Ramona80
In general, the slower you wean off the fewer and less acute the symptoms will be. But that is in general. Dr. Stuart Shipko of madinamerica.com --in his excellent articles on Informed Consent-- states that all aspects of dealing with psychiatric drugs is a kind of crap shoot-- meaning the outcome is never guaranteed: some patients just can't tolerate the drug from the beginning; some patients develop acute symptoms immediately and have to withdraw; some can withdraw quickly with few symptoms; some have symptoms even in slow weaning; and some patients cannot successfully re-instate after withdrawing.
With long-term weaning of 12-16 months, symptoms have been reported to be light to non-existant. The symptoms themselves are the indicators of whether the weaning regimen is too fast. If symptoms appear (especially difficult symptoms), slow down your weaning regimen-- reduce the dosage removed and extend the timeline.
"A couple of beads" can have vastly different meanings depending on how many beads are in a capsule (they can vary from 12 beads to near 600 depending whether the drug is Eli Lilly or a generic). With the brand name and high bead-count you have more control over the taper, and you can reduce it by tiny amounts like 1/2 of 1% per day. With 12 beads you must reduce in steps, which is not ideal because there will always be symptoms between reductions (1 bead out of 12 is more than 8%, and that's a lot).
To review, if the weaning is started at a timeline of (say) 1 year, with no steps or missed days planned, there should be very few symptoms. That may seem like a long time to wean off, but it really comes down to the individual-- how much do you wish to endure to see this done?
There is good evidence that it is better to suffer less stress than not; therefore, it's worthwhile to consider which withdrawal plan will generate the least stress.
Take care.