Posted by PoohBear on September 17, 2004, at 11:37:11
In reply to Re: Anyone had success on Effexor XR?, posted by fork on September 17, 2004, at 5:48:40
Fork:
Much in your experience with Effexor resonates with me, as I am also a 47 year-old male.
I have experienced the sames side effects and the same benefits of Effexor.
I want to let you know that some of these go away with time, i.e., the sexual side effects, tiredness, etc. In fact, even though it's harder to climax on Effexor, the climax itself is far stronger than before.
I have been trying to combat the sleep, and have tried everything from Trazodone to Seroquel and unfortunately have had a lot of weight gain from Remeron and Seroquel. We will now try Abilify and see if we get sleep without weight gain...
One small thing though:
As some others have noted, missing a dose can be a less-than-stellar experience.
I had a home emergency a cople weeks ago (broken water fitting spewing water inside wall and subfloor...yuck!) and missed my morning dose of both Effexor and Straterra. I took half a dose of each when I remembered in the late afternoon.
WOW!
I felt queasy and crappy with headaches and brain zaps for the next three days. Finally after the fourth day I began to get back to normal. It didn't make me want to get off Effexor, but rather was a potent reminder to be careful about not forgetting. My pDoc said that I should have taken the FULL DOSE in the afternoon, not a half dose.
Like many others, I am not looking forward to QUITTING
> Hi, I just started effexor xr (47 year old male with depression and anxiety, otherwise good health), I am 2 weeks into it, starting with a week at 37.5 then 75mg. In the distant past I have taken Celexa and could never get past a jittery nasuea like feeling. I have been taking lorazepam (atavan?)0.5mg as needed for years.I may go months without it and then I may go a long strech where I take several times a day, as many as 3 times daily. I have had depression issues for over 25 years and dealt with them with by self medicating using weed (very limited a few times a year to "clear " my head) and alcohol very often, including binge drinking to escape the reality of my depression (which made me feel more depressed afterwards, but I continued anyway, seemed like the only to feel happy). Recently due to some extremely stressful situations in my life I sank into the worst depression of my life to the point where I couldn't function and it was destroying my life. With the support of my wonderful wife, and realizing I couldn't "go it alone" any longer I finally started therapy a 5 weeks ago. I still was not willing to take the step to going on anti-depressants. The therapy began to help me see things differently. I then on my medical doctor and therapist advise I started effexor xr. I was very nervous about it (even more so after I found this message board and read some of the bad experiences). I was afraid of sexual side effects and becoming a emotionless zombie. For me, I felt positive effects within the first week, could have been the therapy or maybe even a placebo effect just from starting something new, either way I was feeling releaf from my depression. I did feel a little wierd at first kind of a slight "stoned" feeling but that passed within a few days. I also was sleeping alot in the daytime(I also do that when I am depressed) so I began taking the effexor xr before going to bed, that seemed to clear up my daytime sleepiness. I had an interesting sexual side effect, not the one I feared, I have been experiencing a mild delay in reaching climax which for me(and my wife) is a enjoyable side effect. One side effect I am having trouble with is I can't sleep more than 5 or 6 hours at night. Two weeks in to the effexor xr, and 5 weeks of therapy I feel so much better. I still have a lot of bad situations going on in my life, but they aren't crushing me like before. So far I am very happy with the effexor. I also have stopped drinking, which I didn't think was possible, but I strongly reccomend it if it's messing your life up, or your self medicating. I don't really have the desire to drink now. As long as I don't have problems with the effexor I intend to stay with it. My doctor advised me that this isn't a life sentence, but when I am ready to go off effexor it will be a slow process and warned me not to try to stop alone. I don't ever want to go back to the nightmare I was in. This drug may not be for everyone but for me it's been a lifesaver. I welcome any comments and I will post ever now and then with updates to my experience,good or bad.
poster:PoohBear
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040915/msgs/391962.html