Posted by MOTHEROF2 on October 11, 2001, at 12:50:52
About 2 years ago I began to have anxiety and panic attacks.The attacks were so bad that I could not drive for a period of 2 weeks and as a mother of 2, this was difficult. I went to my medical doctor who had tests done to check my heart as well as my thyroid. All the tests were normal. He diagnosed me with anxiety and prescribed Buspar which helped. After about 3 months I began to get depressed so I was switched to Effexor XR 37.5mg. Even though this is usually given as a starting dose for one week it really helped. I always do better with the least amount of medication.
After being on the medication for several months, I began to notice that I had no motivation, I was having a hard time finding the right word choices, my short term memory was poor and I had also gained weight. I found this site on the internet and after reading several threads found I wasn't alone. I began to wean myself off of the medicine. I did make my doc aware of this. I devised this plan on my own. I would take one every other day for maybe 3 weeks, then one every 2 days for a couple of weeks and finally every 3 days. I am so thankful to say that I am now 10 days Effexor FREE!!!! I have prayed alot.My withdrawls have mainly been a daily headache and my head feeling "full". I know this is very minimal compared to others. I already feel so much better. I also have had no problems with anxiety and have had some very serious family problems during these 10 days. The docs say the side effects are very minimal. They also say that there are no withdrawls that the drug only stays in your body 12-15 hours. This is not true. If you have to take this drug, be very careful and do not take more than the dosage you have to have. Please know that there is hope, with God nothing is impossible.
poster:MOTHEROF2
thread:80987
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011007/msgs/80987.html