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Stopping 75mg Effexor for 300mg St Johns Wort - Is this safe?

I am 39 years old female. I have been on 75 mg of Effexor for two years. I am ready to go a natural route. I would like to stop taking Effexor and switch to 300 mg of St Johns Wart. I have read that I should NEVER takes these two together. But what about switching one for the other? I am worried about the withdrawals of Effexor!
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Do not do this.  If you want to quit Effexor, you have to taper completely off it before doing anything else, whether that be another medication or trying the natural route.  It needs to be slow taper off at a speed that suits you, not some generalized schedule, so your psychiatrist can tell if you're having an easy or difficult time of it.  Also, this is the Anxiety forum, and Effexor is more for depression, though it can be helpful if the anxiety is the result of depression as it very often is.  St. John's Wort is only for depression, not for anxiety, and taking one herb probably won't help you if your problem was so bad you actually needed the Effexor.  Now, I don't know if you did or not -- I don't know if you tried therapy and it failed or if you walked into your doc's one day with relatively minor problems and walked out on a drug.  That happens.  But assuming you were so bad off you did need medication, natural medicine almost never uses just one remedy or one modality to treat disorder.  Some people with minor depression do well on just St. John's Wort, but if it's more than that you would most likely need a formula of herbs, some amino acids, and lifestyle changes including therapy.  For an overview, get a book called Natural Highs by Hyla Cass, a psychiatrist at UCLA who uses natural medicine in her practice.  You will see the various things that were known when that book was written -- herbalists are finding new plants all the time in different parts of the world -- and how they might go together.  Reading a book called Planetary Herbology can also give you a primer on how natural medicine is practiced with an emphasis on combining Chinese and ayurvedic medicine with the herbs traditionally used in European practice.  Then, go see a naturopath, herbalist, or practitioner of integrated medicine who can guide you through the maze of natural medicine.  But whatever you choose to do, do your homework first, and don't do anything until you've successfully tapered off the Effexor if you choose after doing your homework that you want to still try this.  Good luck to you.
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I should say, not finding new plants -- finding out about old plants we didn't know about in this part of the world.
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