Posted by EricJ on June 14, 2001, at 9:05:31
In reply to Re: Terrified of Effexor, posted by rosalinda on June 14, 2001, at 2:47:25
rmshed -
I'll share my experience with Effexor XR and the withdrawal which may or may not calm your fears.
I took Effexor for 9 months. Effexor was somewhat beneficial to me; it brought me up enough to deal with life, but I didn't feel as "good" on it as I had with other antidepressants. The only noticable side effect I had after the 1st month or so was the lack of sex drive and anorgasmia (frustrating at times, but not that big of a deal to me).
I stopped taking Effexor in February. My doctor had told me I could stop cold-turkey whenever I wanted because there were no withdrawal symptoms. Well, he was wrong. I took my last dose on a Wednesday... Friday I was feeling wierd, kind of spacy and out of it. Saturday I was more out of it and nauseous. Sunday I got some news which was mildly disappointing and I WAY OVERREACTED to the point of sobbing, crying, and screaming for about 4 hours. I was finally able to bring myself "down" by drinking a beer. For about a week after I felt emotionally/mentally "out of it", but did not have physical symptoms other than some mild nausea. One thing I found helped was going to the gym and getting on a cardio machine for 45 minutes every day. It released some tension and relaxed me.
If Effexor had been more effective for me, I wouldn't hesitate to take it again, even knowing the withdrawal symptoms. Yes, they were pretty horrible at the time, but didn't last THAT long (in my opinion). If I had to come off it again, I would conciously choose a couple weeks when I knew work wouldn't be demanding and I had a couple of valium on hand to deal with the emotional upheaval.
As of today, I have been on Wellbutrin for 3 weeks. It finally "kicked in" 4 days ago and I'm feeling good. I had REALLY bad anxiety (tight chest, muscle tension) for about a week and a half when I started and I have dry mouth. Sexually, though, in my case the reports that Wellbutrin can enhance your sex life are true!
It seems that these drugs affect people in different ways. I'm definitely not trying to minimize other people's experience with Effexor withdrawal. For me (in hindsight at least), the withdrawal just wasn't THAT bad...
take care!
poster:EricJ
thread:66361
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010612/msgs/66431.html