May 04, 2004
Addiction
Most of my posts deal with fairly light matters. I've dealt with plenty of weighty issues in my life, but choose not to post about them on this site for various reasons. Today is an exception.
For the past year and change, I've been taking Effexor XR. For those of you who are just joining my blog, this was brought on by a variety of complications in my life, many of which had to do with my husband hanging out in Iraq for fifteen months. Suffice it to say that the extreme change in my life, combined with pre-existing conditions didn't sit too well. I was in need of some serious help.
Fortunately, my shrink is incredibly smart and can sense when I really need help (me sitting in his office sobbing uncontrollably is usually clue numero uno). So he prescribed Effexor for me and it worked like a charm. I was able to cope with everything life threw my way without dissolving into puddles of tears, and I didn't feel medicated. I just felt "normal". I felt "healthy". In short, I felt great.
Fast forward to some time closer to the present. Husband unit came home. Life issues resolved. I no longer felt the need for medication. I was increasingly irritated with the fact that I've gained 20 (yes, twenty) pounds while on this medicine. I didn't particularly want to replace my wardrobe with one made by Coleman. Definitely time to stop taking this stuff. No problem, right?
Since I'm writing this post you can probably guess the ending to this story. My brilliant psych advised me to slowly taper off the medication so I wouldn't experience side effects. Excellent advice. Too bad it didn't work. I began tapering off the medication without incident, but when I tried to stop taking it altogether, I thought I was going to expire. I felt light headed and somewhat dizzy all the time. I was disoriented and tired. I couldn't get a damn thing done at work (that was my excuse this time, anyway). When I walked down the street I thought I might collapse.
I called my doctor and he put me back on the lowest dose and told me to take it every other day to get this crap out of my system. In the interim, I have an appointment to see him.
Taking it every other day seems to be working, and I've actually gone for three days now without taking it. Before I start doing a victory dance and make a celebratory lap around my office, I have to remind myself that I keep a pill in my purse just in case I can't take the side effects any more. This is hardly a reason to celebrate.
I did some research on this crazy drug and, not surprisingly, I'm not the only person who has had these problems. In fact, several irate people, all of whom have had far more serious withdrawal effects than I, have formed an online petition to let Wyeth-Ayerst, the makers of this wonder drug, know how many people are suffering without it.
To my mind, if you market a drug and the people who take it are physically unable to stop without experiencing headaches, nausea, dizziness, light headedness and seizures (yes, seizures), you have created the single best anti-competitive benefit for your medication that you possibly could have. Furthermore, the FDA should not approve your drug. Period.
That said, there is a light at the end of this shaky tunnel. I have recently discovered via internet searching and talking with people that there is one surefire way to decrease the side effects of withdrawal from this medication : taking Prozac.
Posted by Kitty at May 4, 2004 04:57 PM
Comments
I'm not sure if you're being facetious about the Prozac or not, but it works the same way as Effexor. Yeah, it should alleviate the side effects of going off the drug, but then you'll have the same problem when you try to stop taking the Prozac.
I know you said the drug helped initially. Do you think it was worth it?
Posted by: Tim at May 5, 2004 10:34 PM
I wasn't being the least bit facetious when I mentioned Prozac -- if you read the online postings of many, many people who have tried to taper off Effexor, a lot of them were only successful when they took small (10 mg) doses of Prozac. The Prozac alleviates the side effects from the tapering of Effexor, and since you're on such a small dose of it (and since it is chemically different from Effexor), you actually don't have the side effects from tapering off Prozac that you do with Effexor. I've read various things on the internet about how Effexor gives people problems when they taper off of it because it has a short half-life (I think I'm remembering that correctly), but I honestly don't know enough about the way medicine interacts with the human body (other than what it has done to mine) to speak about that intelligently.
Was it worth it? For me, yes, absolutely. I think that knowing the side-effects that come from tapering off this drug if it is taken for long periods of time (more than two years), if a physician prescribed it for that long, it would border on malpractice. Prescribing it for shorter periods of time to those who really respond to it, however, would be fine.
Posted by: Jennifer at May 6, 2004 07:28 PM
We've had psychiatrists give lectures who talk about keeping people on antidepressants for the rest of their lives. It's certainly not considered unsual medical practice to prescribe them for 2 years or more.
If you try the prozac, let me know how it works for you.
Posted by: Tim at May 7, 2004 01:28 AM
Hey Jennifer,
Lee (my husband) took effexor and intermittently had "bees in his head" a buzzing kind of thing, for a few weeks ( or a couple of months?) afterward. He's fine now. The withdrawal symptoms eventually subside. Prozac is a ssri, too, so they're not altogether different, although they aren't exactly alike, either. I'd just keep stretching the effexor out until you can do without it. That's what he did. Good going, getting off it, IMHO!
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Prozac or booze. Or amphetamines.
Just kiddin'.
I hope you feel better.
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