Posted by snarley on February 13, 2004, at 17:02:52
In reply to Effexor XR, posted by anxiety66me on February 13, 2004, at 15:29:41
hi anxiety =D
I've been on effexor 150mg/day for about a year for depression/mild anxiety and it's worked great. I also was recently diagnosed with ADD and i can tell you it hasnt helped that one bit at the 150/day dosage. But you said you are also taking wellbutrin which i guess is probably helping with that. Just dont expect the effexor to really do anything in that respect, at least at the current dosage.
I had the constipation thing too, and you've totally got the right idea, eating lots of fiber is what helped me get over that. and drinking a lot of water (i go through a few large water bottles a day during classes, etc). I started out eating lots of veggies and high-fiber wheat bread and whole wheat bagels. But keeping a ton of raw veggies on hand is sort of a pain. Metamucil etc didnt really do it for me.
Now I do mainly two things for fiber: those green "superfood" drinks that also have a lot of fiber in them and are packed with vitamins and nutrients and other healthy stuff. Another tasty food is Seitan (sorta healthfood store stuff, and kinda wierd, but it's really tasty in thai or indian curries or soups). Seitan is a "fake meat" for vegetarians made entirely out of wheat flour. But in the way it's processed it's extremely low carbohydrate despite the fact it's made out of wheat. It has like 10g fiber and 20g protein per serving. In what I consider to be a "serving" however i'm probably getting more like 15 or 20g fiber (i'm about 5'9" 140 lb girl, slightly above-average appetite, hehe). It's usually sold next to tofu in tofu-looking-containers (if you have a whole foods or wild oats near where you live they both carry the good brand-->). I really like White Wave Chicken-Style Seitan (packed in broth which isnt that bad either). And i'm not a vegetarian, i love a good steak as much as the next gal. I hate tofu but this seitan stuff is pretty good.
As for sleep problems, my pdoc gave me trazodone to take before bed while i was getting adjusted to the effexor for the first couple weeks/month or so. The sleep issues should go away, but maybe ask your pdoc about that in the meantime.
As far as my experience on effexor, weight gain/loss is negligible.
Hope all my ramblings helped you out,
Marley
poster:snarley
thread:312914
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040210/msgs/312943.html