DOSE:

75 mg

oral

Pharms - Venlafaxine

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

150 lb

I was on effexor for 6 months. This has been the worst experience of my life. It too me four months to get off of this drug and experienced intense withdrawal for four weeks.

I have been on other medications (SSRI, SNRI, etc.) and nothing compares to this. It worked great for a while, helping me with migraines, but about 2 months in I noticed some changes in my behavior. I secretly believed I was best at everything from time to time and I would go about doing everything as if I was. In reality, I was actually doing nothing. I could not get homework done, could not clean, could not organize. I could do nothing, but I believed I was doing everything. When I realized I was doing nothing, I sat there and continued to have my mind wander. I had absolutely no focus. The last straw were the hallucinations, the severely vivid gory nightmares and the paranoia. Why was there no warning about this?? The painful electrical zaps made me look like a creep and so did my large, dilated ever-wondering eyes.

It's been a month since being completely off the drug and my focus has not improved one bit. It feels as if it has worsened since I no longer have the rush of effexor. I binge eat and sleep 12 hours a night now with sleep paralysis- a problem I never had before. I went from a 4.0 chemistry major to a struggling 2.0 sociology major. I dropped my classes after noticing I spent 3 hours looking at my hair pores while an assignment worth 20% of my grade was due. My language skills and memory have gone down. It doesn't feel like I'll ever be the same again. I don't even have enough focus to search for a therapist that takes my insurance after being told the nightmares might've given me some ptsd symptoms. I did not have severe mental health problems like I do now... How did I have enough focus to type this?

Also forgot to mention the 20lb weight gain from sleeping and binging.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 103408
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Feb 18, 2020	Views: 975
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Pharms - Venlafaxine (191) : Health Problems (27), Post Trip Problems (8), Medical Use (47), Not Applicable (38)