Venlafaxine

Hi Clare hope you well ! I've been on these for a few years now and I take 300mg a day 😐 If you give them time they will work once they get into yoir system .but to be honest I would ask the doctor to change your tablets .

Do your research these tablets are the hardest tablets to come off of ! The side effects are terrible I don't know why they prescribe them ! Having said that I was in a very bad way and they sorted me out completely now I want off of them I can't it's driving me mad ! I hope this helps x take care x

Were you shakey before starting the Ven? An did Dr START you on 75mg?!! Usually a Dr (really should be a psychiatrist because they know more about the meds an the different mental illnesses. Kinda like a patient going to a M.D. for eye exam?! Pt should go to a eye Dr. not an M.D.) starts on 37.5mg then goes up. This med is strong. The half life of Ven is 4 hrs. Which means half of 1 pill is in your system in 4 hrs. Prozac or Fluxotine takes forever to get in your system. Its half life is 36 hrs! So that would why Venaflaxine is very hard to come off. Because its out of your system faster than say Prozac. Shorter half life, harder withdrawls will be an will come fast if one pill missed. Compared to Prozac. I was on Ven for almost 6 wks at only 37.5mg. Im very sensitive apparently to these antidepressants. Ven was med #8 for me. Im on day 14 of being off. I started opening the capsules an counted how many beads in a capsule. Around 25 i think. I would take like 5 out at a time. Did that for a wk then just stopped. Yes, I have had some not so nice withdrawls. Dizzy. Increased agitation, more crying but now no apathy. Muscle pain all over. Headache. Lethargy. Thats About it. But I was on 5 wks. Its alot worse when on longer an higher dose. I would discourage anyone fr stopping Venaflaxine cold turkey. I stopped because really not much mental help an started wide spread body pain to point I didn't even want to get out of bed. I have fibromyalgia also an it seemed to increase my pain with it. I felt horrible physically. Mentally kinda numb. I was on Celexa but couldn't take that either. Severe side effects so psychiatrist switched immediately to 37.5mg Effexor xr next day. Ii was on Celexa for 6 wks. Aweful! Prozac was pretty bad. Cymbalta wasn't bad. Just had no energy and it was causing family probs with me just laying around an not caringvabout a darn thing! Withdraw fr Cymbalta first time was bad. I wanted to chop my head off. It was worse for me than Ven. So maybe you should ask Dr why starting you on 75 not 37.5mg. Low an slow is best to avoid severe start up side effects where you just want to stop taking it. Instead low an slow to minimize the effects. You will have start up side effects fr any drug. Some are worse than others. Now I dont know what to do. Im not on anything an feel the black cloud coming, creeping in. It's really discouraging. 8 meds an not one I can handle or take. Zoloft was only one where after 5 wks litterly a light bulb was switched to my old happy self. Had energy an happy! But after 2 an half mnths, i was soooo sick physically. I looked like a skeleton. Severe anorexia (not eating disorder) i wasn't or couldn't eat. Severe liver area pain an pancreatic pain. Upper back pain like knifes. Diarrhea. Everyday! Increase in anxiety but slowly started to control it. I had bloodwork done because of upper rt quadrant pain. Showed liver enzymes had gone way up which would explain all the pain. So I had to stop it because it was causing inflammation of liver. I was bummed. After that, never have found one I can take or works mentally. Goodluck on the Ven. Be sure an watch out for low sodium.

Zio in USA

I've been on 75mg for over 10 years now. When I first started taking venlafaxine I felt shakey and sweated a lot. This lasted for about a month and then I felt a lot better. It was definitely worth it for me to stick with it.

Hi Clare, You and I seem to be going through the same journey, I remember you from the sertraline group and what a difficult time you've been having. I eventually had to come off sertraline too and start venlafaxine tomorrow, I k ow we can get through this because I've done it before,it's just the process we have to go through to get well that is so very difficult, I hope you start to feel the benefits of this med very soon,I have high hopes for this tablet because I've been told how good it is so I actually asked my doctor if I could try it , let's look forward to having a peaceful and carefree summer ,onwards and upwards 😀😀