Posted by KatieUK on November 19, 2003, at 18:54:23
In reply to Re: Efexor XR - Long Term Withdrawal - Anyone Else?, posted by ceecee on November 19, 2003, at 10:54:46
well, i took one 75mg pill last night as directed by psychiatrist, just to make sure that that was the cause. and, of course, it was. i'm so angry that nobody bothered to tell me that this might happen. and i feel so stupid and naive for not realising that it could. now having phonecall to psychiatrist when with gp on friday, and he did mention the possibility of another medication to cover symptoms. i really don't want to take anything else - and maybe have to deal with another set of side-effects from that.... he also (only after i brought them up, though) suggested 37.5mg tablets, and not using the extended release ones so that the dose can be reduced very gradually. my problem with that, though, is that things seem to work with me as with someone very early in this thread (paul?): though i tapered the dosage slowly, it was after taking the final pill that things started to get really bad - so what's halfway between something and nothing? i'm scared, 'specially have read the posts from those who said that their symptoms lasted a really long time. the idea, when it's come up, of taking anti-depressants for the rest of one's life to maintain 'normality' fills me with horror; so obviously there's that to the power of three with some irony thrown in that, in theory, i could be taking it just cos i can't stop; at that point i'm taking a drug, not as a 'cure' for a 'disease', but just as a cure for itself. hope that makes sense.
it is so outrageous and manipulative that i wasn't informed - surely it is part of the duty of care of any doctor to explain the possible ramifications of any medication which they prescribe to a patient, and i know that he would have not mentioned it because he didn't want to risk my refusing to take the medication.
i do know what you mean about taking the drug versus taking nothing - only i've had very bad episodes before and they've gone, eventually. and that's what's happened this time. and i'm not really sure that it was any less awful. though the timing and/or pattern may be different, you can never really know for sure that anything your body does is due to some specific cause (you can never know what would have happened otherwise) - and so i don't know for sure if the pills 'worked'. on the other hand, when experiencing bizarre symptoms which i've never encountered before, it's a pretty fair assumption to blame the drug. all of which makes it a lot easier to trust in the negative than the positive (as in most things in life). so, in conclusion, i don't know that the drugs did much good, but i do know about the bad (hopefully there's no more that i don't know about!), i don't know what would have happened if i hadn't taken it and i also don't know that there isn't another drug out there which really would help (and have fewer side-effects). this psychiatrist has never seen me through a bad one b4 (and wouldn't have if i'd persistently refused chemicals), so he can attribute every advance to the efexor (though it seems so unscientific to me). he seems to think that the fact that i am so much better than a year ago is proof that the pills worked; to me that's equivalent to a believer saying to a non-believer that the proof that god exists is in the world around you (when you have to already believe to consider that to be proof) - it's a completely circular argument.
anyway, sorry everyone (anyone) - seem to have bleated on and on again with out-loud musings and rantings. gonna go and take another pill now ;-)
katie
poster:KatieUK
thread:104118
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031116/msgs/281402.html