Posted by Xevious on June 3, 2002, at 20:11:57
In reply to Re: Effexor Withdrawl, posted by slantie on June 3, 2002, at 17:32:26
Effexor was a dream and a nightmare for me... I went on it after exhausting all of the other SSRIs that were available at the time, and had absolutely wonderful results initially. The first sign of trouble was that my doc and I had to aggressively manage my dosage to keep it working, but the really nasty problems didn't show until I went on vacation and forgot to take the pills with me. (By the way, I've since been diagnosed with ADD, which explains why the occasional missed med was such a regular thing with me...)
Results were a foggy head, followed by tunnel vision, "neural static," as I put it, then dissociation, disorientation, and the grand finale, a grand mal seizure. Scared the hell out of the family, and that was only on the second day! My doc called in an emergency supply to the local pharmacy, and within hours - no kidding, hours - I was feeling 80% back to normal.
That and the twenty pounds I had packed on while on Effexor were enough reasons to discontinue the med, but it took me about six months to taper off of it, as my doc's initial guidelines for discontinuation caused petite mal seizures and all kinds of creepy changes to my conscious and dreaming perception. The final score was six months of bliss followed by six months of symptom regression followed by six months of utter hell. Ick.
-Steven
poster:Xevious
thread:3670
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020602/msgs/108575.html