Posted by MJC on October 16, 2002, at 22:00:15
Hey all, thought I'd be the first to write about the positive side of Effexor. I've been taking 75mg of Effexor XR for 3 months now at 36 hour intervals and for the first time in quite a while I'm no longer in a constant panic mode.To cut a long story short, let's just say that I had anxiety constantly. It felt basically like I had somehow got the fast forward button on my life stuck. Everything seemed to be flying by in a scary way. I could barely sleep at all since I couldn't even imagine trying to relax. For 2 years I was going through a week with an average of about 21 hours of sleep. My temper had got so badly out of control that during my last Semester at College I had just about got myself expelled from the program from getting into such a viscious arguement with one of my professors. Small decisions were becoming impossible to make, large decisions, God... forget about it. My good days I felt like an elastic that has been pulled to the limit and was about ready to snap, and on my bad days I was having VISCIOUS panic attacks. I needed every friend that I had to help me pull myself together enough to get through my last Semester of College and get my Diploma. At that point, I thought I was just severely burned out from all the stress I had gone through during the past 5 years. But instead of actually enjoying the 2 month break that I had originally planned for myself before attacking the labor market, things just continued to deteriorate. Things got so bad that I barely remember anything from about September 2001 till August 2002. It just seems to have gone by in a flash of light and all I have left are these blurred visions of what was going on in my life and and idea of how screwed up I really was.
So I went to see a good friend of my family who is like a Godmother to me and just happens to also be a great psychiatrist. She recommended at first for me to get on Paxil. Now that absolutely sucked for me. For the first 2 weeks I felt a slight improvement then my brain just started to turn into goop. After about 2 months on this drug I felt like a vegetable. I would wake up in the same bed that I've woke up in for the majority of my 24 years on this planet, in the same room mind you, and I wouldn't know immediately where I was. The rest of my days consisted of lying on the couch trying to watch TV even though my attention span could really only make sense of the commercials.
So then a friend of mine recommended that I get on Effexor XR. Sure, the first few weeks were tough as Hell. God, I felt like I had a fire going on inside of me. Just constant sweating, shivers, felt like I had some funky flue for about 2 weeks, but you know what? I fought through it. I realized that there's not going to be a pill out there that I'm going to take and *poof* all of a sudden I'm 100% again. I fully realize that it's maybe 25% of the medication and 75% of my strength and will power that will get me back to where I want to be.
At first I was taking Effexor XR 75mg during 24 hour intervals. Now I'll be the first to admit that THAT was a bad move. I felt like I had a mixture of extacy and speed mixed in with my blood. I had this constant glow throughout my body that left a perma-smile on my face (and which I didn't mind, mind you) but I was also completely restless that once again my insomnia returned full tilt. I didn't sleep for about 3 days untill my Dr. got back from her week's vacation and I went to see her. It was decided to increase my doses to 36 hours apart. For example, I took one dose tonight, won't take one tommorrow at all, then will take one the following morning and continue on a cycle like that. Now that greatly improved my anxiety problems, though it also revealed the problem that I was suffering from initially being that I'm Bi-Polar. Sure, I've read on here about DRs diagnosing their patients as being bi-polar with very little to go on, however, my Doctor has known me my entire life, knows my family history fairly well, and it was I who first brought up that idea with her after doing some research on it myself. I fit that bill to a T and inside I know that I'm 100% right on this issue.
Now for anybody out there that understand what somebody who's Bi-Polar goes through you can relate to how painful it is if you're an EXTREMELY slow cycler like I am. About a year before my whole anxiety problem started up I was in a DEEP depression for about 8 years of my life. It was basically like being stuck in Hell. I'm still not sure exactly how I made it through that but I couldn't snap out of it on my own. I did manage to fight through 8 years of crying myself to sleep every night before I decided that enough was enough and went and got some help. After 2 years of Celexa though (which I HIGHLY recommend for anybody going through depression) I managed to pull myself out of it. Things were good for a year, no meds whatsoever, then anxiety became the focal point to my life. I went through 2 years in a constant panic mode where it got so bad that I felt like I was losing my mind. Now being simply on Effexor XR itself (with a very tiny little bit of Clonazepam mixed in) I was able to pull myself out of my manic episode to the point where I could actually look at things through a sane person's eyes again.
Since I've been diagnosed as beign Bi-Polar II though I've been taking 1.5mg of Clonazepam every day with my Effexor (36 hour intervals). I'm in the process of getting myself onto a mood stabilizer (which I know I need and which I'm trying to work up the courage to get onto... got my baseline blood measurements done this morning). But with just Clonazepam and Effexor I managed to go from probably the scariest moment in my life ( that being my Manic Episodes and trust me, I've lived through one Hell of a lot already so that has a LOT to live up to) to the point where I'm starting to slowly feel a little bit better every day.
So if Effexor XR contributed quite a bit to improving my situation and helping me actually get back to the point where I can envision myself living a normal life again, then I simply can't and won't believe all the negative comments that people have been making about this drug on this message board. EVERY drug that you'll be taking will have it's positives and negatives to go with it. You simply don't get anything in this world for free, and in order to achieve any goal, you're going to have to deal with some sacrifices. I've put on a little bit of weight on this drug (which I've already managed to work the majority of it off), for the first 2 weeks I felt like complete crap, for maybe the next 3 weeks I was having mad mood swings (which I have to contribute partly to my bi-polar condition anyways), it doesn't tend to mix very well with alcohol, and I lost my sex drive for maybe 8 weeks (which I've since gained back).
So what you need to ask yourselves is whether or not you actually need the medication in the first place. I would gladly become an impotent tea-totaller than go back to how I was feeling about 8 months ago. Secondly, you need to stop relying on the medication itself to improve your problems. The medication plays a small part in the background to your improvement, YOU play the majority of the role. If you're looking for a Happy Pill like out of that Kid's in the Hall movie, Forget about it!!! If you're not willing to use your own strength and the power of positive thinking to get yourself better then basically you're SOL, no medication is going to do that for you.
Now I know that this drug isn't going to be for everybody because everybody tends to react differently to different medications, but it has helped me a great deal. It has helped me grip my life back from a disease that was very close to making me completely mad. So for anybody that is going through severe anxiety problems, at least give it a chance to work. For the rest of you, just stop giving it such a bad rap.
poster:MJC
thread:123950
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021012/msgs/123950.html