Posted by shar on August 15, 2002, at 19:52:03
In reply to Re: You people are scaring the hell out of me! » sly, posted by Reneb on August 15, 2002, at 17:06:57
I will chime in on the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" side of things. If you are feeling good on Effexor, why get off? On more than one occasion there have been people who have stopped meds 'too soon' and relapsed into depression, and there is no guarantee that once off Effexor it would work for you again (people have also had that experience--trying to go back to a drug that worked once only to find it works not again).
HOWEVER the big caveat is that everybody seems to have their own reactions to these things, and for some people they get off the meds and do fine. Or, if they get depressed again, they try the same med and it works fine. Also, you might find getting off effexor is not a horror story, especially if you get off slowly, add a little prozac before you're off completely, and have access to Klonopin (which helped me a lot).
I have sort of a hard time relating to episodes of depression because my dx is dysthymia (chronic low-level depression with clinical (really bad) episodes). So, I am never depression free except for moments, maybe hours at times.
But, enough about me! Sounds like you are not ready to stop effexor, you are feeling good and enjoying it, and you and your pdoc should probably talk about how long you want to stay as you are. A lot of people use meds for a year when dealing with episodic depression. Then, after a year they stop (but have a supply in the medicine cabinet just in case....).
Shar
poster:shar
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020814/msgs/116570.html