Venlafaxine nightmare

[Greedybilly]

Been on this damn stuff for 10 weeks now - felt like it was starting to work after a suicidal start. Then a few days ago had a huge crash , suicidal and off work again. Wtf? I've tried nearly every anti depressant going. Can't get an appointment with a psychiatrist and am running out of hope. Wish I'd never started on it now have to wean onto something else. Just gutted as I've been through 3 months of hell and it hasn't bloody worked.

Constantly asked for help but realistically there isn't any. See a different gp ever time, can't get a private or nhs psychiatrist, crisis team are utter crap.

It didn’t work for me either. Please be careful coming off it, you have to be very very gradual because the withdrawal symptoms can be substantial and very long lasting. I didn’t know that and it was horrendous.

I know I am absolutely dreading coming off it but tbh I feel suicidal on it so thinking it cant feel much worse.

Could it be dosage related? Maybe you need more?

Nope I'm done adding constant pills to my already huge handful every morning. It's just silly and not sustainable.

You really need a psychiatrist to assess medication options for you. I’m sorry you can’t get to see one. The normal side effects of starting and then coming off a new medication are severe enough. Dealing with that repeatedly can’t have been easy.

My referral was knocked back. A private one is £400/hour.

It’s awful. NHS mental health services are collapsing. If there’s any way you can get the money to at least get a proper assessment and medication review privately, you should be able to go back to the NHS for prescriptions.

If you’re currently feeling suicidal, going back to your GP (again) for help with your medication and another referral is probably the best immediate option.

Venlafaxine has very bad withdrawal symptoms. If you were stopping for other reasons, the advice would be to drop the dosage very slowly over a period of time. As you’re suffering from a very serious side effect (or the tablets just aren’t working for you) you shouldn’t be stopping without medical advice and/or other medication to ease your symptoms.

What dosage are you on OP?

Once I got to 150mg of Venlafaxine it was fantastic.

Venlafaxine does act differently at different doses, so changing doses could be an option, but if you’re feeling suicidal you need immediate professional medical advice.

I'm sat in the gp waiting room right now.

@Tomelette very happy for you. On 200 and it's not working. We're all different.

@Queucumber I might borrow the money. Thanks I appreciate your comments.

Good. The dosage can go up a lot higher but it might not be the right thing for you. Good luck and be as honest as possible about how low you are.

I’ve just been prescribed 75mg venlaxifine by the mental health team and now I’m nervous to take it. Heard lots of bad stories about it.

I don’t know if you have come across her but Dr Tracey Marks( a psychiatrist)on youtube has a lot of mental health videos and has some on treatment resistant depression and talks about all different treatment options including medication and neural stimulation treatments like rTMS there is also a new med called Auvelity. Really hope you get something helpful soon

@Rodders92 thankyou

I was at the end of them all and then just clicked with Venlafaxine. It was my dream drug. Tried nearly all of them.

The next step would have been Lithium.

It’s such a stressy thing getting the right meds! I’m here right now swapping.

Just a note to everybody that venlafaxine is renowned for its side-effects, and if they are side-effects you can cope with for the benefit of the pill then you’re good to go. If you can’t then don’t worry find another one.

Sometimes you can combine two although that is rare.

if you’ve tried a lot and they are still not working, I think something is telling me that you need therapy. Let’s be honest they give us these pills and don’t give us a therapy that is supposed to go alongside it!
and as others have said, venlafaxine works very different at different doses for different people. You don’t need to give it up because it’s not working for you. You might need something in addition. And if you do need to swap to another one, it could be a bit ropey for a few weeks, but it shouldn’t be too bad, I’m doing that right now, ropey few days off work but starting to feel less like I’m being electrocuted.