Posted by shlac on February 16, 2004, at 19:40:44
I'm going to try to be hourough without boring y'all to death... I'm getting quite desperate and could really use some advice! Quite frankly my Doctor is useless... he's extremely busy and I only see him for 15 minutes every three months...
I've been taking Effexor XR, 375, for around three years now and it has been an incredible help! But things are changing and I'm feeling trapped... I feel like the drug is going to have its way... lol, paranoia isn't my thing, but the addiction takes on a taking-over-the-universe element, if that makes sense.
So in the beginning, probably even the first year, if I missed a dose it was okay, if I ran out and stopped taking it for a while, no bad effects, except the returning depression of course... For the next year and a half to two years if I missed a dose the withdrawal effects began within hours! First sweating and nightmares (I've always taken it at night), very disoriented feeling the next day, excessive eating, after a couple days nausea... I've never gone more than 4 days, cause I think I'd probably rob a pharmacy before I would experience the hell of day 5!
So until fairly recently I'd pretty much accepted that I would always be on this medication... forever and ever. Oh well, no big deal, it's done wonders for me, and I really have no good reason to go off it.
Now though... for the last couple of months I've been having mild withdrawal symptoms constantly, even though I haven't missed taking it, furthermore the effectiveness has decreased significantly and the withdrawal-like symptoms are slowly getting worse!
What's going on? I've heard of meds losing their effectiveness, but withdrawals??? So, I'm becoming rather frantic about this, my dose is already high... but at the moment I'm planning to ask the doc to agree to increase it until I graduate in May (I can't afford to screw up my last semester for the second time!), then get off of it as quickly as possible if I have to be locked up to do so...
Anyway, if anyone else has had this happen, please let me know...
poster:shlac
thread:314290
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040215/msgs/314290.html