I’ve been on Effexor 37.5 for 3.5 weeks and have been having a constant feeling of anxiety/sense of doom that only goes away if I’m really distracted by something. My heart rate is also higher in general like my resting used to be 68 and now it is 76. I’m going to talk to my Dr soon about it because maybe these are side effects that will go away and I should stick with it. Has anyone else experienced this?
Btw I had taken Effexor in the past in 2020 until late 2022 and went up to 75 and did not have these feelings. Just had more anxiety the first week.
This was my initial reaction to Effexor many years back. I stopped taking it immediately (not for VM). This made me really leary of trying another SNRI, but duloxetine has been great. None of the problem that I had with Effexor. VM symptoms are 90% reduced. Each person has their own reaction to these kinds of medication, so they will definitely be a trial and error period.
Hi, @Poppy . Yes, I felt some nausea in the beginning, but not until I ramped up to the full 60 mg. I also had a few weeks of compulsive yawning at night. I took 3 weeks from starting at 20 mg to 40 to 60. I could feel the medication from the beginning but it was at least a month before I began to notice consistent changes in VM itself. Initially, this was mostly affective: I still had VM symptoms but didn’t feel crushed by them. Next, my dopamine system kicked in and I felt pleasure at completing tasks for the first time in 15 months. At about 8 weeks, cognitive abilities starting regularizing and I felt more confident about living with this condition. About 12 weeks I could really feel all of it begin to mesh together: neuro, physical, emotional, cognitive. I backslid a bit 6 months in, and chose to increase the dose to 80, which I’ve remained at since February 2024.