Posted by Lyrical13 on December 28, 2003, at 23:37:03
In reply to Effexor XR - Some Advice Desperately Needed.HELP., posted by Gummybear on December 28, 2003, at 14:59:56
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> Also, I wake up constantly during the night - I think this is from the Effexor XR.... does this also go away???? Will I ever be able to sleep again???I have some sleep problems on Effexor. Sometimes I sleep fine. sometimes I wake up about every hour. Sometimes I sleep for only 2-4 hours and then am wide awake the whole rest of the night and day and repeat the same pattern the next day for a few days in a row before I can sleep OK again. For me, I think I go into a hypomanic state...it turns out that I am BP2 instead of depressed with GAD. You have to be very careful with Effexor and other ADs because they can push you into hypomania or even full blown mania...esp. if you are actually BP instead of depressed/GAD. The 2 conditions look a lot alike. Also, in my experience with psych meds, side effects tend to go away after a few weeks. It sounds like your dosage was upped rather rapidly. I was on 75mg for several weeks before mine was increased to 150. Then I was on 150 for almost a year. It was just upped to 225mg (the max dose) in Sept. I also have just recently started taking Seroquel. I started it about 2 months ago. It is an atypical antipsychotic and is one of 4 main ways to augment ADs. But that's not typically the first thing that's tried. The reason my doc is augmenting my AD is that I have been on a few differnt ADs in past 6 years and have maxed out (beyond maxed) a couple of them. He said for my type of depression and because I had already had the above experiences with meds, that one alone wouldn't do it...I needed another type to augment.
I was very hesitant to try Seroquel...just the fact that it's an AP sounded scary. But it's much milder in terms of long term side effects as far as they know so far (it hasn't been around long enough to really know) Also, the dose usually used for people with schizophrenia or other conditions for which an AP is prescribed are on something like 400 or so mg. The max dose usually for using it to augment an AD is 100mg. I am on 50mg. The advantage to it is that it starts to work quickly. I was starting to think about suicide and within about 3 days of starting seroquel I was feeling 200% better. I got to the end of the week and realized that I hadn't had a crying jag or fallen apart at work all week. by the end of 2 weeks I was feeling almost normal.
I had weird side effects when I started and when I upped the dose..mostly very groggy and out of it...in fact when I uppped it to 50 I actually fell down the bottom 3 steps as I was walking downstairs one morning because I was so groggy and my perception was off. But now I'm just fine.
It sounds like the rate at which your meds has been increased plus a whole other drug added all within a month if I understand you right could be contributing to your side effects. But I don't know what state you were in before you started on meds or why the doc started you in that manner. I always tell docs that I'm very sensitive to meds and usually only need pediatric doses and I'm very cautious about starting/increasing meds...I always do it on a weekend so that I don't have to worry about going to work and my husband is around to watch out for me if it goes badly.
As far as the twitching goes, I haven't really experienced that..my legs jump repeatedly and annoyingly when my blood sugar is off...and sometimes when things seem OK..it's always in the late evening when I'm trying to mellow out and wind down and am laying on the couch watching Tv. Very annoying.
I hope this helped a little
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> The Doctor has prescribed 25mg of Seroquel at night, which I have been taking... can this drug have serious side effects on such a low dose??? it's an anti-phsycotic drug which I am very reluctant in taking.
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poster:Lyrical13
thread:13781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031225/msgs/294206.html