EFFEXOR XR Reviews (VENLAFAXINE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 3.0 (2225 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare EFFEXOR XR with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by Gender with females listed first (reviews with no gender reported listed before females). 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 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 |
More on EFFEXOR XR: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR EFFEXOR XR | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 1 | Severe depression | Extreme weight gain-60 pounds in the 12 weeks I was on this and loose of real emotion, complete lack of caring for anything or anyone. My sex drive was kicked into overdrive as well as my need to eat. | I have fought with depression since my preteens. It runs in my family and I have always struggled with the thought of having to take medication to feel 'normal'. I was doing all the right things, eating well, running 6-12 miles per day-training for my first marathon. I thought that was the answer. I could beat this thing without medication. That's what everyone says right? Diet and exercise! Maybe that's why this bout of depression completely blindsided me. and knocked me flat on my ass. I could hardly get out of bed, the thought of brushing my teeth was exhausting. After months of feeling like I was swimming against a current to just LIVE my life I made the first step in what I have known to be an uphill battle. I sought out a depression and anxiety specialist. Sitting in that exam room that first day I remember just being a puddle of sad all over his floor. I thought he had extensive knowledge, probably because he was one of the few Dr.'s in my life that haven't basically just told me to 'try harder' I thought he understood. Let me state that when I get depressed to the point that I cannot just 'handle' it anymore I know my own personal symptoms. It's a struggle to get out of bed, I do mean a fucking battle, its exhausting to have to do basic things like brush my teeth, take a shower, put on clothes. Now the physical symptoms for me are excessive weight gain, muscle aches, tired to my bones-20-cups-of-espresso-isn't-fixing-this-tired. For me, this medication was terrible, I | F | 29 | 3 months 75mg 1X day | 9/6/2014 | 1 | Depression | made me 100x worse and is addictive in that it is hard to stop without withdrawal It made me so confused it took me 2 ys to realize it was the drug making me depressed | ( I will never take any SSRI drug again or allow a loved one to take it) | F | 50 | 2 years 300mg 1X day | 6/14/2014 | 1 | Anxiety and Depression | Started off feeling great, a few months later- terrible! Totally numb, couldn't summon any feelings, even toward my partner. Put on a huge amount of weight. Constantly constipated. Not motivation. Exhaustion that was so bad I couldn't get out of bed. Panic attacks came back. Am now tapering off and it's hell. Wish I never started | F | 25 | 5 years 150mg | 9/1/2013 | 1 | depression, chronic pain | Mood changes, more depressed,hostile thoughts,cold sweats,vomiting, agitation,aggression,trouble sleeping,crying spells, mind wanders of into lala land. Suicidal thoughts, very scary. | Do your home work on this dangerous drug before taking it. It may work for some folks, the complaints i have looked at are bad. FDA should ban this drug. | F | 57 | 6 months 150-37.5 2X day | 11/8/2013 | 1 | depression | Coming off this drug after 10 yrs is HELL! Doctors dont warn you about this when throwing you on it. My advice, dont do it! It's simply a cover up your feelings drug....seriously, don't take it! Crying, brain zaps, nausea, vomiting, serious mood swings....ect...no sex drive, weight gain..... | F | 32 | 10 years 300-35.7mg | 4/25/2014 | 1 | depression, anxiety | drowsiness, delirium, constipation, fatigue, weakness, listlessness, insomnia | withdrawal was awful. had brain shocks, psychotic symptoms (heard voices, hypergraphia) cataplexic episodes. | F | 19 | 8 months 50 1X day | 5/6/2014 | 1 | Depression | Dizziness, nausea, headache, and disorientation/confusion upon missing a dose. Caused insomnia and nervousness no matter what time of day that I took my pill. I am currently going through withdrawal and am experiencing nausea, headaches, brain zaps, body aches, hallucinations, diarrhea, and extreme depression/feelings of hopelessness, although I am handling the latter well with new medication. | F | 22 | 4 months 150mg | 3/8/2014 | 1 | Depression/anxiety | Hair loss, headaches, nausea, weight gain , no sex drive, | Please to anyone considering this drug, don't do it! The withdrawal symptoms have simply ruined my life. Nausea,headaches,brain zaps, stomach cramps,fatigue, irritability, crying for no reason, increased depression and anxiety. I'm praying for an end to this nightmare. | F | 24 | 7 months 75 mg | 10/1/2015 | 1 | Depression | This drug is TOXIC. STAY WAY. I took it for depression and it worked well. HOWEVER. The withdrawals are horrendous. Brain zaps like electric shocks, severe aggression and irritability, flu like symptoms, and at times self harm as the aggression would turn inward. This drug should be banned from the PBS. I am still suffering withdrawals after a month, although the physical symptoms have almost gone, I now feel depressed but I wonder if it's from the horrendous physical withdrawals. I just hope it hasn't caused me permanent brain damage. | In my experience over 30 years of taking various anti-depressants SSRI's are toxic. Doctors are always praising their glory as they say there is less side effects. But this is not true unless your happy having insomnia every night and shoving more Valium into your system in order to go to sleep and this results in having to take more and more since lower doses no longer work. If you want a crappy sex life hence contributing to additional problems in your relationships go ahead. Never again!! Yes the old tricyclics also have side effects such as dry mouth and slight weight gain but at least you sleep and your relationship is in tact. Never will I take SSR's again! 😡 | F | 56 | 12 months 35mg 1X day | 11/25/2015 | 1 | Depression | Dry mouth, insomnia, nausea, tremor, constant brainzaps, sweating, more suicidal than usually, easily irritated, changes in personality, headache, sleep paralysis and so much more | When my doctor prescribed Effexor to me, he said that there weren't a lot of side effects. He was so wrong. It was the worst six months I have ever been through. I felt like I couldn't control my own body, and the constant brainzaps almost drove me crazy. The worst part was if I missed a dose, or took it later than usual, I would throw up the whole next day,and the tremor in my hands made it hard to do basically anything. After a while on Effexor, I started worry about the fact that I was way more suicidal than usual. My mom told me that she was terrified every morning to go into my room, in fear of that I had hurt myself. Quitting Effexor was hell. Out of nowhere I would start crying like crazy, hyperventilate, and even pass out. It took almost 3 months to get off of it. I warn as many people as I can about this drug. After quitting I started taking Wellbutrin, and it changed my life. Please don't poison yourself with Effexor. | F | 19 | 6 months 300 mg | 1/19/2016 | 1 | Depression | Please do not take this drug, I started taking it for depression and after just 5 days my hair has fallen out at the front I now have a huge bald patch. It should be banned. One of the side effects is Alopecia. I have thick long dark hair and am devastated. | Horrible drug. I have since read a lot and found many people experiencing hair loss, some now are having to wear hair pieces or wigs. | F | 41 | 5 days | 11/21/2015 | 1 | Depression, extreme anxiety | If I could go back, I would have never taken this drug. At first it was okay because I didn't feel as anxious as I usually did. Eventually, I began to have hand shakes and once in a while my body feels out of sync. I no have problems with anemia because I am always bleeding.Dr's have not suggested effexor as the culprit, but it is the only medicine I take and it will not go away. I just keep bleeding and Noone knows why. After attempting to wean off of this medicine it feels like you are going to die. It does give you flu like symptoms and they last so long. The worst part is that I began to gain a lot of weight once I went without medicine for two weeks. I am the biggest I have ever been. I will give the weaning another try, but with my job and kids I am scared to. I get so irritable and aggressive when I don't take it. I need to wait for the perfect timing. | F | 32 | 6 years 150 mg | 2/1/2016 | 1 | Depression | Scary RAGE after a couple of drinks. High anxiety- panicky. Suicidal thoughts. Thoughts of harming myself and others. Without going into detail, It Wasn't pretty. It made me feel evil and more depressed than ever. I had to ask for intervention and I immediately stopped taking it and switched back to lexapro- which I love. Within 2 hours I felt "normal" again. This is a dangerous drug. | AVOID | F | 29 | 10 days 175 | 2/12/2015 | 1 | severe anxiety and depression, PTSD | Helped my racing thoughts and fears. I still felt extremely depressed. Honestly I felt emotionally numb, dissociated with my own body. Started feeling wreckless... | I started to develop hives, a red itchy rash and swelling in my hands. My dr took me off immediately. | F | 31 | 4 days 150MG | 4/23/2015 | 1 | Misdiagnosed as major Depression | DO NOT under ANY circumstances takes this medication! The symptoms you have BEFORE taking this medication are WAY BETTER than the side effects of this poison. I will focus more on discontinuance in additional comments. | Please read the information of many other patients who are desperately trying to get off this med, myself included, and imagine yourself trying to get off heroin, crack, meth amphetimines.... This is every bit as bad and then some! http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/opinions/20689/1 | F | 13 years 1X day | 9/23/2015 | 1 | anxiety | HORRIBLENESS!!!!! | So about 10 yrs ago was put on effexor and it worked great! Then had to up dose a couple times and eventually my dr added mirtazapine with it and i felt on top of the world! 2 yrs later got off all of it, didnt feel need for it anymore. Have been off of it for 10 yrs. Have had bad anxiety for some time now tho so went back to dr and got put back on effexor and asked for mirtazapine(remeron) again but he said its actually an add on so instead prescribed me trazodone for sleep cuz ive always struggled with my sleep anyway, Mirtazapine works very well for sleep also btw. Anyway took trazodone first nite and slept great but woke up really groggy! Took effexor that morning and symptoms became worse and got a headache. That night took trazodone again and didnt sleep as well but woke up feeling great! Then took effexor and started feeling horrible! Cloudy, confused, headache, dilated pupils, dizziness, almost like a feeling of lost touch of reality, just plain horrible. So looked up side effects and everything ive read is horrible about this drug, made me remember when i missed dose yrs ago and i wanted to die but i never experienced what i experienced yesterday while TAKING the drug! Threw away my bottle a few minutes ago, the side effects and withdrawal effects are enough for me to never touch this drug again! Im keeping trazodone and will continue to take it as it is also an antidepressant and for anxiety amongst a whole slew of other things. I have read tons of reviews on it | F | 30 | 2 days 37.5 | 1/23/2015 | 1 | major depression panic and anxiety | Nausea, vomiting, buzzing in ears, pain everywhere, wild dreams, jerking, shaking, feeling of being out of my body anger, not able to leave home,not able to trust anyone. I don't know who I am. I feel pain but like it's happening to someone else | Feel like the doctor that prescribed it to me had no respect when prescribing it to me not telling me how bad it would be coming off of it. Also didn't listen to me about the side effects I was having. Also doctors not wanting to taper you off just dismissing you so they don't have to deal with you. So I cut myself off. Almost 2 months now. It's poison | F | 51 | 1 years | 1/22/2015 | 1 | psychiatry's routine prescribing | BRAIN ZAPS MEMORY LOSS BRAIN ZAPS SEIZURE BRAIN ZAPS BRAIN DEATH | I was severely injured and damaged by this revolting neurotoxin. I now have severe and extreme hatred, disgust and loathing against psychiatry, the system, the state, the government and humanity on the whole. effexor xr is supreme evidence of just exactly how deadly and dangerous the entire system is, all the way from the labs of madmen where this garbage is cooked up, to the companies who sell the crap, to the incompetent college graduates who call themselves "doctors" that prescribe the deadly poison. I WISH I COULD SUE. | F | 39 | 1 years unk 1X day | 2/6/2015 | 1 | Depression | Only fatigue and sexual side effects while taking it, during withdrawal I have shortness of breath, dizziness, light headedness, brain zaps, bouts of nausia, sweating, very strange dreams, some nightmares, mood swings, and lots of drowsiness. | I know this drug has helped some people, but I only hope you know about the withdrawal before you go on it. I trusted my doctor of 13 years and just started taking it on her recommendation. I was only mildly depressed and had I known then what I know now about the withdrawals I never would have taken this. I have missed so much work because I can't even drive most days, let alone function in an office. I went from 75mg to 37.5 mg for a week, then 37.5mg every other day for 2 weeks - what a roller coaster that was - good day, bad day, good day, etc. I have been completely off for 3 days and have had NO improvement in my withdrawal symptoms. I am so miserable at this stage that I'm worse off than when I started taking this by far. I wish you all the best. | F | 36 | 4 months | 9/9/2008 | 1 | Anxiety disorder/depression | Seriously increased blood pressure and resting heart rate! A year ago it was a normal healthy bp and today discovered it's 140/59 with a resting heart rate of 99. I'm a 35 yo healthy female. I have the vitals of an old woman in terrible condition and in danger of a stroke b/c of Effexor! | Don't take it!!! Professionals don't understand the potential dangers of this drug enough! | F | 35 | 1 years | 10/1/2008 |