"on effexor for 14 years.  150 milligrams daily of the ir not the xr so i was taking 75mg 2 times per day.  in retrospect, the medicine worked for me for about a year and the other 13 were just maintenance years.  i also found since titrating from 150mg down to 9.75 mg that i feel human again.  effexor solved zero problems for me and it simply numbed me to feeling strong emotion.  i also dropped 36 pounds since coming off of this medicine and feel a heck of a lot better.  i have been titrating since july of 2015 and my last titration to zero will be in 2 weeks.  as stated before, this stuff doesn&#039;t solve problems, it just numbs human emotion.  me, like many other folks need to learn how to accept our emotions.  the answer isn&#039;t always a drug"