Posted by LynnPerley on August 14, 2005, at 0:11:15
Hello all - it's been a while - in quick summary I unsuccessfully tried to wean off of Effexor XR and found myself depressed again. Went back up to 150mg Effexor plus 20 mg daily of Ritalin for about six months, then belatedly realized I had continued to crash and burn back to a very depressive state. I took myself up to 225mg Effexor until I got in to see the psychiatrist. When I saw her I expressed my concern about Effexor - it helped quite a bit to get me back to a daily function when I needed it a few years ago, especially when I had a large anxiety component due to my husband being deployed for the army reserve, but it really dumbs me down and demotivates me. The doc suggested adding Prozac and increasing the ritalin dosage to 40 - 60 mg a day to see if that helps, with the idea that we could taper off the effexor from there. I would appreciate any personal perspective and experience!
Prozac was the first SSRI I took and I could not tolerate it due to bruxism - that was prescribed by a family doc and he never suggested a combo. I was able to get rid of the bruxism from effexor after the psychiatrist suggested taking some buspar temporariy, so I am expecting I can handle it this time around. My doctor also suggested that combining Prozac with 225 mg effexor might not cause the same degree of bruxism.
I start the package on Monday 8/15 - I am finishing up a two week round of prednisone due to a skin condition and we want to start "fresh" with this new combo - by the way, the initial 60 mg prednisone I took made me feel better than I have felt in years! due to the hypomanic side effects I had!
poster:LynnPerley
thread:541384
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050811/msgs/541384.html