, and ended up at 150mg. The postpartum period was okay up to a point. I'm having depression issues now, triggered by a return to work -- a bad reaction to the separation from my sweet little boy. (He's 4 months old right now.) Effexor was great for my general malaise and anxiety, but I can tell you for sure that it isn't helping me with what I call "situational depression." I decided to go off of it.
I started weaning from 150mg a few months ago, then waited it out for a while at 75mg. I'm now at about 45mg. My mood is getting a little better about the work situation as time passes and I adjust. I haven't noticed the weaning making it any worse.
That said, EFFEXOR WEANING IS HELL. If you do it very gradually, you'll feel occasionally icky. If you do it quickly, you wouldn't believe how sick and crazy you can get. When I first did it several years ago, I went straight from 75 to 37.5. BIG MISTAKE. Even though I no longer had depression problems, the abrupt weaning made me an emotional wreck. Suddenly I was sobbing at the drop of a hat, irritable, antisocial, and angry. I also had nausea, constant headaches, and really bad dizziness. You may have seen recent controversy in the media about otherwise healthy people who went cold-turkey on antidepressants and became suicidal. It can really mess you up.
FYI, the drug manufacturers used to say that you should never open a pill. They recently changed their tune. The scientific inserts now indicate that it's okay to open the pill and sprinkle the little medicine pellets into a spoonful of applesauce, then swallow the applesauce. I've been doing this for my recent weaning, and it's made the withdrawal symptoms much milder, because it gives me a fine level of control over dosage. (Every three days or so, I cut dosage by 10-20 pellets, which is roughly 5-10% of the 75mg capsules.)
OwensMa, you may want to try weaning more gradually (try the sprinkling method if your doctor says it's okay), or just wait until things are more stable to try going off the meds. Any stresses or big changes in your life will make it that much harder, and it's already hard enough.
If you're really desperate to wean, then stay at the 37.5mg for a while to see if your mood stabilizes. If you're still feeling horrible after a month or so at that dosage, then maybe you still need the meds after all.
