Posted by burnedout on December 3, 2003, at 23:20:47
In reply to Re: Lawsuit Anyone? » Sufferfromeffexor, posted by zeugma on October 15, 2003, at 21:15:22
I am sorry to hear of your battle with Effexor.
I too went through the same thing.Finally, I put a paper on the wall and marked the days that I had been off.
It took, I think 39 days before I finally came out enough to have some control. But the third day of being without the drug was the hardest. After that, things, slowly got better.
I'm surprised that Wyeth didn't give you the info on how to get off it.
They put after three transfers to a lady who only took information from people who were haveing trouble.
She gave me very precise instructions--these by the way are NOT what is published and what the doctors have. But she was very nice.
I have a friend who works on educating people on these things. She was representing or rather giving expert testemony in court, for a family, where the father came off the Effexor and during the discontinuation killed his family and himself. As it turned out, his wife was one of the people who worked at Wyeth, taking the phone calls from people having trouble--but even she didn't see what was happening.
I hope she wasn't the lady that was so kind to me. It happened just shortly after I had talked to this person.
Effexor-XR should be, in my opinion, destroyed and the people who push it--somehow made to go through what we've gone through (I was on it for only 5 weeks!) But it was costly and now I fight every day to just stay alive, as I awake, being shocked when I move my eyes and my head roars with tinnitus.
My therapist won't let me say "I can't stand it." So I won't. But if I could I would. --when you pass out from pain, as I did coming off the stuff is that an "I can't stand it?"
I wish you luck on getting off it.
You CAN do it. And the sooner the better, but don't go fast unless you have to. Try dropping 18.5/mg/day for four days--see how you do--if ok, drop off another 18.5--.That's what I was told by Wyeth.
The doctor's recommendation is to do it over two-weeks!
Once you are free of it--fight as hard as you can to stay off--I had to count seconds, between the tears--I a 55 year old male.
I was told by my pdoc that the 3rd day would be the worst--that if we could get through that and all that was going on and have no seizures, then it would slowly get better.
He was right. The third day was a day of lying on the ground, or rather falling on the floor in pain, passing out, crying, hurting, sweating, shaking, blacking-out.
If you taper more than I did, I don't think you will have it so bad, but it will still be bad.
Some people use a benzo to help them get through it. I didn't. I wish I had.
There is also a drug, commonly given in the U.K. and Canada to help people survive the "discontinuation" effects of Effexor, but I don't remember its name. It is one that is commenly used to help people fight the ill effects of chemotherapy. That might be helpful.
But you can do it. I wish there was a class action. I have an attorney who says if he can get enough people he might do it. But if there's one in the works, I'd like to know too.
God bless --I know what it's like.
poster:burnedout
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031202/msgs/286403.html