Anti-Depressant Novo-Venlafaxine

CodyOutlaw thanks for the input I will let my girlfriend know about this. She bought some stuff that has helped her, all natural stuff, but who knows if it will keep working. Knowing about other meds that could help prevent some of these bad symptoms is great.

Also, I agree if someone needs help they should seek it. My girlfriend at a point before we met couldn't get out of bed, and also didn't see the point in lots of things. The anti-depressants did help her get back on track, but I think the doctors should have explained to her the extremeness of coming off of these drugs. She has told me that Venlafaxine is one of the toughest to come off. The doctor should know this so the patient has an informed rewards and risks of the determined drug.

Originally posted by anthbes
My girlfriend is coming off this and having some crazy with drawls and I am just wondering if anyone else on the forum has any experience with this drug or has heard anyone else on it? Any help would be appreciated.

Shes been on it for close to 3 years but now wants to get off them and is weening herself off them but it is pretty rough. Shes having some pretty bad symptoms but in the long run being on this drug will be worse than good.

Any input is greatly appreciated. This is my first thread, but it is important to me.

So she just stopped taking them without seeing a mental health doctor?

Sorry, thats just stupid...you should never ever attempt that. It could make her very sick. And I know, becasue I too, am on anti-depressants

reply to post by OzWeatherman


Where did I say she hadn't seen a doctor? Her doctor is the one who told her how to ween herself off them.

Edit: and if you actually took time to read the thread, I explained how she has been weening off them. Thanks for coming into the convo and attacking me instantly though

reply to post by anthbes

You probably already now this but.

Help her all you can weather she needs it or not. Iv been down this road it can be rough for the first month or so.
I quit taking efexor stopped dead cold it was rough for a month the my body started to adjust to the life with out the drug. I suffer from PTSD and have controlled it rather well for the past few yeas I guess with mental awareness and coming to grips that I did all I could do. But she has one thing I didnt have she got support where as I was alone.
With my best wishes and best of luck.
HB4R

reply to post by anthbes


I asked my husband the doctor and he just gave me a very blank stare and said:

" Nobody reads the information anymore before they prescribe these crap drugs."

I would agree with him. Apparently there's a ridiculous ammount of risks with withdrawl which the pharma company suggests using other drugs to combat while weening you off the different kinds of anti-depressants.

We moved to a relatively holistic medicine system in our household about 5 years ago, and I will NEVER go back. I dont' trust big pharma with anything, most of all my sanity & health.

~Keeper

Originally posted by anthbes
reply to post by OzWeatherman

 

Where did I say she hadn't seen a doctor? Her doctor is the one who told her how to ween herself off them.

Edit: and if you actually took time to read the thread, I explained how she has been weening off them. Thanks for coming into the convo and attacking me instantly though

edit on 3-10-2010 by anthbes because: (no reason given)

I didnt attack you...i said it was stupid of her to go off them if she hadnt seen a doctor. iF she has, then great

And what kind of doctor tells her to ween off them? Uusally they prescribe a lower dosage, before the user stops taking them, and that takes a long time.

And btw, i just checked the rest of the thread, and the only reference to a doctor you made was saying, what she was prescribed...dont worry im done with this, you think im attacking you, and I wasnt....good luck to her anyway

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
. It's fairly common. Is she having "zaps"? This feels like electricity gone amuck in the brain. It's essentially harmless, but annoying, however I have heard of some cases where a seizure was induced.

This happened to me only the zaps would start at the base of my brain and travel down through my body. If I was even 15 minutes late taking it, I would get the zaps so bad I couldn't focus or even move in a very coordinated manner. This was before all of the reports on what the withdrawals could actually cause and my doctor thought I was making it up. I started to ween myself off and they got exponentially worse, culminating in several seizures that put me in the hospital. I had no prior history of seizures.

If at any point the zaps start getting worse, she needs to go to the hospital right away. I'm sure the seizures are a rare occurrence, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

Ugh... I get the chills just thinking about what those zaps felt like...

The doctors have given me amitriptyline and Prozac for my fibromyalgia.

Nether worked for the fibro pain and left me with brain fog. a enlarged prostate to the point i might as will take a book to read when taking a leak. and i believe the amitriptyline had a part in my heart attack a year later.
www.pslgroup.com...

The brain fog was to the point it felt like my brain was stuffed full of cotton and i felt unsafe to drive as i could not concentrate.
I tried the amitriptyline for about 5 months and the doctor said that i needed to keep taking it and it would over time start working on the pain.
Lying SOBs
The Prozac i only took for a month and told them where to stick it.
When going off anti depressants wait 1 day after the last dose and start taking 5 HTP. DO NOT TAKE 5HTP with anti depressants as it will cause Serotonin syndrome. 5HTP will greatly reduce the withdraw symptoms
en.wikipedia.org...

I now take Gabapentin for my fibro pain and it works with out side effects.

Wow, I can't believe that these medications seem worse for people than the doctors make them out to be!

I've never been on anti-depressants as I manage my depression through more natural means. I wish you luck with getting off of them safely. I just don't trust most man-made medications.

I have been on venlafaxin but it didn't help me much so I got of them again. Always use some weeks to go of those kinds of drugs, take a lower dose for a week, then lower again, then take it every other day and so on. Until u are completely off them. I haven't had any serious sideeffects of any of the drugs i've gotten, although when I first started on antidepressants, I would get thoughts of suicide for 2-3 weeks until the drugs took full effect. This is NORMAL although most doctors forget to tell you about it, so you get really scared of those thoughts. Luckily google is your friend.
Haven't taken any antidepressants for some years now, since I started taking high doses of D3 vitamin. That has really stabilized my mood even through long dark winters.

reply to post by xiphias


The worse you've ever heard of - I don't know what you have heard and I suppose you have never been severely depressed and needed them. I need them from time to time, I have lost 2 sons - I will most certainly not turn to crack or heroin. Look at stastics and get your facts straight before posting, please!

I didn't mean to offend with my post. I was just being a wise-ass, sorry. Also I'm not trying to judge anybody, I'm just stating my opinion on the matter. I know first-hand that sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyway, I've been highly depressed in my past (you can't imagine, or maybe you can; either way, it was onset by horrible things). I've never used anti-depressants, but I have observed enough people (people close to me and people I've known for a very long time) to get an idea of what it'd be like - the idea of "washing the depression away" is very attractive. I remember being a teen and visualizing what it'd be like to be a different person in the same body. It's an intoxicating idea to be able to escape your own mind and thoughts.

But on the other hand, I honestly feel that medicine has no business altering people's minds like this - at least not until the medical community actually understands how the mind works - which it obviously doesn't. I look at anti-depressants as experimental drugs, in other words. No amount of study and tests can really guage how much a drug will affect an individual mind in the long run; it's got to be more complicated than simple chemical dependance.

Likewise, I've never used ecstacy, heroin, or crack - but I have observed enough people (again, people close to me) to see how it changes the mind. It's very similar to anti-depressants; which was the point of my original post - people begin to feel like they "need it" in order to function normally, which is probably true, but at what cost? Sure there is damage to the body and the brain, but that's only half the story. There's potential damage to the "inner workings" of the mind, and that's what disturbs me most. I liken it to the way a person changes when they begin using steroids - they change completely and almost instantly; they seem almost "God-like" in their mannerisms and confidence; they don't necessarily become addicted to the drug, but rather addicted to their new perception of themselves and their world. Maybe this is for the better, maybe for the worse - but good things shouldn't happen this quickly.

There's got to be a better way, and we definitely shouldn't be doping our kids - no matter how screwed up we think they are. Sorry for blabbing - this one kind of hits home for me.

Originally posted by xiphias
I know this isn't any help, but anti-depressants are the worst idea I've ever heard of. Personally, I'd rather be addicted to crack or heroin.

I would agree with you, except that the anti-depressants I take make me a functional human being, and the crack or heroin would probably only make me a semi-functioning addict.

Yeah, finding the right one and having to go through the phasing and brain zaps can be a long, painful process, but as long as you know what the problem is and where it's coming from, you can deal with it without killing yourself. And the zaps eventually go away, leaving you nice and depressed like before. Then it's time to try again.

Wheee!

reply to post by anthbes

Your doctor has Munchaussen by Proxy.
And you are the Proxy.
I got off anti depressants when I had my 18 Mercury Amalgams removed.

reply to post by OzWeatherman


Wow man, they did prescribe her a lower dose. They prescribed her from 150mg down to 75mg, then after a couple months 75mg down to 37.5 and now 37.5 to nothing.

EDIT: I know you're just voicing your opinion, I know you're not attacking me. I never said she was seeing a doctor, but I never said she wasn't, my bad for not clarifying.

reply to post by anthbes

Ginger for the nausea - a good crystalised ginger to nibble, (I use Buderim Ginger,) or fresh ginger root chopped and made into tea with honey and lemon. - delicious.

Magnesium (maximum daily dosage,) and the best multi B supplement your health food shop can recommend.

Valium is wonderful if you only use it for emergencies. Great to have on hand to take immediately before a dentist visit too. But only use it a couple of times a month to be safe. It only takes one week of solid use to get addicted, and withdrawal is nasty.

No alcohol, because it depletes the magnesium, and she's really needing magnesium now.

The diet should be as healthy, natural and sugar free as she can happily live with.

Lots of herbal teas, ginger tea, diluted fresh fruit juice, (all made with fluoride-free water) to clean the system out.

Lastly, watch for signs that she may need to go back onto an antidepressant.
The worst forms of depression really stuff lives up and can cause suicides, and/or lead to accident-causing behaviour in a suicidal person who is trying not to give into the urge to kill themselves.
It's really serious, so encourage her to get help again if things are getting bad.

I know from personal experience. For me, however, Prozac, which absolutely turned my life around, seems to have finally cured me, andI have not needed it for years now. While taking it, I would skip days when I felt good, and take twice as much before particularly stressful events. - My doctor used to have fits over my "misuse" of it.
But using it that way meant I was free to stop when I wanted.

A warning though, bad enough trying that with Prozac, but absolutely don't use any other drug that way. The slow utilisation of Prozac makes it less dangerous to fool around with.

reply to post by Kailassa


Thanks for the post! She picked up both ginger and b12!

Jeez I hate admitting to having taken the stuff but here goes:

I JUST quit taking this stuff about 3 weeks ago. My doctor told me to start taking just one pill a day instead of two, and then just one every other day and then half every other day. It's really hard at first, and those brain shivers or electric shocks (for me it was a whole body thing) are actually somewhat crippling when they hit at an unexpected time (for me it was always check out lines and I would have to grab on to something). I noticed them starting to go away after the first week and by the second week I was having the feeling only rarely. I was taking the buggers for anxiety and sleep issues but when I went off noticed some pretty hard hitting depression. I also noticed some odd visual side effects like having a dark area (shadow or color) sort of pop out and seem bigger for an instant. Visual stuff went away after about a week.

What I did that helped me:

-DAILY exercise (probably the best thing I did)
-Drank a few beers at night (I know how that sounds but it really helps)
-Stayed the hell away from caffeine. I'm fine with it now but man it really screwed me up a a few weeks back.
-I didn't see a psychologist but I think she should
-Told myself it would get better and that while it sucked, I would be healthier and happier in the long run

Your post actually made me realize for the first time that I have not had any of those awful symptoms for a few weeks now. Just be there for her and don't downplay what she's experiencing. It really sucks but I'm glad you're there for her.

one thing the doctors don't tell you is the more anti depressant you take and the longer you take them the more you will need them.

when you take antidepressant for a long time your brain starts to make less serotonin until it reaches a point that even with the antidepressant its making less then before you started.

if the doctor then increases the dose your brain will lower its natural production even more.

Speaking from experience, I weaned myself off Paxil approximately 3 years ago after being on it for a little over 2 years. I wish I had known then what I know now because the trial and error was unpleasant to say the least; not to mention what got me in the whole mess to begin with.

Although I only became aware of this after the fact, it has since helped me and others I know a great deal.

Have your girlfriend checkout the following video clip –