EFFEXOR XR Reviews (VENLAFAXINE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 3.0 (2225 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare EFFEXOR XR with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
|
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 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 |
| 5 | depression, anxiety | can't cry | F | 39 | 7 months | 2/20/2008 | 3 | anxiety w/depression | I don't remember the initial side effects. Long-term effects: weight gain, lethargy, decreased sex drive and finally severe hives. Weaning off: mania, insomnia, spectacular mood swings, lack of focus, potential for suicidal thoughts. | This drug was a dream come true at first. However, over time, the side effects outweighed the benefits, switching to Prozac. I've wanted off for years, but withdrawal symptoms were too severe. I've had unexplained hives for 2 yrs. Doc didn't believe my hunch that there was a link to effexor. My new doc is weaning me very carefully and the hives are subsiding but still having horrible emotional problems coming down. Even before the hives, the exhaustion, weight gain and lack of sex drive put a lot of pressure on my marriage. Lethargy so bad that I needed 10 hrs sleep/night & a nap every day. Hard to hold down a job and have a healthy marriage w/kids. Overall, great for short-term use, but wean carefully -- it will likely cause suicidal thoughts as you come off! | F | 40 | 9 years | 2/20/2008 | 2 | Panic Disorder/ Anxiety/ Depression | Increased fatigue, insomnia accompanied by increased nighttime anxiety, brain zaps, crying spells. | I am going to stick it out and hope that it starts to work soon. The side effects have been manageable compared to lexapro and celexa. | F | 21 | 3 weeks | 2/20/2008 | 1 | Chronic back pain | Severe changes in my personality. Developed anxiety with anxiety attacks occuring daily, if not up to 3x/day. Developed feelings of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. Withdrawal from friends and family, loss of self esteem and confidence. Not wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Bursting into tears for no apparent reason, and not being able to control myself from hyperventalating...or getting myself to calm down. | I do not recommend taking this drug if you are not clinically depressed. I WAS NOT depressed before starting this medication. My doctor put me on this anti-depressant because I have chronic back pain due to moderate scoliosis, 2 bulging discs, and arthritis. She told me that pain causes depression, and depression causes pain so this drug should break the cycle. Within the first 2 weeks of starting this medication I have seen major changes in my personality. I have developed anxiety with anxiety attacks since starting this medication. I did not have anxiety prior to starting this medication. I am now taking myself off of this drug(under the supervision of my doctor) in steps, which is making the anxiety and depression worsen. I do not want to get out of bed in the morning. I do not want to go to work, see friends/boyfriend, have sex, or do anything socially engaging. My self esteem has all but dissappeared along with my self confidence. I now burst into tears with nothing triggering me | F | 19 | 5 weeks | 2/20/2008 | 1 | Anxiety and Depression | I experienced twitchiness late at night an inability to sleep, my neck would spasm and i would toss and turn after waking up at 3 am every night, and wouldnt be able to get back to sleep until i had worn myself out. In a normal setting, my fingers would twitch, i would have racing thoughts, talk about a mile a minute (and im a quiet person), and i would jiggle my legs comepletely unable to sit still. | It didnt work for me, but that doesnt eman it doesnt work. | F | 19 | 2 months | 2/19/2008 | 1 | anxiety | night sweats, terrible itching, munching, munching and more on hard candies to the extreme, bloating with just about everything I ate. | This medication is dangerous. Here is somewhat of a diary of my withdrawl from effexor. It's a little choppy, as it was difficult to keep track of at the time. thurs. pm. - missed dose int the am, and took tonight after a ridulous rage episode. Than at about 2 am I felt better, but was still upset about the event earlier. I looked on the internet for answers. And I got some. I decided to quit cold turkey. days 1 and 2 - feeling very strange, nervy and squirly, sort fo light headed. tingly feeling in my lips , that spreads down kind of like ahead rush. I can feel these epidodes coming on. Starts out like gerbil wheel starting to spin in my head. Then it turns into feeling of steady light electrical shocks. day 3 - terribly crying episode this afternoon lasted an hour and a half. I think I cried as if everyone I loved had suddenly died in terrible car crash. later that evening - I think I can feel the beginning of a bad episode again, My head was starting that weird | M | 44 | 1 years | 2/18/2008 | 1 | Depression | Extreme Dizzyness + Sleepyness + Lots of weight Gain. Could not Sleep at night. | (Heroin /Effexor XR in my opinion are one in the same) The side effects are similar coming off this drug. YOUR HOOKED! Due to the heroin type side effects trying to get off this VIRAL Stuff. Geeze what a market. I told my doctor how bad it was. Theye really didnt care. This drug was driving me crazy. They told me deal with it and keep taking it unless i felt like commiting suicide. Then I could get an appointment right way. Otherwise no I would have to wait for 3 weeks for an appointment. How CRUEL!I just wanted off it. He said do not try to go cold turkey. Now I know why. The effects are deadly. Some people have had seizures according to what i read on the web. He had no answer about the side effects i was having. He acted like it was the first time he heard of it. I think that was BS! I think they get kickbacks on certain drugs they push.! I found companys selling drugs for coming off effexor for almost $300 a bottle. I found a ov | M | 38 | 4 months | 2/15/2008 | 1 | depression, suicidality | had problems with blood pressure: treatment related diastolic hypertension. problems with my stomach. my immune system was down. lost of libido. | i am trying to decrease- now tappering just 10%. tried before, had horrible side effects, the worst was vertigo... | F | 48 | 4 years | 2/15/2008 | 4 | Depression/Anxiety | My pupils are dilated and which is probably the cause of the headache I got the first day too. Slight jaw-clenching but I do that on my own anyways. | I've been on 35mg for a few days now and my energy and motivation have both sky rocketed! If I feel this good on 35s I can't imagine what 75s will be like. Also, I have noticed that I am not as nervous in social situations as used to be. | F | 22 | 3 days | 2/14/2008 | 4 | severe depression | Slept for about 3 month straight. All i did was sleep. i started taking it later at night, to help with this. Orgasm was either severely delayed or didn't happen at all... if i could get over the lack of sex-drive. Initially lost 5 lbs, gained it back in double. | been on effexor xr 150 mg for a little over a year. feel significantly better than without it. no more pressing depression or sadness. it made me extremely tired, initially, and i slept constantly... which was okay, since i was suffering from insomnia and lack of concentration before i started taking it. Orgasm eventually came back... thank god... though, my girlfriend wasn't complaining. I recently built a tolerance to the 150mg, so says my Dr., and i've been upped to 300mg... which isn't helping with my concentration and has made the insomnia return. | M | 26 | 1 years | 2/14/2008 | 2 | depression/anxiety | weight gain/ lack of desire for sex , loss of intrest | I would like to get off this - and am trying but I think its way too hard - I hate it. | F | 39 | 1 days | 2/13/2008 | 4 | social anxiety/GAD/depression | When started I was agitated and more anxious for a few days, but went completely away when the dosage increased. Minor symptoms include dry mouth, maybe constipation, maybe eye dilated, maybe loss of appetite, but hard to tell if from med. nothing serious and imo worth it. | Effexor has changed my life. Nothing else I tried worked for my anxiety like it. Depression is gone, and now can function and deal w/anxiety in life like I couldn't before. Now I feel like a normal person that can interact and live life. Absolutely wonderful experience for me. I would recommend close monitoring with doctor (I had cell and it helped to be in close contact w/her) especially at start and end of treatment and not missing doses. I know it has to be tapered very gradually when getting off. | F | 21 | 2.5 years | 2/11/2008 | 3 | depression | Space cadet! | I just took my first dose this morning. I've been having problems with moderate depression for a bit and it took two visits to the doc before he talked me into it. I'm SO hopeful it will help. But right now, I feel like I'm riding a magic carpet smoking a hooka in an exotic land, when I actually just need to get on to my laundy. Hope it settles out and helps me feel better. | F | 32 | 1 days | 2/11/2008 | 4 | depression/nerve pain | I was initially on Effexor and slowly got up to 100 mg a day. Was on this for several years, had back surgery and wanted to quit Effexor because I was no longer depressed or in pain. Withdrawal was very, very difficult as many here state. I ended up staying on a maintenance dose of half of a 37.5 mg tablet. After a year or so on this I had more spinal problems and related nerve pain. Upped the Effexor to 75 mg without much pain relief. I now switched to XR 150 mg for the past six months. I have lots of neck problems (DDD, herniation, stenosis, etc) so I thought the severe pain in my hands and arms was the result of that. HOwever, in thinking about when the pain increased, I realized that it coincided with my switch to a higher dose and XR. To compound the problem, I was put on Diovan 160 mg for high blood pressure at the same time. So I don't really know if the increase in pain is related only to the Effexor XR or Diovan also. | Overall, Effexor did very well relieving my depression. It helped keep migraines at bay and I had tolerable, minimal side effects. But getting off of this drug is really nasty. I had to d/c my meds a few days before a neck myelogram and had a very bad reaction to the lack of Effexor in my system. My pain increased tremendously and I was a basket case emotionally with crying, etc. I had to go back on the Effexor and make an appointment with my prescriber to find something to cover me for when I have the myelogram. I had the "typical" brain zaps and odd brain feeling, dizziness, anxiety. I would love to d/c this drug forever once my neck problems have been taken care of. | F | 52 | 7 years | 2/8/2008 | 3 | Mild depression | No real side effects except maybe sex drive at first. | The problem with this drug is trying to get off of it. I tried weaning off with my doctor's help and still came back begging for more to get rid of the echoes in my head and the dizziness. It is awful to try and get off this stuff. I really think I could do without it but I cannot stop taking it because of all the effects it has when trying to get off. Does anyone else get the echoing and dizziness when you do not take it or not enough or try to wean off? Help! Wish I never started this crap. | M | 55 | 6 years | 2/7/2008 | 2 | depression | - night sweats - intense nightmares - rapid heartbeat - weight loss - loss of appetite - loss of sexual desire - waves of dizziness / brain weirdness - severe hives over my entire body | It's really too bad about this. I was thinking the other day that it was working out okay, despite the side effects. I was willing to put up with everything except the hives. I'm about to stop taking it because apparently once you get the hives, they don't necessarily go away for months or even years after you go off Effexor. And let me explain why the hives are so awful - it's not just a few itchy patches. It is all down my arms, legs, and sides. They are worse at night, and I've even started getting them on my face. Last night, I had so many hives on my face that it looked like I was wearing a misshapen lumpy mask. It's itchy and embarrassing. I was on the drugs for about 6 months before the hives showed up. | F | 29 | 6 months | 2/5/2008 | 1 | depression | extremely nauseous,fuzzy feeling all over,just not right | I was on wellbutrin 300xl for a couple of years and had weight gain and my depression had gotten worse,so I decided to try effexor.What a huge mistake,I only lasted two days. | F | 41 | 2 days | 2/5/2008 | 2 | Depression & GAD | I have become a very lazy and non motivated person...effexor has lost efficacy over time and I am now at 225mg/day and feel like effexor is no longer working for me. I have lost a lot of time doing nothing with my life and feel like something has to change | M | 23 | 5 months | 2/4/2008 | 5 | Clinical Depression | The only side effect I've had is I'm thirsty all the time. I've not experienced any of the side effects I've read about on this site as well as others. | This medicine has saved my life, literally. I have attempted suicide on two different occasions, my last attempt was Jan 6, 2008. I slit my wrists and my husband found me 15 minutes later. My psychiarist put me on Effexor XR that very day at the hospital. I have NEVER responsed to the other anti-depressionants as well as I have Effexor XR. I've been on Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Wellburtin and Lexapro with very limited success. With Effexor XR 150 mg I have a new life! I see my doctor every week and she is monitoring me very closely. We may have to increase my dosage over time, but I really don't care....I feel alive again!!!!! I laugh, smile, feel, care, and love again. I don't even care if I gain weight! | F | 50 | 5 weeks | 2/3/2008 | 3 | depression | addicting,when i forget a dose it's not long before i'm reminded i get the jitters and feel rushes over my body. | F | 30 | 8 years | 2/3/2008 |