Effexor 'addiction'

What dosage were you on if you don't mind me asking?

As someone who has been there, I feel your pain. I was on numerous meds, gained weight as well - which IS a side effect they just don't tell you about it.
I recently got off of 150mg of Effexor XR, it was really horrible experience but worth it. I find that I still struggle with depression/anxiety but I also feel so much better dealing with it "drug free".
It seems like we live in a world that expects us not to "feel" real emotions and just wants to medicate them away.
It's a long hard road but I feel so much better emotionally - I'm no longer in a medicated Fog of indifference.

yeah, getting off effexor can be really difficult (as it was for me). it's horrible, but you just have to push through it. i was taking probably 10mgs a day for a while trying to be able to tolerate getting off of it. the brain shivers and all that are the worst, but it will eventually pass.

Hey, also an Effexor consumer right now. It's worked quite well for me so I haven't taken the step of trying to come off it completely but I have had times where I ran out just before the weekend and couldn't get a refill until Monday. It was horrible and I kept having panic attacks, thinking I was gonna have heart failure, and just plain feeling and thinking terribly. An interesting thing about the Effexor approval process by the pharmaceutical company that makes it (I can't remember who; is it Wyeth or Lilly?) is that when they were doing clinical trials on Effexor withdrawal they gave all the patients benzodiazapines (sp?) to lessen the incredible withdrawal effects. As such, their final conclusion about Effexor withdrawal was skewed by the experiment design. I don't envy you considering I hated missing just three days of a 225 mg regimen. Yeah, I really swing for the fences with this stuff.

Absolutely try to get off them. Then try natural stuff like Sam E (like sammy only with the 'e' sound separate) or CoQ10 and definately get some omega 3. All of these are great for several things, including brain health and function.

My mom is on antidepressants off and on because depression runs in our family. Paxil made her crazy - literally. For a long time, until we figured out what the problem was, things were pretty bad. I can't convince her to take some of the things I just listed above but they are working great for me. I suffer from depressionas well, but I never wanted to take medication for it because of all the difficulties anti-depressants can cause. I use omega 3 and the CoQ10 and they are working great for me. It's still not perfect, but I have alot more energy and motivation than I used to.

I take Zoloft and I am 22 years old. When i took zoloft at 15 it didnt work for me...it made me crazy and more depressed. I am 22 and I take it again and I feel great! The reason why it didnt work before was becuase I was an adolescent and the meds are meant for adults...but yeah...thats ****** up that paxil did that. my mom takes that and it doesnt make her fat. I guess you should have taken it at 8PM so you could just go to sleep instead of the day where you get hungry and eat....good lucjk

I take Zoloft and I am 22 years old. When i took zoloft at 15 it didnt work for me...it made me crazy and more depressed. I am 22 and I take it again and I feel great! The reason why it didnt work before was becuase I was an adolescent and the meds are meant for adults...but yeah...thats ****** up that paxil did that. my mom takes that and it doesnt make her fat. I guess you should have taken it at 8PM so you could just go to sleep instead of the day where you get hungry and eat....good lucjk

I take Wellbutrin and to be honest, I'm still trying to figure out what the heck it does. I wonder if it is actually doing anything or am I wasting money every month..

Another thing to be careful of is these 10 minute session psychs. They will prescribe you anything. The psych I see was going to up my dosage of geodon just to help me sleep.He had already upped it 2 times because i was not getting sleepy. But this last time it finally occurred to him that maybe I just need some damn sleeping pills. Duh.

I've been on effexor before it didn't work so well for me. The first time was when I was in NY and it made rediculously tired. I could sleep all day wake up go get in the truck with my dad and fall back asleep before he started the truck. It wasn't working so well for me. Then I moved out here to Utah and they wanted me to try it again. This time I took it for 2 days and it made me really sick. I was dizzy, felt like I was going to throw up, and was so weak I couldn't walk. My grandmother had to come pick me up from work because I couldn't do much of anything. So Effexor wasn't the right one for me lol. Right now I'm on Prozac. I don't know if it's working or not. All I do know is I'm capable of getting out of bed now and I don't have to always force myself to shower and eat. I guess that's a plus.

It's hard to tell if a drug is really working. I'm on Effexor and Wellbuturin now. I tried to get off EFexor twice, but couldn't do it. It made me grouchy all the time and I felt totally stressed out.
(The doctor thought I was doing fine on it. But I wanted to try to get off it so maybe I'll have more energy so she helped me ween off of it.)

I've been on and off anti-depressants since 1993. The problem right now is I don't get excited about anything anymore. I don't enjoy doing things I had enjoyed in the past. I have no interest in sex. I don't have much fun. I want to have some feelings again.