Posted by Atticus on July 21, 2004, at 19:20:19
In reply to Re: Newbie to Rx » GayleZer, posted by corafree on July 21, 2004, at 2:25:04
The term "anxiously tired" makes perfect sense to me, because I've had that reaction to other ADs, most notably the dreadful tricyclics. They made my thinking so muddled that I felt almost drunk, and I couldn't focus on completing even the simplest tasks, like reading a paragraph in a newspaper and remembering what it had said by the time I got to the next one. I'd have to go back to the beginning of the article again, but the same thing would happen; it was like running in quicksand. Yet at the same time, I felt unbearably antsy, unable to even sit still and do something as passive as watching the boob tube. I haven't had that kind of reaction on Effexor XR (150 mg./day), but my new pdoc told me Monday that both Effexor and the old tricyclics increase the level of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine in the brain. I'd known that Effexor did this, but I'd never known that about the tricyclics. So it's possible that the increase in norepinephrine levels in your brain's biochemistry caused by Effexor could be having a similar effect on you to the effect that tricyclics do on me. It's an absolutely maddening feeling to be simultaneously too sedated to do anything and too wired to even not do anything. Obviously, I'm only making a (somewhat) educated guess here based on my own experience, so take it with a grain of salt until you talk to a pdoc. But I have experienced the precise symptoms you're describing. Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040719/msgs/368751.html