Posted by caritasrainbow on March 15, 2004, at 12:03:33
In reply to Re: How long does withdrawal from Effexor last?, posted by worm on March 15, 2004, at 11:29:04
> Anyhoo, if I don't take my Effexor for 2 days, I get very bad moods, depressed, crying, irritable, shortness of attention span, inability to concentrate, and these "zings" like electric current through my brain when I even think of something or someone that makes me angry.
> I'm afraid to double-up, because my doctor said 300 was the max, and I'm on 150s. I guess I'd just better figure out a better way to take it on the weekends. I wish they had a patch!!!i'm not a doctor, but i took 450mg of effexor for about a year and a half. all of the things you are describing are exactly what i've experienced from withdrawal. i DO NOT recommend doubling your dose for any reason! this will, in my experience, only make your withdrawals worse.
i think, if you are going to stay on effexor, you are just going to have to find a way to make yourself remember to take it on the weekends. can you change your daily time to take it to being every morning first thing when you get up or last thing before you go to bed? i would assume that you do those things even on the weekends, so maybe you could just get into that habit? in my experience taking the drug at a different time than usual has only caused those side effects (esp the zings) for a few hours. so if you changed your schedule of time to take it i would think it would only affect you negatively the first time and only for a short period of time.
i hope this helps some. i decided after all that time to get off the stuff entirely and i will never get back on it. there are other meds out there that are not so bad to withdrawal from. only one for me that ever came close was paxil and even that was nowhere near as bad as effexor.
also- i will say that while i was on effexor it did work well for me in the beginning and for a while after each dose increase. as i mentioned i was taking 450mg which is much higher than the manufactuer's recommended high dose...
rain
poster:caritasrainbow
thread:1016
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040313/msgs/324628.html