EFFEXOR Reviews (VENLAFAXINE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 3.0 (925 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare EFFEXOR with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by Date added. Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 |
More on EFFEXOR: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR EFFEXOR | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 4 | Postpartum anxiety | Constipation, fatigue, continuous ringing in ears | Effexor doesnt fix everything, but helps tremendously. I've been taking it after each of my two deliveries to treat my panic attacks. First time, it worked right away, second time, it took a few weeks to be fully effective. I've always been an anxious person. My problems started when i feared not being able to fullfill my responsabilities because of my anxiety. Like not being able to attend a course, or speak in front of people... and later, take care of my kids, or feel well during any activity when it's not the time to feel bad ( you know...). It would always start the same way : i feel a strange bodily sensation, think to myself : oh no, i'm not going to panic because of this, then i would try to think about something else, but would only end up thinking just more about it ... and voila... I'm feeling anxious. One day, i listened to Dr Weekes lectures (somewhere on the internet), and decided to try facing my problem. The only way i can avoid feeling anxious is by wanting to be anxious.... treating the sensations like they are invited, noticing them, scrutinizing them, not avoiding them, wanting them. It sounds weird but i found it way more effective than effexor. Since I don't fear my anxiety symptoms, i almost don't feel them anymore. Give it a try, it helps to be on effexor while looking for these answers. | F | 31 | 4 months | 4/2/2009 | 1 | depression | vision problems, like somebody turned on the wrong switch | since stopping this evil crap i no longer feel anything, trouble completing speech, stuttering i am so numb and scared | F | 48 | 4 months | 3/30/2009 | 1 | anxiety | lethargic, constant yawning all day, nausea, trouble concentrating, sensitive to light and sound, headaches, anxiety, irritability, forgetfulness, ringing in the ears, feeling "out of it" | I began experiencing panic attacks after taking Zoloft for almost 2 months, so I was switched to Effexor. I do not believe either drug helped me in the least. I was prescribed antidepressents to begin with for PPD, and ended up feeling the most horrible I have ever felt in my life. I have not felt like myself in over a year. I have horrible dreams at night when I do sleep, I toss and turn constantly, I get headaches, nausea, I have trouble concentrating, I'm sensitive to light and sound, I'm absolutely exhausted constantly and yawn all day long. I feel like I've been hit by a mack truck everyday. I am the mother of a 1 1/2 year old and I feel like I have not been able to fully enjoy her at all. It makes me feel like a bad mother. I am currently at 150 mg, but I am starting the weaning process today. This is the most horrible medication ever. I wish everyone success whether they continue or discontinue their meds. | F | 29 | 7 months | 3/26/2009 | 1 | yes | the brain zaps | made me emotionless, stay OFF this evil drug it has destroyed my life, have confusion cannot drive one of the first days i had taken it i experienced a visual problem like the clock was coming off the wall, and someboyd turned the switch off. i used to have bad anxiety now i am just there now i am on no medication except trazadone to sleep a cat scan didn't shwo anything any body else have permanent damage | 48 | 4 months | 3/25/2009 | 2 | for Fibromyalgia pain management | First, the dr had me on too much, and I had all sorts of issues including falling, memory problems, shaking, confusion, and more, mostly neurological. Then it was cut in half to 150 mg, which is still a lot. My Restless legs, which had been minor, became severe to the point of requiring epilepsy meds since it developed into 24/7 full body spasms. I had some anxiety previous to taking it, and it seems to calm that a lot, but it also supressed a lot of my other emotions and any sex drive. I had dry mouth, and a few other symptoms, but there were not the biggest problem. No one told me how addictive it can be, and I missed a single dose and thought I was going crazy. It was really bad. It scared me so much that I eventually reduced my dosaged until this past month when I weaned off. I had cut it down to about 6mg, but I should have gone down to granules and used the wet finger method I've read about. I was determined not to fill another script, and just wanted it out of my body, so I stuc | Please try to find an alternative medication for your needs. I am a therapist and there are many other medications out there that have much les potential for damaging addiction and side effects. If you are using it for reasons other than mental health, then don't be afraid to push your doctor for focusing on treating the core issue instead of the symptoms, which I think happens too often nowadays and patients end up more miserable than when they started. Don't be afraid to get second or third opinions, or to see specialists to get the care and treatment that you need. If you do want to try Effexor, please make sure you read up on all of the personal stories. There's plenty of info out there. If I had known then what I do now, then there's no way I would take it or encourage anyone I know to take it. I have spoken to more than one doctor who was COMPLETELY UNAWARE of the side effects, much less the withdrawal aspect of this drug, which is scary as hell. One told me that the withdrawal was "purely psychological", which is incredibly condescending and obviously uneducated. This tells me that a lot of doctors are simply not as knowledgable of the medications they are perscribing as we'd like to think they are. In addition, we are the ones who know are body the best, despite what they may think, so I do think it's important that we take our care into our own hands as much as possible. | F | 31 | 4 years | 3/20/2009 | 2 | depression | never before had I had restless leg syndrome, outrageous weight gain (belly fat very unattractive), blurred vision and overheating (don't need that in menopause, tyvm) | It's now 4:00 a.m. everyone is asleep but me. I ran out of the Effexor last wk and thought I might try to go w/out. The brain zaps were awful but. . I put 2 + 2 and realized I didn't have the RLS. I'm weaning myself off starting today. I'll try something else for the depression. The weight gain is unmanageable. | F | 52 | 2 years | 3/18/2009 | 1 | Depression | Memory loss, head zaps, anxiety,suicidal thoughts. | This drug is so horrible. I haven't been able to talk about until now, 1 1/2 years later. After trying numerous drugs my Dr. put me on Effexor my depression wasn't getting better so my doctor continued to raise the dosage-finally I flat out said it was not working so he tried to wean me off. My suicidal thoughts continued until I finally attempted it and was hospitalized for 10 days. I'm now on prozac and doing wonderful. Please, please do not go on this medication. I wouldn't wish the side effects on my worse enemy. | F | 40 | 1 years | 3/15/2009 | 4 | Depression | Uncontrolible sweats in the morning,slite memory loss,vivid, crazy dreams, dry mouth, tired, achey, | I don't like being on a drug that is so hard to come off of. I have been taking for about 10 years, want to see how I am without it. | M | 59 | 10 years | 3/4/2009 | 5 | social anxiety, depression | if i miss a day, extremely painful headache! not really loss of libido | started up around 300 mg, and have been on 375 mg for past few years. began taking it in 2004, and in 2006 went to 375 mg. not sure if this made any difference, but it doesn't bother me, so i guess i'll stay on it. forever. i remember after being on it for a few weeks, or month, and that specific moment when it began to hit me. that nervousness/anxiety around girls just went away, like magic. i can go out more, have fun, be more social. before being on effexor, i tried like every single medication out there, literally! none of them worked for me. | M | 29 | 5 years | 3/1/2009 | 1 | depression and anxiety | major hot flashes out of the blue doing basically nothing (watching TV) which really freaked me out... (am i going to die?) , total acid reflux like never before, weird weird weird dreams, moments of freak-out, zero sex drive. | shrink put me on initial dose and felt nothing for the longest time and had no idea what the side effects might be, other than lack of sex drive (because that's all he said the side effects would be... what a jerk). but eventually, the aforementioned side effects were pummeling me and I didn't even attribute it to the drug until i read this forum... thank god. now i KNOW that all this weirdness was caused by Effexor. I decided I'd rather be somewhat off-kilter (crazy) than be screwed with this stuff.... i went off it cold turkey, and of course that same night i started feeling euphoria, similar to rolling on X, kid you not, which made me think again about my decision... i mean that sort of sounds like a good time, right? Anyway, reason took hold and i just stopped the dosage flat out and symptoms went away, finally. and just reading all the withdrawal issues in this forum makes me think i chose wisely. luckily i didn't have withdrawals, thank god, but holy cow, this drug is proba | M | 38 | 1.5 months | 2/14/2009 | 1 | Anxiety, depression | Severe hair loss starting almost immediately which continued for a few weeks after ceasing medication. | A medication that purports to treat anxiety and depression and then causes the patient's hair to fall out, thus increasing anxiety and depression is a poor product. | M | 61 | 2 weeks | 2/1/2009 | 3 | GAD, obsessions | weight gain | Somewhat helpful for anxiety but considerable weight gain (30 lbs in 6 months!). Not so bad withdrawal with 1 months' tapering (down from 150mg). | M | 29 | 6 months | 1/27/2009 | 5 | Panic attacks, anxiety | loss of appetite, feeling sleepy, dizzy, numb, 'out of it', poor memory, weight gain (on higher dose) | Two weeks after starting this drug I finally felt like myself again! The constant anxiety was gone. No more panic attacks. I was able to feel good and laugh again! I haven't tried to go off of it but recently was upped to 300mg and gained 10 pounds and am so drowsy during the day I can't keep my eyes open. Also have a terrible memory. I'm going to go back down to my old dose. Oh yeah and the withdrawal - I get really dizzy and naseaus if i miss just one dose. To me, though, a small price to pay. I'd rather have that than a panic attack any day. | F | 40 | 7 years | 1/21/2009 | 2 | Anxiety | Loss of sleep for months, high anxiety. Not myself at all | F | 49 | | 1/10/2009 | 3 | anxiety | severe headaches for the first 2 weeks and if a dose was missed, memory issues, zero sex drive, increase appetite after a few months | I loved this drug at first. It worked wonderfully for my anxiety and started working within 5 days of taking it. Headaches were terrible and creepy but I was willing to suffer. Initial drop in weight. After 6 months my appetite increased and I had put on 10 lbs. no sex drive and an inability to achieve orgasms started to affect my relationship. Restless legs were brutal. My anxiety was still in check and I just wasn't on edge all the time and irritated with everything like i used to be. it was nice. I had the stomach flu for 5 days and couldn't keep the pill down and went off it. I feel irritated again and anxious.. I am going to try a different drug though as the side effects were a little too much for me. | F | 39 | 7 months | 1/7/2009 | 1 | depression | severe night sweats, don't want to leave house, sexual dysfunction | I am on 150 mg per day and have unbelievable night sweats. I soak my cloths and bed twice nightly...needless to say I am running out of places to sleep. Vivid deams. No sexual desire or ability to have orgasim. | F | 41 | 2 years | 1/7/2009 | 5 | menopausal hot flashes | None. | I take 37-75 mg/day and it has controlled my hot flashes with no side effects. Some days I forget to take it, with no withdrawal problems (except hot flashes), so it hasn't been addictive for me. After reading all these comments, most from people taking it for depression, I wonder if the side effects could have something to do with the switch to Effexor from previous types of antidepressants. | F | 51 | 9 months | 12/21/2008 | 3 | anxiety | nausea | F | 22 | 2 days | 12/12/2008 | 1 | hot flashes | If I missed a dose, I had terrible "brain snaps" and flu-like symptoms. Also, developed terrible GERD after 6 months on the drug. | My doctor prescribed a low dose (37.5 mg) of effexor to alleviate hot flashes caused by menopause. Effexor worked great for the first 6 months, but then the hot flashes started to come back. Three weeks ago, my doctor put me on hormone replacement therapy and I began to taper the Effexor dose. I was initially able to go down to a half a pill with no problems, but when I cut back to 1/4 of a pill after a week and then tried to go to 1/4 of a pill every other day, I started to suffer from very distracting "brain snaps" [a feeling like an electric current was running through my head]. Very scary. I also felt very "flu-y." My doctor now wants me to stay on the 1/4 pill for at least a month before tapering off to every other day. I'm not having the brain snaps or the flu-like withdrawal symptoms, but I still don't like having to take a drug I don't need. I also developed horrible GERD about 2 months into taking Effexor--very frequent and very painful heartburn, ac | F | 51 | 365 days | 12/8/2008 | 5 | Depression/social anxiety | Drowsiness (especially on higher doses); hot spells/sweating (usually within the first 3 to 4 hours of taking a pill); mild, sporadic constipation; delayed or abnormal ejaculation. | I have been helped tremendously by this drug despite the annoying side effects. I actually have been on only 100 mg. a day (generic) for the last two years, after higher doses caused too much sleepiness. One issue is the onset of withdrawal after missing a single dose, usually marked by a very uncomfortable swishy feeling in my head, which can cause queasiness simultaneously. | M | 26 | 4 years | 11/25/2008 |