Posted by janejj on November 1, 2001, at 12:18:29
In reply to Re: Is everyone really so careful all the time?, posted by Dr. Bob on October 31, 2001, at 23:34:40
Hi,
i'd like to think that i'm totally objective about what i read, but i'm not !!
I only recently started taking effexor xr, the first anti depressant i have ever taken. I listened carefully to what my doctor had to say about the drug and left satisfied that although i might suffer a few side effects in the first week, eventually the positive benefits would far outweigh the negative and that this was one of the safest drugs i could take.
However upon taking my first 75mg, i felt pretty awful. Thats when i turned to the internet, trying to look for some 'support',hoping to find some success stories to help me through the tough days.
However all i seemed to be pulling up we're horror stories, it literally seemed as though i couldn't find anything positive about effexor and i admit i was petrified. If i had been reading about a drug i wasn't taking i'm sure that i would have been 99% objective, but effexor was in my system, this was different! I didn't really care about the source, everything seems valid when you're scared.My rational seemed to go out the window and my thinking was along the line,
'there's no smoke without fire'(sorry about the cliche !).I read so much about terrible withdrawal, that within a week i had made an appointment with my doctor and asked to be switched to prozac. He tried to persaude me otherwise and told me that all anti depressants had side effects, but i had read too much and would never feel at ease taking it, so eventually he wrote me a presciption for what i wanted. I only took effexor for 7 days, but the four days without were pretty terrible! As soon as i started taking prozac i started to feel better, i only seemed to have one side effect with this, racing thoughts.
This time around, i promised myself that i wouldn't look up prozac on the internet !Although i have to admit that i couldn't help it, although i tended to steer clear of websites like 'prozac survivors'. Dr Bob's site however seemed much more balanced and i was much more inclined to take peoples opinions and experiences as valid, although i'm always aware that not everything and everyone is for real !The fact that i feel fine on prozac also means i am much more likely to discard something negative that i read. People tend not to write about their positive experiences, but those who have had negative definately use the internet as a place to vent, rant and perhaps exaggerate their experiences. However its not just negative information that i'll discard, if something seems overly positive, I'm inclined to think its been endorsed by the company that made it or something !
I would never take actual pharmaceutical advice from someone one line, for example if someone told me it would be a good idea to increase my dose or to mix it with cough medicine. I leave that to my doctor.Reading about other peoples experiences are interesting though and help me to feel much less isolated in my battle against depression.
Hey, Dr. Bob, are we gonna be able to read ure article somewhere online ????
Hi, everyone,
>
> Thanks for all your responses -- and positive feedback!
>
> But is everyone really so careful all the time? If so, are concerns about the quality of information online exaggerated? Do we not need to worry about unreliable information because it'll just be ignored?
>
> I realize another issue is that people here might not be a representative sample of all people online...
>
> Bob
poster:janejj
thread:82639
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011025/msgs/82875.html