Posted by Wilkie on September 27, 2000, at 15:37:16
In reply to Re:Intractable Effexor Withdrawl , posted by cjl on August 23, 2000, at 21:07:19
I was on Effexor 75 mg a day for about 3 months for depression and to counter the extreme fatigue and lethargy brought on by Depakote. The biggest side effect was how it affected my dreams. I basically felt like I was tripping in my sleep every night, which I at first thought was pretty cool. But as time went by my dreams became more and more vivid and intense and sometimes a little too fucked up, and I was waking up in the mornings feeling exhausted from dreaming all night long. So I talked to my psychiatrist about this and she switched me to Serzone, taking me off of Effexor cold turkey. I thought nothing of it, trusting the MD behind her name. A day after stopping Effexor I became really sick, experiencing the whole multitude of withdrawal symptoms associated with Effexor. I called her and she thought I was experiencing side effects from Serzone so she told me to stop taking it. She had no idea that what I was experiencing was withdrawal. I didn't find out until I watched 20/20 one night and then got on the internet and looked up "effexor withdrawal" which is where I came across all of these threads. So needless to say I fired her and found a new psychiatrist. My point of all of this is to address everyone's concerns about withdrawal. There was obviously no weaning off of it for me. I went off it cold turkey. The first week was brutal -- vicious withdrawal. The second week wasn't as bad, much more bearable. Withdrawal effects lingered for an additional 2 weeks or so and now I don't feel anything from it. I just stuck it out and suffered through it, knowing that I wanted to be free from what I consider to be a horrible drug which I will never ever take again. I need antidepressants, so my new doc put me on wellbutrin which is supposed to have fewer side effects and no withdrawal associated with it. We'll see, but anything has to be better than Effexor. So for all of you trying to get off of Effexor, keep at it, and just stick it out as long as possible and I can promise from my experience that after the first 2 weeks or so it gets much better and WILL eventually go away.
poster:Wilkie
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000926/msgs/45372.html