New medication

[Izzy]

Bill has just been prescribed Venlafaxine to replace the Mirtazapine he is being taken off. It is to combat depression. Does anyone have experience of Venlafaxine?

Thanks
Izzy

[jenniferpa]

It's effexor, yes? I have personal experience with it (in that I was prescribed it not as an anti-depressant but as a way to deal with surgically induced menopause). Please take what I'm going to say as being just one person's experience.

1) This is the only anti-depressant I have taken that ever made me feel suicidal. Within approx 2 hours of the first dose I was curled up in bed thinking in a somewhat confused way "my god this has to be the medication - if I thought it wasn't and I had access to a gun I'd shoot myself". I know this sounds dramatic, but I have honestly never felt so hopeless. However I persevered (not sure why now ) and it did end up working for what it was prescribed (hot flashes) and, with an increased dose, as an anti-depressant and I never had a repeat performance. However, I did find that during the summer I ended up with serotonin syndrome (because in the summer I now know I have to reduce my meds) - for me this manifested itself as developing a seriouslyt sweet tooth - I ate a pot of jam with a spoon

2) After this my psychiatrist and I decided that I should probably wean myself off this in order to start another anti-depressant. Unfortunately (and this is quite well documented so not entirely my experience), this can be an exceptionally difficult anti-depressant to come off of - it took me over a year, reducing the dose very gradually (every time the dose went down I became very very tearful etc). At one point I was cutting the pills into quarters.

For me, this was a fairly disastrous drug, although I can't say it wasn't effective as an anti-depressant. After the difficulty I had, plus some other problems other patients had, my psychiatrist no longer prescribes Effexor .

Sorry to be such a downer.

There's a bit in this wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlafaxine that shows what happened to me, (Combined serotonin toxicity and SSRI discontinuation syndrome) but as I say, this was just me.

[nessspider]

I had a similar experience of these tablets. I took them believing they were not habit forming for about a year. I didn't feel too bad - but the withdrawal effects were horrendous, I remember it vividly, I honestly wanted to die I felt so dreadful. I started by reducing the dose, then every other day. I had panic attacks which would wake me up in the night, I was so dizzy and the shakes were crippling...... this took months. In the end I just did without any because I wanted to get it over and done with, It was hellish, I don't know how anyone with dementia would cope. I can only offer my personal opinion, it's for you to decide,

Good luck,
Anne

[Vonny]

Just goes to show one man's meat is another man's poison!

They've been a life saver for me Izzy. No side effects other than if I forget to take one I get a little dizzy some hours after I should have taken it.

I've even been off them for a few months (dizziness ceased after a day or so) and gone back onto them because I clearly need them still. No problems coming off them or returning to them. I wouldn't be without them.

Vonny xx

[jenniferpa]

It's very bizzare. There are quite few drugs I can't take because they react strangely - morphine is the biggie but also those over the counter sleep aids actually make me jittery and keep me awake.

[Izzy]

Wow - sneaked a minute at work to read these replies and what a shock! Makes interesting reading. I suppose we'll need to see how he gets on. The doctor said to take his old ones for another few days and then start on the new ones. That would mean Saturday probably. I hope we have Vonny's experience. Glad, though, that I posted as I will know what to look for.

Izzy x

[Lynne]

Well I've just taken about 6 months to wean myself off Effexor/Venlefaxine carefully & gradually, as is recommended.

Difficult to say how effective it was whilst I was taking it (a bit like it is with Alzheimer's meds. - how do you tell if things would have been worse without it?) and a lot of things going on during the years I took it, not least my Mum's illness & death.

A little surprised at the Dr's "few days" - I was given to understand that nearly all a/Ds take a couple of months to become effective!