Posted by Anna Laura on January 17, 2002, at 1:42:11
I started Effexor last Summer (end of July).
Took a long time to kick in (a couple of months).
It got better so slowly that i didn't realized my mood improved. After four months on Effexor, i had to admit it did affect my motivation and negative thinking. My self confidence improved also.
Effexor didn't affect my anhedonia though, which is my "target symptom". I decided to discuss the subject with a pdoc : we both thought to give Parnate a try.
I started tapering Effexor the first week of December and i went down to 75 mg. in about ten days. As i reached 75 mg. dose, i grew worse but I held on, being confident Parnate was going to help me with anhedonia.
I was about to drop my 75 mg. dose when i found out the Parnate version in my country is not a pure compound, being mixed with an antypsicotic. There is no way you can find pure Tranycylpromine here, and i can't tolerate antypsycotic since they make my depression worse (possibly by blocking dopamine receptors).
So i decided to go back on 300 mg.: i slowly raised the dose and i was back on full dose a couple of days before Christmas.
The problem is that i'm still demotivated, kind of anxious, my sleep is lousy , my mood is not so bright anymore, i have ups and downs, pms is awful.
My question is: how long does it take for Effexor to wash out from your system?
I know it does have a very short half life. Is there a possibility that Effexor levels in my system got abruptely low as i tritated the dose down to 75 mg.? I almost felt like i was totally "uncovered" after a few days on 75 mg. dose. Does that mean i had to "start all over again" as i went back on my previous effexor dose? May be it washed out of my system almost completelly so that my body wasn't able to "catch up " effexor left overs in my blood.
Do i need to wait for Effexor to kick in a second time around because of that?
Hope i made myself understood. I can't think very clearly right now.
poster:Anna Laura
thread:90578
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020116/msgs/90578.html