Effexor question again

[Ten Chips Down]

Originally Posted by reader

oh wow, I am Effexor's biggest Fan. I've tried almost all ADs and this one works great for me.

Hi Reader!

Yes, venlafaxine is indeed the 'wonder drug' for many; ten years when it went public, doctors began to report that it not only seemed to go to work much faster (little as two weeks) but that it was helping patients who had proved treatment-resistant to other ADs. It is always great to hear from people who have found that sometimes elusive the key that fits the lock for them.


Done-With-It -

Hey guess what? I was down as well by some bug 'round that same period. Unbelievably tenacious bad cold that hang on for about two weeks - sucks, doesn't it? As explained, experience gives us knowledge acquired firsthand so ppl just were curious, that's all. Had no idea you were sick and no intention of evoking such a defensive reply. :tongue2:

And by the way - "Nina, If they made you tired, how come you take them in the morning?" - Yeah, her post caught me as an oddity, too. That's like wiping before you poop - it don't make no sense! LOL

Ten

[Leo_the_Cat]

I was on Effexor a couple of a few years ago and it made me very tired. I would go to bed about 9pm (within half an hour of getting home from work) and not get up until 7am the next morning. My Dr. put me on a low dose of Wellbutrin to counteract the this and other side effects. That worked pretty well. Now I take Cymbalta. It took a couple of weeks to get used to the Cymbalta but now I do not have noticable side effects.

[reader]

Leo, I wish the Effexor worked like that for me I am an insomniac. I can't remember when I last had a solid 8+. I am lucky if I get 4 hrs. sleep. Thank God for this place or I would probably start cleaning in the wee hours and wake the whole house.
Nina, my doc. told me they should be taking in th P.M.-- He is excellent and really knows his stuff. In the beginning they did help me sleep some.

[Leo_the_Cat]

Originally Posted by reader

Leo, I wish the Effexor worked like that for me I am an insomniac. I can't remember when I last had a solid 8+. I am lucky if I get 4 hrs. sleep. Thank God for this place or I would probably start cleaning in the wee hours and wake the whole house.
Nina, my doc. told me they should be taking in th P.M.-- He is excellent and really knows his stuff. In the beginning they did help me sleep some.

When I was working at my previous firm I would have insomnia on Sunday nights when I would think about everything I needed to get done in the coming week. Usually though I have a problem waking up, not sleeping.

[leviathon]

I took effexor for a year or so and then it just stopped working. I also had the experience where it caused or contributed to my craving booze. I am now on celexa take way less of a dose 10 mg. instead of 75mg or 150 mg and I am much happier and more stable.

What I noticed most with effexor is that I had the shakes all the time. Didn't like that sensation. Didn't matter if I took it day or night, just shakes all the time.

Peace, Levi

[Ten Chips Down]

Originally Posted by leviathon

I also had the experience where it caused or contributed to my craving booze. I am now on celexa take way less of a dose 10 mg. instead of 75mg or 150 mg and I am much happier and more stable.

Wow! This is one helluva thread. Effexor is an AD I never took. The 'only' ones I have experience with are, and they're in this order over the past dozen years or so, are:

First-generation ADs: amitriptyline (Elavil), imipramine (Trofranil), and nortriptyline (Pamelor). All for very brief periods (under 4 months I'd say). The anticholinergic side effects made these drugs basically intolerable for me.

SSRIs: Prozac (couldn't tolerate it b/c it wound me up like a child's toy! [super hyped]), and then Zoloft, my magic-bullet on which I remained for about 10 years. Cut to the present: over the past 3 months, the wonderful Celexa about which you'll read below.

Leviathon -
Hooray another Celexa user!! LOL

I'm all the time getting the impression that citalopram (Celexa) is the poor man's escitalopram (Lexapro) since Celexa's patent has expired and the Lexapro they say is just like Celexa only improved b/c of less side-effects.

Well, I've been doing miraculously myself on the 20mg (Celexa) he has me on and amazingly, cannot even tell I'm taking it. In that sense, it is REALLY superior to Zoloft for me.

This is just such a funny-bizarre, uncharted area man.

For one, Effexor's propensity for causing what pts variously describe as "brain-shocks," "brain-shivers," or "brain-zaps" is puzzling as all get-out to me.

If anything, all the discrepant reports of different strokes for different folks and they--the scientific community--don't know why, just tells me that for all the advancements made over the past 60 years, we truly are in psychiatry's infancy stage yet.

When you cannot get a straight answer from the pro's, but instead a humble admission of "we just don't kow why," that sez something right there.

What, I'm sure. LOL

But either we are the guinea-pigs for psychiatry's future* or just very lucky to have what we have. Hmm.

An inconclusive reflection. *shrug*

Ten

* Explication: We're either better off today than we realize, or Tom Cruise and the whole anti-pyschiatry crowd is right and we're just inventing new diseases every year so that Big Pharma can profit off them to the tune of billions, baby. That possibility -however slim- makes me extremely uneasy. Alas though, tis a bit late in the game for me now and I'm in it for life it would seem.