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Agree with EERRIICC » ICanFlyButterfly

Posted by Racer on September 16, 2005, at 22:04:51

In reply to New to Effexor - terrified of life, posted by ICanFlyButterfly on September 16, 2005, at 15:55:07

EERRIICC is right, it takes a while for any drug to kick in. You're on a very low dose of Effexor, and if it doesn't kick in for you in the next week or two, your doctor will probably raise the dose for you. You have to titrate up slowly on most of these drugs, especially since the best idea is to stay at the lowest effective dose. What that dose is will vary for each individual.

The biggest problem, of course, is that this waiting game is taking place at a time when you need relief so desperately. Believe me, I know how bad that is. It's like a cruel cosmic joke. The best advice I can offer is to use whatever support system you have or can find -- from friends, neighbors and family through boards like this one -- and stick it out until you've had a good six weeks at a therapeutic dose of Effexor. If it still doesn't work, your doctor can either augment it with another medication, or change your drugs entirely.

Is the Zyprexa helping at all? For me, the anxiety I feel when depressed is sometimes worse than the depression itself.

Welcome to PsychoBabble. You can get a lot of good information here, although you do need to keep in mind that, as wildcard pointed out, most of us who spend much time here are not your average patients. We have a lot of people here who have some degree of treatment resistance, or are hypersensitive to medication side effects, or simply react oddly to medications in general. We're not the ones to look to for what you'll likely experience on these drugs!

Optimal dosing of anti-depressants is only found through trial and error. Back in the bad old days of the MAOIs and TCAs as the only options, doctors could do blood tests to check on blood levels of the drugs because they knew what the therapeutic window was. Nowadays, it's all trial and error. And there's not much that can be done to anticipate reactions. For example, a lot of doctors have expected me to respond to low doses of drugs because I tend to be underweight when beginning treatment. Not so, I usually require very high doses before anything kicks in. Other people here, though, have good results with doses so low that they're hardly considered therapeutic. Just depends, and it means that we gotta stick it out when trying drugs.

I hope that helps, and doesn't overwhelm you. Welcome, and I hope you feel better soon.

(Oh, and I took Effexor XR for years. Don't let all the possible side effects scare you. It's a good drug.)


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poster:Racer thread:555729
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050914/msgs/555879.html