Posted by sam7iam on January 22, 2005, at 11:27:07
In reply to Re: Anyone had success on Effexor XR? » corafree, posted by corafree on January 22, 2005, at 0:37:25
Hi Cora, and everyone! Wow, there are so many posts on this 'thread' and I'm not all that experienced with this sort of thing; it took me some time to catch up. I am sorry to hear that so many people have had such horrible problems with Effexor. I did once try to come off it; my psychiatrist ( drug pusher ) just said, ' drop one dose a day and see what happens...' so I did drop one 150mg pill; the next day I did not get out of bed except to use the bathroom and drink water!! Now from reading the posts, I am very concerned about withdrawl and do feel that I've been lied to!
Before starting Effexor or any of my meds, I read all the manufacturer data carefully; the printed and on-line as well. NOTHING was said about withdrawl problems except that it should be done slowly and that seizures might be a problem. This was all very understated IMHO.
The Neurotin/Effexor balance I spoke of was in re to blood pressure. I use 600mg/day for pain, at 900/day there was no benefit re pain, so we increased my dose of fentanyl. Effexor raises and Nerotin lowers. Neurotin is an amazing chemical; it is a very simple derivative of a naturally occuring neurotransmitter: GABA ( gamma amino butyric acid ) I am a research chemist, Ph.D. physical chemistry...so I find the chemistry side of all this facinating. Also took a few courses in Neuropsychology...incomprehensible to me! Much of it is a sort of , try it and see what happens, attitude!!
Neurotin was originally 'invented' for seizure control for epileptics, its analgesic qualities where latter discovered from those patients and now is also found to have some effect on mood. I take it mainly for pain control. The disease that hit me is a rare autoimmune where my body attacked the myelin sheath on the nerves of my spinal chord: the name of the disease is TM; transverse myelitis and has many causes but mine is idiopathic, no known cause. Could be from exposure to some chemical from my lab...after the acute attack I was partially paralized from the waist down and lost the normal excretory functions. BUT I am one of the lucky ones; I can now walk, breath on my own, and with some meds generally seems 'normal' to most people. I am the walking wounded.
My experience with Effexor at the very high dose of 450mg/day has been generally good, but I do drink a lot of water: it goes right through me and that was a problem only because I couldn't pee 'normally'! I take Flomax for that and it helps a lot. But now I've read that in Great Britain, Effexor will not be approved for use due to a connetion to heart disease and heart attack. It seems that if one has any underlying heart problems, Effexor may aggravate them. The data are, however, controversial and the final word is not yet in. This is how I found your group; in searching for any reported problems with Effexor as my therapist told me that my old psych MD was taking a lot of his patients off Effexor and she was concerned. Now not only do I know why, but also about all the potential difficulties with withdrawl that are not properly reported by the manufacturer. Oh! There is one side effect that I do have that does cause me problems; physical intimicy with another is pretty much gone except if I use Viagra which I do...but carefully as that noticably increases my blood pressre...now I'm curious about cymbalta as my MD just prescribed it for me to try to improve my energy level and it does! Immediately the first day I took it and then the next morning I was out of bed and doing chores before noon which has not happened in years. Any opinions on this one? We all certainly do have quite an interesting mix of meds and effects from them...Every post I've read has been very informative; thank you, Best to everyone,Sam
> Same post, just changed amount of Neurontin.
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> Neurontin no longer for me; I can't remember why went off .. think is was just insurance issue.
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> I never thought of an AD as treatment for pain. But, finding a lot of people w/ chronic pain here on one AD or another. Ya' know, even discussions re: pain and Eff-XR vs. Cymbalta.
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> The anniversary of my father's death is coming, ... still grieving. I have a dx of borderline after much trauma over years.
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> Now in skills training. Take Eff-XR, trazodone, and small dose benzo for borderline personality disorder, panic, and now wondering about ADD or ADHD. Probably have it from being on all these drugs so many years, but then again there are things in my childhood that line up with ADD or ADHD.
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> I took an ADD/ADHD test online and scored HIGH. Well, I know that's no answer; but if, of all the psychs I've seen, they've missed this, I'm on the war path.
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> Nice to meet you Sam. Hope to hear from you. It's hard to describe pain and I can certainly identify with that, even tho' depression came before pain. Did I write anything here that is valuable info for anyone?
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> Because on Eff-XR, like to keep up w/ posts re: it. best wishes cf
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> Hi Sam. I also take Eff-XR and have chronic back injuries. What do you mean when you say,... "The Effexor seems to be balanced by the Neurotin."? I was on Neurontin 900mg for a while, but noted nothing. What did it do for you. I have only one prob' w/ Eff-XR and that's dulled emotions/fatigue. Nice to meet ya' cf
poster:sam7iam
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050119/msgs/445686.html