Posted by Rompy on September 5, 2001, at 12:05:28
This problem I'm having started after being prescribed EFFEXOR.
Here's my story in brief. I had been on trycyclics for around 20 years. They never helped,but I could't withdraw.I had tried, but if I went to long I would have audio hallucinations and feel like absolute hell.
About Aug.1998 my shrink put me on effexor. On the very day I took it I realized that my toes were moving around like crazy.I couldn't stop them. I got hot flashes that were so bad that I had to sleep on the floor downstairs where the air-conditioning was freezing, nervous legs, an occasional severe seizure like movement,and a mild buzzing on the bottoms of my feet,accompanied by what could be described as itching.
I told the shrink, he told me not to worry about it.So I didn't. I liked the deadness that effoxor caused and I continued on the drug for another year, and during that time the good doctor told me to increase the dosage. So I did. After a while I felt as if I was being poisened, literally chemically saturated.
I started weaning myself off slowly,until I was down to one capsule.From there I asked the shrink to put me on something else. He tried Paxil,zoloft,finally prozac. All of the drugs agitated me,(the Paxil made me want to KILL people, so I quit after one dose. Paxil is REALLY wierd.
Finally after I was down to 20 mg.of Prozac I was able to withdraw and quit anti-depressants,(with the help of a tiny dose of St.John's wart.)I was only on the zoloft and other drugs for a short time before quitting completely.
I expected the twitching and so forth to stop. But it didn't. The itching was beginning to slowly turn into slightly painful pricks.They eventually became very painful and frequent. Sometimes I felt like I was being jabbed in the eyes,the tongue,and everywhere else with an electric needle.The mild buzzing that had initially starting on the bottoms of my feet became an intense burning,and had spread to my legs and arms. My eyes always burned. I was totally agitated,yet constantly tired and paranoid.
Months later,after I had quit all anti-depressants, I still had been taking it in stride, sort of wondering if it was that serious. I went to my regular doctor three times,each time being given some trial and error medicine that never worked. ( Of course I was still charged by the good doctor,even though he failed to help.Doctors are immune to that sort of thing you know).
What got my attention was when I was at the doctor,(m.d.) for the third time and my wife came along to have her fibro-myolgia treated. He gave her CELEXA.
After the first two doses she told me it was working pretty good.
However,after waking on the third morning,her toes had also began to move around.She had the exact same symptoms that I had after only two doses.Now you may be thinking, she's a bit nutty and she wants attention,or some such thing. But there were many
subtle details that I had never told her, and that she described to me to a T.
She had her last dose 2 weeks ago and is still experiencing the symptoms which are gradually getting worse.If anyone hates effexor or celexa as much as me,please post.
poster:Rompy
thread:77844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010902/msgs/77844.html