Posted by tai daluna on September 4, 2003, at 6:33:46
hello all.
well, i finally have my head together enough to post! i have been reading posts here for all of this month: they have sustained me through an extremely challenging period.
i was prescribed effexor xr 4 months ago because i was having panic attacks. i began to 37.5 mg a day, in the morning. it was great for the first month: at 37.5 mg a day i feel wired but no panic attacks. the prescribing physician increased my dose after about a month and a half to 75mg and that is when the hell began.
i began to experience side effects like night sweats and abdominal cramping, but the doctor said to stick it out. by the end of the second month i had developed a persistent cough. at this time the doctor increased my dose to 150mg, and i went psycho. suddenly i developed extreme asthma. i couldn't walk to the bathroom because i couldn't stop coughing. my chest hurt so badly! i hallucinated like crazy, when i closed my eyes, it was as if i was dreaming. one day, i spent the entire afternoon in a bathtub full of cold water, because it was only then that i could stop coughing. i was twitching. my whole body hurt. my doctor wouldn't believe me. said it was all just part of my anxiety disorder.
finally my husband looked this drug up on the internet, and we started to put it all together. i begged my doc to please take me down. he prescribed me 75mg. things got a little better.
that was about two weeks ago. i dropped to 37.5 mgs this week. i am not really experiencing withdrawal symptoms, but i am still hallucinating mildly. i see giant blue and green spots superimposed on my surroundings and tracers. i feel in a fog, worse then before. i am writer and singer and both have suffered. i am usually articulate, but can hardly describe myself as such now.
but nothing as bad as what it was on 150mg. i have scars on me to prove it! i was so depressed and suicidal my mother-in-law bought me a sewing machine to help me feel better, because everyone seriously thought i was going to off myself.
i can't wait to be off this terrible, terrible drug. i feel raped. the doctor still insist that my symptoms were not caused by effexor XR, but i know. i am surprised how little doctors know or care about the drugs they're prescribing-- at least the docs in this town anyway.
i am so glad to be rid of the asthma, delusions, mania, and terror. now the doc and the pdoc want to prescribe me an anti-psychotic for the delusions and hallucinations that the effexor caused, but i am onto them, and do not want anymore "medicine".
thanks for reading this post. i am feeling really depressed-- like i am never going to feel better. i feel like i have been mind-phucked. i would rather have panic attacks than this.
tai
poster:tai daluna
thread:256832
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030902/msgs/256832.html