25 April 2011 - 11:53
Jerod Poore wrote:
Tell us what you think about Effexor
ok so i just had a baby almost 3 months ago and the past month or so i have started having anxiety and depression my dr gave me 1mg of adivan which helps but short term so today she gave me 37.5mg of effexor and i was just wondering how you did with it?? im terrified to take it bc i have read all these side effects like more anxiety and not sleeping etc… and once b4 i was given dilauted at the hospital and it made me go crazy I had the tremors and couldnt sleep for probably 12hrs or so it was the worst feeling ever it was like i was doped up on a drug….i hope this effexor doesnt effect me that way?? bc it was the scariest thing ever…does anyone have those effects?? how does effexor work 4 you??
started on effexor about 2 months ago and can’t believe how great i feel. who ever knew life was so great without anxiety. did the adivan thing before going on and while it was okay, it was too short term. started at 37.5 mg and now at 150 mg which seems to be enough for me. only side effects have been weight loss (who can complain about that?), more energy (that’s a good thing), constipation (now I’m on top of it) and insomnia. took sleeping pills as needed for the insomnia and don’t have to take them any more. the rest is all good. i was really nervous to go on it because i was treated for a major depression 4–5 years ago and was on SSRI’s for 8 years. the main side effect was tiredness which over time became a real issue — i was always tired and preferred to sleep instead of doing things after work. i just can’t believe how great i feel. i think i have been coping with anxiety for 30 years and it is such a relief not to have it.
i think i have another weird and freaky side effect for you. you mentioned that hair can change color. well, my hair has gotten curly since i started taking effexor. my hairdresser thought i gave myself a perm. i thought it was the humidity. maybe not.
I had been taking two 150mg Effexor XR pills everyday for about a year or so, and it worked beautifully for a while. But a month or two ago, it started to feel less effective as it had been before and my new doc switched me from that to Cymbalta + Depacote. So I basically stopped the effexor cold turkey. Now I’ve experienced the crazy withdrawals from it before (just by missing one measly dose), but they wouldn’t last long because I’d take my effexor as soon as possible. WELL - turns out the symptoms get much worse if you cease to take it altogether. the first day sucked, but I thought it was just my upped vyvanse making me feel nervously sick-like. The next day I woke up loopy as hell, walking around the house aimlessly doing a kind of “inpatient shuffle,” and nauseous as I don’t know what. I threw up everything I tried to eat, and taking phenergran just made it worse. I really didn’t know what was going on until my insides started to shake and I couldn’t stop crying; the same stupid withdrawal symptoms I had when i missed the effexor. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath and had that icky nervous stomach feeling all day; it hurt to move my eyes or sit up or even think but I still had to keep moving (I kept shaking my head like I had tourettes or something). I honestly couldn’t control my crying or shaking, and eventually my head started pounding from the lack of food/water. I was seriously planning on going to the ER, but by nightfall I was practically too exhausted to speak or even roll over in bed. It was scary as hell. Today wasn’t nearly as bad, but I’m still feeling pretty sick and I’m just praying to baby Jesus that this doesn’t last much longer. I don’t think I could take it!
I have suffered from Major Depressive Disorder my whole life. I then was sexually abused and developed PTSD. I have always been resistant to medication I didn’t want to be drugged up and every time they tried a med for me, I had horrible side effects. I am now with an amazing doctor and after two horrible and Long bouts with flashbacks and severe depression I decided that I needed to try again. Effexor was hard on my system for about a month. I had serious heartburn and a very sick stomach and then it all went away. Other than the fact that I am a little chubby I have no side effects and I have been taking it for 5 months. I found the opposite to be true. My emotional numbing has been lifted, I am able to be very sexual with my husband, my attitude has seriously improved and I am much happier. Oh, I can’t sleep on Effexor though. I didn’t take my meds for 3 days because I didn’t know I was out of refills and it was a 3 day weekend…my doctor was closed. WITHDRAWALS ARE HORRIBLE!!!! I was being Rocked in my mouth, arm and head shocks (they are like biting an electric fence), I stumbled and fell, I was dizzy and I wanted to rip my skin off. I am not a crier and I was sobbing to my husband to make it stop. It is torture. Other than that I am happy. I am going to come off it however because we want to try and have a baby….apprehensive to say the least.
I am a 32 year old woman who was given Effexor 4 years ago. I started at 150 mg, then went up to 300 mg. This was my 1st anti depressant ever. I want to STRANGLE the doctor who prescribed me this drug! First withdrawl symptom occured when I went out of town & forgot my pills. The first day I was fine, but the second day turned into a nightmare of sweating, chills, brain zaps, extreme tiredness & severe headache. I could not get out of bed. By the 3rd day, I felt delerious! I’m surprised I was able to drive back home & I am POSITIVE I shouldn’t have. Anyway, I took my meds & I was fine. However, the withdrawl symptoms really scared me! I decided continue on the meds, though, but after repeated incidents similar to the one above, I decided to get off the med. That was 2 years ago. I am still trying to get off this frickin stupid drug! I stepped down my dosage until I was all the way down to 37.5, then tried to cut that in half every day. I experienced the withdrawls immediately & was stuck at 37.5 for over a year. I am now at 25 mg after dicsovering there is a 25mg version available. I feel that I will be stuck on this drug for the rest of my life! The withdrawls are so severe that to quit would require that I be at home, in bed, for at least 2 weeks. I have spoken to some people who feel that hospitalization is necessary. Bottom line: DO NOT start this medication unless other options have been explored. This should be a LAST RESORT only. If your doctor says they’ve never heard of the withdrawl symptoms, fire them. I am serious. Use this drug with caution unless you plan on taking it for the rest of your life. Not everyone will experience the severity of withdrawls that I have, but the thing is: you won’t know how you will respond until it is too late.
I have been taking venlafaxine on and off for many years. It is a cycle I hope to stop one day, but until I find an anti depressant as effective as venlafaxine or I don’t relapse I accept that this will be the case. Most of the side effects will pass after a couple of months (usually within 4 weeks)personally the side effect that continues for me that I find difficult is night sweats, after about 6 months or so I get so fed up and am so ‘well’ that I come off it, after many times I know that when coming off it I will experience terrible discontinuation symptoms..I also know they will stop. Without doubt it is best to reduce though not necessarily over months - weeks, however it is when trying to stop completely from the last reduction that the worse symptoms are felt - the best way of reducing the severity and intensity of these is to ask to be prescribed a low dose of an ssri - fluoxetine or citalopram have both been excellent for me at 20/10mg doses. After about 3 weeks I come off the ssri. I appear to be unable to manage without an antidepressant over a long period of time, when I get depressed things go downhill quickly, I have tried all of the ssris and in my earlier days tricyclics, none have been as quick and effective as venlafaxine..so thats my choice. But you can get off it, accept the effects and reduce them by cross tapering with an ssri.
I’ve been on Remeron for 4 years for major depressive disorder characterized by severe insomnia and major weight loss (lost 20% of my body weight in 2 months). Remeron was an amazing fix at treating the side effects of my depression - I immediately started sleeping and gained about 30 lbs. But it didn’t do much to cure the underlying depression. At higher doses I couldn’t sleep, so my Dr. took me back down to 15 mg and started adding one SSRI after another. Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil. Nothing worked. Still felt sad and had horrible side effects like nausea, tremors, vomiting, sleeplessness, weight loss. The last two were particularly concerning because this is exactly what I was trying to TREAT.
Then I found a new doc and he put me on Effexor. Holy crap. Within 3 days I felt myself turn the corner, even though everywhere I’ve read it says it should take 3 weeks to a month. Maybe it’s the combination of Remeron with the Effexor that makes it so powerful? Who knows. I am a new person now. I feel alert, like my old self. I never thought I would feel happy again, like, EVER. Now I can’t remember what it felt like to be so despairing.
Side effects were relatively mild for me. The first day I felt a little wired, like I drank 10 espressos. This was much better the following day, and by the third day non-existant. I take the Effexor in the morning, so this is not too troublesome, although, I did have some sleep disturbances, so I now take Restoril (along with the Remeron) at night.
For me, this has been the closest thing to a miracle drug (or combination of drugs) that I can imagine.
I had thought that my symptoms were all situational, that when things changed, I would feel better (lots on my plate). Changes happened and the dark cloud hanging over me didn’t change one iota. I was started on Zoloft twice and I didn’t tolerate the side effects well. Dizziness and a strobe light-like aura kept causing me problems at work, so I titrated myself off of the Zoloft. My dizziness never went away.
I was started on Effexor and within two weeks, I noticed the darkness lifting. I asked for an increase and now, I am excited about springtime, vacation, walking the dog, getting together with friends, quilting….all the things that had quit mattering. I was so slow and tired. I will remain on the Effexor and endeavor to NOT forget it when I travel, NOT forget to refill it, etc. It doesn’t take a lot of effort folks. I have a reminder on my calendar that is about two weeks prior to refill time. My phone rings to remind me to do the refill. I keep a list ready before I go anywhere and I make sure I have what I need.
Thanks for all of your comments. It is interesting how different we all react to various substances. %25bgcolor=yellow%25I REALLY LIKE EFFEXOR.%25%25 I hope I don’t have to discontinue taking it. That sounds nightmarish. I would imagine that like insulin, one needs to take it even when feeling better. Don’t be misguided and stop.
Okay, enough preaching. Woohoo. Time to take a little walk and see what’s popping out of the ground so far….
I am a 45 year old male who is being treated for GAD and Depression. I was on Venlafaxine ER for about 5 months. I was taking 75mg per day. I experienced many of the side effects early on like sleeplessness, sweating, nausea, dizzy, then fatigue, etc.etc.etc. They all eventually went away but the one that hung on like an STD was the delayed ejaculation. I trusted my doc’s advice and continued on and hoped it too would go away. THE PROBLEM STUCK AROUND. At first it was fine and my wife (of 20years) and I had “fun” with it but it got old and started making me more depressed. Finally I got off of the Venlafaxine and I will say that coming off has been difficult. I just finished a few days ago while I am now in my 3rd week of Mirtazapine. It appears to be better for me. The delayed ejaculation has improved. I will go on the forum for Mirtazapine to share side effect experiences…I eat like a horse and have gained 7 pounds in 3 weeks. Back to the withdraw effects of the Venlafaxine…last week it was like I bounced off the wall a few times…so to speak. Coming off the Venlafaxine has not been a pleasant experience. I will say that the Venlafaxine did do it’s job and help take the edge off for me but the sexual side effect was too much for me and my wife. As I write today I seem to be doing much better and feeling more of an energy boost from the Mirtazalpine. I appreciate reading the experiences and it has helped me out. Hopefully mine will help others as well. :)
I have been on Effexor xr 150 mg ( now generic version) for 10 years. This had been very effective for me until my pharmacy switched me to generic a few years ago. ( As per my insurance) I didn’t think anything about it until finding this site. (I live in Canada BTW) My dr. had tweaked my dosage, given me Clonazepam 0.5 mg and the Lorazepam 0.5 mg to take on occasion when really upset. these made me feel really unstable/ emotional. I was then prescribed elvail 10mg to take for pain to help me sleep. These made me gain weight and have a very short fuse during the day (out of character) so I stopped taking them a few days ago. A few weeks ago I was prescribed Wellbutrin 100mg (but generic) to take in combo with the Effexor xr 150mg ( generic). He said there have been a lot of success with taking the two together. Has anyone heard/ taken these together?
I was on Effexor 150 mg for 3 months in 2008. I guess I’m one of those people that got a rare side effect because I became anorexic. I was nauseous all the time. I hardly ever ate anything. The most I had in a day was Vitamin water and jello. Every time I did eat anything I threw up or had diarrhea. And my depression just got worse and worse. It got to the point where I couldn’t go to work, I couldn’t get out of bed. I lost 25lbs in 3 months and I wasn’t overweight. When I called the doctor and left a message on the nurses line she called back and said that the side effects should go away in a couple weeks and that I should keep taking the drug. When I finally went back into the doctor he took me off the Effexor. What is so frustrating is that every psychiatrist I’ve been to says that Effexor works wonders for people who’ve found that other drugs didn’t help. And every one else who has commented has found it to be helpful. I don’t get it.
I’ve been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety. My doctor switched me from Zoloft/Buspirone to Effexor and Buspirone after I told her I was having up and (mostly) down days. For the first few days, I was in bed due to the side effects like severe nausea and light-headedness. Later it was accompanied by heavy sweat, bad BO (regardless of sweat) and hot (and cold) flashes at night (and I’m only 25!). Some of the side effects, like the hot flashes and nausea, gradually went away after a week and that’s when my mood and energy picked up. Unfortunately, the sweating, BO and light-headedness stayed. And after about 2 weeks, the nausea came back and my mood started to fluctuate again. It was just like being on the Zoloft except I had MORE side effects! INCLUDING an extra 10lbs that I can’t seem to shake off as easily as I’m used to. Turning 25 and most likely having a slower metabolism might be a contributing factor. BUT I didn’t have trouble getting my weight down until I took the Effexor. I stopped cold when I ran out of pills and hadn’t felt any withdrawal symptoms.
This is where you get to write about your experience with Effexor. As long as you’re a member of the Crazy Meds Talk forum that is. Everybody on teh Interwebs has at least one opinion about something, so express yours.
If you like, you can comment on the contents of this article here.
You must be a registered member of the Crazy Meds Talk forum to post a comment on this page. If you are a registered member and you see this message, try logging on to the forum and refreshing this page.
Date created 25 April 2011 - 11:53 Page Creator: JerodPoore Last edited by:
Page design and explanatory material by Jerod Poore, copyright © 2004 - 2012. All rights reserved.
Almost all of the material on this site is by Jerod Poore and is copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 Jerod Poore. Except, of course, the PI sheets - those are the property of the drug companies who developed the drugs the sheets are about - and any documents that are written by other people which may be posted to this site will remain the property of the original authors. You cannot reproduce this page or any other material on this site outside of the boundaries of fair use copying without the express permission of the copyright holder. That’s usually me, so just ask first. That means if want to print out a few pages to take to your doctor, therapist, counselor, support group, non-understanding family members or something like that - then that’s OK to just do. Go for it! Please. As long as you include this copyright notice and the following disclaimer, I’m usually cool with it.
All rights reserved. No warranty is expressed or implied in this information. Consult one or more doctors and/or pharmacists before taking, or changing how you take any neurological and/or psychiatric medication. Your mileage may vary. What happened to us won’t necessarily happen to you.
The information on Crazy Meds pertains to and is intended for adults. While some information about children and adolescents is occasionally presented (e.g. US FDA approvals), pediatric-specific data such as dosages, side effects, off-label applications, etc. are rarely included in the articles on drugs or discussed on the forum. If you are looking for information regarding meds for children you’ll have to go somewhere else.
Know your sources!
Nobody on this site is a doctor, therapist, or a pharmacist. We don’t portray them either here or on TV. Only doctors can diagnose and treat an illness. Some doctors tend to get pissed off by patients who know too much about medications, so tread lightly when and where appropriate. Diagnosing yourself from a website is like defending yourself in court, you suddenly have a fool for a doctor. Don’t be a cyberchondriac, thinking you have every disease you see a website about, or that you’ll get every side effect from every medication1. Self-prescribing is as dangerous as buying meds from fraudulent online pharmacies that promise you medications without prescriptions.
All information on this site has been obtained through our personal experience and the experiences family, friends, what people have reported on various reputable sites all over teh intergoogles, the medications’ product information / summary of product characteristic (PI/SPC) sheets, and from sources that are referenced throughout the site. As such the information presented here is not intended as a substitute for real medical advice from your real doctor, just a compliment to it. You should never, ever, replace what a real doctor tells you with something from a website on the Internet. The farthest you should ever take it is getting a second opinion from another real doctor. Educate yourself - always read the PI/SPC sheet or patient information leaflet (PIL) that comes with your medications and never ever throw them away.
Crazy Meds is not responsible for the content of sites we provide links to. We like them, or they’re paid advertisements, or they’re something else we think you should read to help you make an informed decision about a particular med. Sometimes they’re more than one of those things. But what’s on those sites is their business, not ours.
Very little information about visitors to this site is collected or saved. From time to time I look at search terms used and which pages they bring up in an effort to make the information I present more relevant. And the country of origin, just because I’m geeky like that. That’s about it. Depending on how you feel about Schrodinger, our privacy policy should either assuage or exacerbate your paranoia.
All brand names of the drugs listed in this site are the trademarks of the companies named on the PI/SPC sheet associated with the medication, sometimes on the pages about the drugs, even though those companies may have been acquired by other companies who may or may not be listed in this site by the time you read this. Or the rights to the drug were sold to another company. And any or all of the companies involved may have changed their names.
Crazy Meds is optimized for the browser you’re not using on the platform you wish you had. Between you and me, it all looks a lot cleaner using Firefox or Safari, which is what a plurality of visitors use. And I’m running Windows XP3. On a computer that sits on top of my desk. With a 23 inch monitor. Hey, at least you can make the text larger or smaller by clicking on the + or - buttons in the upper right hand corner. If you have Java enabled. Like 99% of the websites on the planet, Crazy Meds is hosted on domain running an open source operating system with a variety of open source applications, including the software used to display what you’ve been reading. As such Crazy Meds is not responsible for whatever weird shit your browser does or does not do when you read this site2.
No neurologists, psychiatrists, therapists or pharmacists were harmed in the production of this website. Use only as directed. Void where prohibited. Contains nuts. Certain restrictions may apply. All data are subject to availability. Not available on all mobile devices or in all dimensions of reality.
‘Everything is true, nothing is permitted.’ - Jerod Poore
1 While there are plenty of books to help you with hypochondria, for some reason there’s not much in the way of websites. Then again, staying off of the Internet is a large part of curing/managing the disorder.
2 Have I mentioned how open source operating systems for commercial applications is one of the dumbest ideas in the history of dumb ideas?
[begin rant] I rent a dedicated server for Crazy Meds. It’s sitting on a rack somewhere in Southern California along with a bunch of other servers that other people have rented. The hardware is identical, but no two machines have exactly the same operating systems. I don’t even need to see what is on any of the others to know this. If somebody got their server at the exact same time, with the exact same features as I did, I’m confident that there would be noticeable differences in some aspects of the operating systems. So what does this mean? For one thing it means that no two computers in the same office of a single company have the same operating system, and the techs can spend hours figuring out what the fuck the problem could be based on that alone. It also means that application software like IP board that runs the forum here has to have so many fucking user-configurable bells and whistles that even when I read the manual I can’t find every setting, or every location that every flag needs to be set in order for a feature to run the way I want it to run. And in the real world it means you can get an MBA not only with an emphasis on resource planning, but with an emphasis on using SAP - a piece of software so complex there are now college programs on how to use it. You might think, “But don’t people learn how to use Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator in college?” Sure, in order to create stuff. And in a way you’re creating stuff with SAP. But do you get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on Photoshop?
Back in the Big Iron Age the operating systems were proprietary, and every computer that took up an entire room with a raised floor and HVAC system, and had less storage and processing power than an iPhone, had the same operating system as every other one, give or take a release level. But when a company bought application software like SAP, they also got the source code, which was usually documented and written in a way to make it easy to modify the hell out of it. Why? Because accounting principles may be the same the world over, and tax laws the same across each country and state, but no two companies have the same format for their reports, invoices, purchase orders and so forth. Standards existed and were universally ignored. If something went wrong it went wrong the same way for everyone, and was easy to track down. People didn’t need to take a college course to learn how to use a piece of software.
I’m not against the open source concept entirely. Back then all the programmers read the same magazines, so we all had the same homebrew utilities. We even had the forerunner to QR Code to scan the longer source code. Software vendors and computer manufacturers sponsored conventions so we could, among other things, swap recipes for such add-ons and utilities. While those things would make our lives easier, they had nothing to do with critical functions of the operating system. Unless badly implemented they would rarely cause key application software to crash and burn. Whereas today, with open source everything, who the hell knows what could be responsible some part of a system failing. [/end rant]
