Posted by bcoffman on October 7, 2003, at 3:20:50
Hi,
My name's Brad and I'm a college student. Im 20 now, and I started taking Effexor a year ago to deal with severe depression. It helped for a while, but it prevented me from feeling any emotion whatsoever. Even though I no longer felt depressed, i didnt feel happy or interested or anything else either. I just felt "grey" all the time. I told my doctor I wanted to get off the medication so I could feel like myself again, even if it meant i would still be depressed. He outlined a gradual "step down" plan for me, where i would decrease my dose by one small pill (37.5 mg) per week from 150mg. It took about a month, and I forgot a few times, but Im now at the end of the plan and Im experiencing what I can only explain as severe side effects from withdrawal.
I feel dizzy nearly all the time, and if I move my head too quickly (or rather, my eyes) my vision gets blurry and I feel a sudden "shock" run through my head... its hard to describe, but its like if i dont focus on one thing at a time i feel these strange flashes running through my head, that also bring with them a "rushing" sound. This especially happens when a loud noise occurs suddenly. I find myself jumping at sudden movements. Also, i have problems with sleeping... even when i was on the medication, i slept too much and was tired all the time. It became a problem last year as i would often sleep through class... I could seriously sleep for almost 24hrs straight without waking up. Im hoping that its going to "break" at some point and Ill start feeling normal again, but I just dont know. Has anyone else experienced these sort of effects? Its becoming really hard to focus on school when I cant even read my textbooks without getting nautious. I just want to know if whats happening to me is normal. Thanks for your time.-Brad
poster:bcoffman
thread:266215
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031004/msgs/266215.html