Hi, this is the second med. I have tried for my depression. I like it now that I am on the right amount. I started at one pill a day @75mlg per pill. But I was still haveing depression and mood swings. So they uped it to 2 pills a day in the morning. Now I am actually at 3 a day which is 225mlg, I am feeling the best I have. But all meds are differant for each person. Just tell who ever perscribed them what and how you feel.

Hi.....I have been on effexor for sometime,you have to get the dosage right and they are very good....................Unwanted side effects that I have had are sweating-vivid night mares and feeling sick.I would recomend that you take them on time every day.Hope this helps some!!

Thanks for both of your advice. I guess i'll stick with this one for a little while. I'm pretty sick of these things not working. It's brand number 3 and i'm not ready to move on to number 4. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that three truly is a lucky number. I know that side effects are normal so I won't let it bother me (yet). Vivid nightmares ? Sick. I suppose now that I think about it... My dreams have been (extra) violent and disturbing lately. They always have been pretty bad - ever since I can remember. But these new ones are intense.

Thanks again for replying. :o

Hey I have really vivid horrid dreams too. I have had a really bad past experiance and I always thought it was from that, but I bet the effexor has made it more real. Weird never thought of that.

I take effexor since 2003. It helps me a lot to control my depression and anxiety. I did not have any side effect from it.

Hi emptyalive
i was put on effexor in may 2004 for mild depression and ptsd (post traumatic stress disorder). I certainly had some bad side effects for the first 2 weeks, such as nausea, dizziness, lethargy, not feeling like 'myself', sex drive dissappeared (unusual in a 20 year old male ;) ), feeling hungry all the time.
But they tapered off and I have had no side effects since. After about a month - 5 weeks it started working and I really started feeling like a new person, it really helped change my brain, and a lot of the spiralling depressive symptoms stopped.
I hope you have remained positive and have kept on taking the medication.
:)
davey

i've often woke up from disturbing nightmares, and had problems with night-sweats, too! Now I know this is a side affect of effexor.

I hated effexor. Some meds work for others though. Good luck!

I just weaned myself off of 300mg of effexor xr over the course of weeks. I had been on various does of it for 2 years, and it did help with my depression, but after awhile I felt that it wasn't working anymore. A similar thing happened to me with prozac after taking it for 4 years as well. I did have night sweats, and some mild hand tremors, as well as feeling like I drank a pot of coffee at the higher doses. Getting of effexor was horrible! I went into total drug withdrawl, and felt like a doing it drug addict going through withdrawl! Do not stop this drug without stepping down the dose slowly under the supervision of a doc. I went from 75mg to nothing (after weaning down slowly from 300mg) instead of going down to 37.5mg like I should have. I thought I would be fine and disobeyed my doc's order. I ended up having to call my doc and take the 37.5mg over the course of a week to wean myself off. Imagine being drunk on a boat in rocky water...That's how I felt. The vertigo and nausea were unbelieveable. I even had to take off work...Which I never do!



I'm on wellbutrin now with good results. Keep checking in with your doc from time to time so he can see how you are doing and tweek your dose as needed. Remember, remission from depression does not happen over night.

I am taking this medication want to know if you can take alchol on this medication? And if so how much should you drink?