Venlafaxine advice

[Pinkmilliemoo]

Hi I currently take 150mg of venlafaxine for anxiety and have been for 5 weeks I don't feel any better, worse in fact! Has anyone increased to 225mg and felt better. I am losing faith in this anti depressant - sertraline didn't work either!!

I think above 150mg is usually prescribed by a psychiatrist rather than a GP (was with me). I did find it very effective at the higher dose. I believe it acts more on the Norepinephrine at dosages over 150mg as well. Suggest though you do see your doctor and not increase by yourself. I had an ECG done as I was on 300mg (immediate release rather than the extended release version). However, it does take a while to have an effect so may be wait a few more weeks first.

Hi there, I am under a psychiatrist and I know this will be his next options. I just wanted to see if anyone had benefited from the extra dose. When I have take ad before it has been a steady increase in getting better, this time however I seem to feel better for a few weeks then go back down again. How was you at 150mg?? Hoping that increase may sort me out. Fed up of the the roller coaster!!

Hi Pink for me I did feel that I felt better at the higher dose. However, I was also taking Mirtazapine (it's a common combo) prior to the increase. At my worst (and highest dose) I did feel that the venlafaxine worked. I took at 300mg with 45mg Mirtazapine for one year, and then have stayed steady on a lower therapeutic dose of 112mg and 15mg respectively for the last two years which has been effective. Certainly sorted out my roller coaster - hope it works as well for you!

I'm on 150mg Sertraline and 30mg Mirtazapine. I wanted to stop the Mirtz because of weight gain and reduced from 45mg to 30 without any trouble, but once I reduced to 15mg I took a nose dive. The psychiatrist prescribed Venlafaxine which I took for 3 weeks but bad side effects, extreme nausea and insomnia and depression worse. The psych prescribed Zopiclone to help with sleep but they made no difference.

Pink I think the "ups and downs" in mental ill health are very common. I certainly have them and been told by psych and CPN that they are to be expected.......great!

I honestly think that with ADs it is all "trial and error" and if the psych can pull out 2 ADs that work for you, then you're in luck but if not, you can trail through every damn AD available and fiddle about with dosages etc., and still not get a complete recovery, or you do but the illness returns. It's all guess work for GPs and Psychs and they don't know how ADs work and why they benefit one person and not another, and why one works in one episode, but doesn't in another. A bloody maze!

Sometimes I wonder if when we think the drugs are "working" it may be that we have recovered or are in remission and it's nothing to do with the drugs. But then no one knows the answer to that one either. Medics know how every organ in the body functions and malfunctions apart from the Brain and small wonder really as it is the most complex organ in the body, and yet when it malfunctions the manifestations can be life changing. Just wish there was more research into brain disorders.