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discontinuation - eye twitch
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tl;dr: Can venlafaxine discontinuation cause eye twitching or other muscle spasms? And, if so, how long is it likely to last?

I was on venlafaxine (150mg) for only a couple of months. I came off pretty quickly (3 days at 75mg, then cold turkey), because it made me feel so shit that even with the brain zaps and other discontinuation effects, I was feeling better off it than on it. Before I stopped, I asked my psychiatrist if stopping too quickly could have any permanent side effects, and she said "no". I'm okay with side effects as long as I know they're going to stop, so this was fine by me. Her original recommendation was 7 days at 75mg before stopping, based on the dose and how long I was on it, so I don't feel I pushed it that much by doing three days, but I know a lot of people here recommend coming off it very slowly.

About a week or so after stopping, my left eye started twitching (eyelids kind of fluttering every few seconds). I get this from time to time if I'm super tired or stressed, or sometimes if I'm nauseous and about to throw up. I thought nothing of it at first, but it didn't go away, and after a few restful sleeps in a row, I realised it couldn't be that I was tired (and I also wasn't stressed or sick), so I thought it might be the withdrawal from venlafaxine. It's now been a couple of months since I stopped, and I'm still getting the twitch in my left eye, and sometimes my right eye now. It's complicated by the fact that I'm now on lisdexamphetamine (Vyvanse), but I started that a couple of weeks after the eye twitching started, so if it's a contributing factor, it wasn't the original cause.

It's a little annoying, but as long as it's going to stop, it's not that bad. I just want to know if venlafaxine discontinuation is, as I suspect, the likely culprit and, if it is, how long it is likely to last. I don't want to sit around and wait for it to go away if there's another cause (like an unrelated magnesium deficiency or something).

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5 years ago