Posted by ana on October 10, 2003, at 11:46:32
In reply to Effexor withdrawal - very bad news, posted by janey on November 1, 1998, at 16:30:34
WOW! I have just read this entire thread and have gone from laughing to crying! My story is long and surely rather boring, but I feel compelled to tell it. I just want to say, to start with, if you're feeling fine on Effexor than get off this thread and don't be giving people advice about not knocking the drug. It sucks.
I have been on Effexor for about 8 years and this is day 3 without ANY. Started with a liquor and Darvocet OD at a time when there was great turmoil in my life. I was taken to a psych ward where I spent a week or so (you learn pretty quickly what it takes to get out if you want to). First they gave me Prozac and I took it for a while feeling no noticeable difference. The thing that I believe helped me more was 5 years with a good therapist. In hindsight, 5 minutes with Dr Phil would probably have done the trick. One positive about the hospitalization is that I was introduced to the concept of being an Adult Child of Alcoholics and there is no drug that fixes that. I attended ACOA meetings (12-step similar to AA) for a few years and found those helpful at all. If you believe you are depressed and it is not just some doctor's diagnosis, you owe it to yourself to seek out one of these alternatives to drugs for real help.I was told that I was in major depression and had probably been depressed since childhood. Looking back on it, I think this is an evaluation made by just another human being who may not understand that not all people are "bubbly."
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. After the five years of therapy I figured out that living with a drug addict alcoholic husband who was verbally abusive to my children (they were not his, by the way), prone to Viet Nam flashbacks, kept an arsenal of weapons, and caused me to fear he would murder someone everytime we drove somewhere was probably causing me more "depression" than any body chemistry problem and I divorced him.
Now on the upswing and in a great new relationship (of course), I was drug-free. What with trying to rid myself of "the stalker," the usual trauma of divorce and having lost custody of my younger child due to the ex-husband's abuse, I wasn't problem-free. The new relationship required massive work and my new husband and I found ourselves seeing another therapist. While he was a wonderful therapist, his suggestion that I see a psychiatrist for possible medication was an error, but trusting in the medical profession, I did as I was told.
The psychiatrist tried Zoloft and Wellbutrin on me and I felt no different on either. She then put me on Effexor, the little tabs that you can cut in half, don't remember the dose. I can recall once telling her that she seemed depressed, which she didn't take very well at all. (here's where you laugh)
A couple of times during the "effexor years," I tried to quit cold-turkey and experienced all the worst of the symptoms described in this thread including one bout where I felt like I was dying of the worst flu ever and couldn't stand or walk without help. Bad girl, get back on your medication. Ran out once more and called the shrink's office for a refill and curiously got an answering machine. The secretary returned the call to inform me that the good doctor had killed herself with alcohol, anti-seizure and pain medications. Talk about an eye-opener!
Now I had to resort to finding the effexor somewhere else because I knew by experience that I couldn't just quit. Thus began the precribing by various other medical professionals including my gynecologist who did me a "favor" by giving me a scrip for more effexor, no questions asked. Unfortunately, this also means no follow-up.
Over time I have graduated to 75 mg of XR four times a day (insurance would no longer allow for the tablets), and finally once or twice a day, whatever I felt like taking.
Symptoms while on the effexor included nightmares, some extremely amusing and enjoyable dreams (my husband says I should write a book about them), constant fatigue, migraines (sometimes two or three a week), and insomnia if I took a dose later in the day. I have also gained 40 pounds.
My wanting to get off effexor has been ongoing almost as long as I've been taking it. My husband bought into the idea that I would have to take it the rest of my life like he takes his thyroid meds. The problem for me, aside from symptoms, is the stigma. Yes, I take antidepressants therefore I must be insane.
Too late to make a long story short, I recently went on the Atkins diet after years of feeling like a fat blob and failing to lose weight on any diet or exercise program. Atkins has been working great for my husband, not so great for me, so I went back to the book and read the chapter about "metabolic resistance." Dr Atkins, rest his soul, says antidepressants are the worst offenders in causing the diet to fail, so I decided to kick the effexor, knowing what I would have to go through. And this time I am not doing it with a doctor, though I don't recommend such a perilous path to anyone else. Remember, I am only on day 3.
I am not experiencing anywhere near the severity of withdrawal symptoms that I had before, although I am so happy to see that I am not the only person whose brain rattles around inside my skull and makes me sometimes want to vomit.
In conjunction with the withdrawal, I have been working out three days a week, 30-60 minutes of walking, treadmill, etc. The first day without effexor I began taking St John's Wart, 300 mg softgels three times a day. Maybe the low-carb diet is helping also, I can't say for sure. I just know I don't feel anywhere near as bad as I did when stopping the effexor for one day or so in the past.
I realize there are people out there with actual body chemistry problems who need medication. I don't advocate that anyone else do what I am doing, I just wanted to share this story. Recently my son-in-law lost his father who was pretty much his best friend. He went to a doctor who prescribed Welbutrin. I told him he shouldn't start on any ADs. They have become the cure for everything, it seems. The death of someone close to you is grounds for depression and I can say from experience that drugs don't cure or help one to avoid a natural grief process, nor do I believe they should be prescribed for what I call "situational depression." I now believe that this was my original problem and I was much too easily led to drugs to cure what lifestyle or behavioral changes could have accomplished.
I noticed in the thread where someone said they didn't feel unhappy or mentally depressed. That's me. I'm not by nature a bubbly, high-on-life person. I am introspective, a loner and something of an artist. I want my mind clear and I want to be off effexor and I don't plan to live on St John's Wart either, will taper off that when I'm feeling better. I feel fine mentally with plenty of creative energy, just the physical self is going a difficult time. I am looking forward to the light at the end of the tunnel.
My purpose in this EXTREMELY LONG post is to thank those of you who have shared and kept this very informative and helpful thread going and also to beg you to examine your thinking, your behavior and where you are currently at in your life to see if there is another way out than this sickening, soul-murdering drug-taking. I look forward to reaching the light at the end of the tunnel.
Thanks for listening!
poster:ana
thread:1016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031010/msgs/267805.html