Posted by pellmell on July 11, 2001, at 20:01:44
Hello all,
..sigh.. Okay. I'm on Effexor XR, 150mg/day taken in the morning. I've been taking it for five or six weeks now, at this dose for three or four of them.
My anxiety lifted significantly during my first week on the drug, and it hasn't quite come back... but it's done nothing so far for my symptoms of depression. It might even be making them worse. I'm posting here hoping you can help me figure out whether it is.
You see, two of my major symptoms of depression (dysthima?) are mild social anxiety and feeling slow-brained and stupid, not feeling able to make the connections required to keep up quality banter or do any intellectual lifting. The social anxeity isn't bad enough to keep me hiding inside, but it is enough to make me sit there quietly among friends (and even my girlfriend), feeling like worthless company, not able to participate very well in conversation. Before I started Effexor (on a trial of Remeron, in fact) I felt a whole lot more anxious, but my brain would at least break through with witty rejoinders and such from time to time. On Effexor I'm feeling even more slowbrained and dumb, and I'm still not making those connections.
I've been on Prozac and Zoloft in the past, and both have made me feel sharper and more happy and open. Effexor isn't doing that at all. I stopped taking Prozac because I thought it was making me apathetic and detaching me from reality (like, I didn't care that I was being a terribly awful college student). At least I was smart on the stuff, though.
So what do you think? How likely is it that Effexor is causing this dumbness? I see my pdoc again in a week and a half. Do you think I should try a dosage increase before I give up on it?
It's odd that both of the SSRIs I've been on have unlocked my wit, but Effexor (which at 150mg is inhibiting 5HT reuptake almost exclusively, same as the SSRIs) seems to have closed another latch on it.
Thanks so much for your advice,
-pm
poster:pellmell
thread:69789
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010708/msgs/69789.html