Posted by Kacy on October 3, 2003, at 8:34:47
In reply to Re: Afraid to start Effexor, posted by chewy on October 1, 2003, at 17:10:40
I was afraid, too, LucyAnn, and put off starting it for three weeks. It turned out fine. I took forever to realize benefits. It was the third and fourth month before I could identify anything at all that was a benefit and six months before I could say it was a real benefit. It took a long time to get over the side effects, too. I've been off it and back on, again. I went down each level for a few days and I only had some light, flu-type symptoms in the afternoons for five or six days and some dragginess after I got completely off. Everyone is different, but it's not too difficult a drug for lots of us. Missing a dose, however, was not pleasant. I would get flu-type symptoms and need to lie on my stomach until the dose I finally took kicked in. That took from an hour to three or four hours, depending on how many hours I missed by. I began to feel it at about eight hours. If it was 10 or 11 hours before I took the pill, then it took three hours to get over it. I suggest carrying a dose and putting one in your car or wherever.
Missing a dose when I was at 225 mg was another matter. I had a strange side effect that I can only describe as an interruption in the visual feed. It was strange but not difficult. After that, I went down to 150, then settled in at 112.5. I now take 75 mg because in combination with Strattera, Effexor works better.
poster:Kacy
thread:264622
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030928/msgs/265166.html