Thread: Effexor

Yea effexor works good for depression but is hard to come off of i was on it for 4 years and tried to get off it several times and it feels like someone is shocking me in the neck with electric zapper and my temper was horrible. They finally put me on celexa and i take a very low dose and it works great.

Yeah, if you need an SSRI, Effexor is defo not the one to take. Citalopram and escitalopram, (Celexa and Lexapro respectively), are tolerated well by most, are effective, and relatively easy to titrate off of. Ativan (Lorazepam) is a Benzodiazepene or anti-anxiety medication and a potent one at that. Certainly more potent then alprazolam or diazepam. Good for sleep or of course anxiety. They are addictive however and the withdrawal from prolonged misuse can be fatal if precautions are overlooked.

Trazodone is a powerful sedative, and not nearly as addictive. Works great for me.

Originally Posted by MeatZatk

Just got home from a dr's appt and was perscribed effexor and ativan. Anybody have experience with either of these?

ativan....... Bad withdrawals ... Id rather kick myself in the nuts then take that shit again !!

Originally Posted by Retlaw

ativan....... Bad withdrawals ... Id rather kick myself in the nuts then take that shit again !!

wow, good to know! Thanks for the opinions fellas. I'm not too excited to take any of them, but feel like they could help in the short term if nothing else. How often were you taking the ativan Ret? I was told to only take it when I felt an attack coming on if I didn't feel like I could calm myself down

Originally Posted by MeatZatk

Just got home from a dr's appt and was perscribed effexor and ativan. Anybody have experience with either of these?

DONT TAKE THAT SHIT! that my only OP fo ryou on this.
i know a bunch of peeps that say it fucked them up more then they already where. even i myself was givin it years ago but stopped. it made my head all fucked up.

i mean they dont even know much about the human brain (trust me read some studys on the brain you will see alot of "they know it does this but dont know why" type of statments) yet prescrib all theses drugs because they seem to work for some. (im not saying they dotn have basice resone for sayi it works. but its all ther other things it can effect that they dont know about that worry me)

unless you have SEVERE depression to the point hanging youself dont seem that bad, DONT TAKE IT!

load up on Vit D and look into natty herbs for some help.
st.johns wort, 5htp, kava kava ect. there are a few things id try.

for short term kava kava id say,.
i love the stuff.
make sure you dotn get ethonol extracts thow those can cause liver issues but whoel root or root extrat by water or CO2 is safe.
i use the CO2 extracted past almost daily (more for sleep thow then depression)

I am 1000% against effexor

Originally Posted by MDR

Trazodone is a powerful sedative, and not nearly as addictive. Works great for me.

Ditto. 100mg of trazodone works wonders for sleep and is not physically addictive. I'm not aware of any anti-anxiety benefits from it though. It is an older generation quadracyclic anti-depressant I believe and is no longer prescribed for depression. Any return to market would likely be as a hypnotic-sedative.

Originally Posted by 2B1

Ditto. 100mg of trazodone works wonders for sleep and is not physically addictive. I'm not aware of any anti-anxiety benefits from it though. It is an older generation quadracyclic anti-depressant I believe and is no longer prescribed for depression. Any return to market would likely be as a hypnotic-sedative.

I got a R/X strictly on sleep problems. Only thing that really works for me.

effexor is interesting from a chemist's point of view ( moi). At the low doses, 37.5mg and 75mg it acts almost as a pure SSRI like Lexapro and Zoloft , at the higher doses ( 100) it acts as both an SNRI and SSRI, then at the highest dose 150-300 it acts almost as a pure SNRI like its competitor Cymbalta. So at the lowest dose it is essentially a zoloft and at the highest dose it is essentially cymbalta. It is no worse or better than other antidepressants and docs can play with which side effects profile or benefits they want ( pure SSRI or more SNRI). It has a very short half life so stopping it suddenly causes more serotonin discontinuatin syndrome than prozac which has a 3 week half life.

For the record, most of the "bad" stuff with antidepressants were inappropriate prescriptions to bipolars who flipped into mania or psycosis on antidepressnats since most need mood stabilizers as well. ( my brother was one of them).

Ativan is the bad stuff and should only be used temporaririly, it is addictive and is abused and sequestered often so I hate giving that stuff.

Be careful with Kava kava, it causes fulminant liver failure and has been taken off the shelves in many european countries. St johns wort helps mild but not severe depression or bipolar depression. Also, if you have had a organ transplant, don't take St. John's wort since it causes acute rejection of the transplanted organ.

I thought the rhizome and root of Piper methysticum was not hepatoxic, but rather the leaves and stems contained liver toxic constituents.

Originally Posted by MDR

Trazodone is a powerful sedative, and not nearly as addictive. Works great for me.

Ive heard good things about it, what dose are you on ? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Hypertrophik

Ive heard good things about it, what dose are you on ? Thanks.

Currently 200 mg, but it takes awhile to build up to that.

Originally Posted by bandaidwoman

effexor is interesting from a chemist's point of view ( moi). At the low doses, 37.5mg and 75mg it acts almost as a pure SSRI like Lexapro and Zoloft , at the higher doses ( 100) it acts as both an SNRI and SSRI, then at the highest dose 150-300 it acts almost as a pure SNRI like its competitor Cymbalta. So at the lowest dose it is essentially a zoloft and at the highest dose it is essentially cymbalta. It is no worse or better than other antidepressants and docs can play with which side effects profile or benefits they want ( pure SSRI or more SNRI). It has a very short half life so stopping it suddenly causes more serotonin discontinuatin syndrome than prozac which has a 3 week half life.

For the record, most of the "bad" stuff with antidepressants were inappropriate prescriptions to bipolars who flipped into mania or psycosis on antidepressnats since most need mood stabilizers as well. ( my brother was one of them).

Ativan is the bad stuff and should only be used temporaririly, it is addictive and is abused and sequestered often so I hate giving that stuff.

Be careful with Kava kava, it causes fulminant liver failure and has been taken off the shelves in many european countries. St johns wort helps mild but not severe depression or bipolar depression. Also, if you have had a organ transplant, don't take St. John's wort since it causes acute rejection of the transplanted organ.

root is nto harmful. water root extract is fine . not use other parts or ethanol extraction like alot of companys started doing when they saw a pennie to be made.
theses where the issues.

Originally Posted by 2B1

I thought the rhizome and root of Piper methysticum was not hepatoxic, but rather the leaves and stems contained liver toxic constituents.

yes and also method of extraction (for extracts and pills) can add to Toxicity.
i love the stuff but am carful where i get it from.
konakava is a nice one

Originally Posted by blergs.

root is nto harmful. water root extract is fine . not use other parts or ethanol extraction like alot of companys started doing when they saw a pennie to be made.
theses where the issues.

very true, but the problem with the over the counter herbals here in america, unlike europe there is no quality control that what they state ( root extract etc. or not) so you don't know what it is you truly are getting. When I was a quality control chemist I used to analyze over the counter herbals for fun and over 50% of the time they did not contain what they stated on the bottle, had contaminants ( one of the herbal diuretics had fox glove digitalis that causes heart block, one had absolutely no glucosamine just baby powder, one had no fish oil just 100% olive oil) etc. Germany has a FDA for over the counters to ensure that the stated quality is what it should be. So, unfortunately, here in america, it is hit or miss wether you are getting what you want. The same is true in my home country china where lead and mercury and other horrible contaminants can be found in their otc herbs , the best place to get the good stuff is from the chinese doctors who specialize and compound ithat stuff themselves. .

due to american paranoi about government overiste , I can market a bottle under my name with an MD behind it and say that the bottle contains say green tea extract extracted with purified water when I extracted it with toxic benzene like solvents ( easier) and no one, not even the government, will hire another chemist to do quality control analysis and call me on it. There should be some protection to the consumers regarding this.

Originally Posted by MDR

Currently 200 mg, but it takes awhile to build up to that.

Any tolerance with trazadone over time ? Also, I was wondering about its side effect profile such as vivid dreams like other meds used for sleep. Thanks again. Im thinking of switching from benzos to trazadone.

Effexor is horrible shit. Felt like a zombie on it, forget about boners and coming off was like death. painful death.

I was on Effexor for 13 months, had to take viagra, little one was a sleep all the time...
But for coming off it wasn't so hard for me, i had the shakes, my jaw was tingling for a week and i am not sure if the gear helped or not, i was on the 3rd week of test e and deca cycle when i started to lower the doses of effexor.

i miss boners.

sometimes i stop my medication so i can beat off all day.

Originally Posted by tgarza

Effexor is horrible shit. Felt like a zombie on it, forget about boners and coming off was like death. painful death.

supposedly you also can expect to gain about 40 pounds.