Effexor and Venlafaxine
This one is the hardest for me to write. This drug wrecked my life and the life of my loved one. I have zero positive things to say about it nor the doctor who prescribed it and didn’t follow any type of protocol. A year later, it still breaks my heart. How could I not know. I beat myself up but I have to remind myself, I thought this “anxiety pill” was just like a tyleol until I was forced to get an education in everything antidepressants.
All it took was one doctor making a cocktail to help with the “increased anxiety” of my loved one. The truth is, looking back, he was presenting with drug induced symptoms that were ignored. He should have been monitored when this doctor combined two medications LISTED on the manufacturer’s website, warning NOT to combine.
It was so unbelievably irresponsible for this family doctor not to do a quick google search or use drugs.com interaction. It was unacceptable to keep increasing my loved one’s dose while ignoring the symptoms he presented with in the office:
Weight Gain
Increased Blood Pressure
Low Testosterone
Excessive Sweating
Increased Anxiety
Physical symptoms that were ignored and a cocktail was created.
I lost my loved one to this mind altering drug and this is what I am angry about.
It was right there!
Which leads to: “Concommitant use of Effexor XR with other sertogenic drugs including .. buspirone increases the risk of serotonin syndrome”
MONITOR for symptoms when Effexor XR is used concommitantly with other drugs that may affect the sertogenic nuerotransmitter systems.
And if that was not enough.. we also have Discontinuation Syndrome which is ALSO listed under the website under Healthcare Professionals. Oh how my heart hurts for all that has been lost and stolen. Not just in my life and my loved one’s but the thousands of others going through this that have no idea like my friend Zoe who has watched her husband turn into someone she doesn’t recognize and my friend Sebrina who lost the love of her to these horrific drugs when he went cold turkey.
Where was the INFORMED CONSENT?
We are left without a fiance’, a husband and the love of our lives, all because doctors around the world, can’t do their research and listen to the thousands of people searching for answers. Why isn’t anyone told this is one of the hardest drugs to get off of? Why were we not informed of the mood altering medications these men were put on? Why weren’t we given a heads up for what to look for? The truth is when your loved one is put on MIND ALTERING medications, they are not able to see how their personality has changed. They can see the physical affects but it’s very hard to see the emotional side affects. They don’t know the reason why they are more irritable, cranky, remembering things that didn’t happen, experiencing things that didn’t happen-as if they happened and they lived through it. They don’t know they are having increased agitation because their serotonin levels have been artificially adjusted. They don’t know their testosterone has plummeted, thinking something is wrong with them. The women just know their loved one isn’t attracted to them anymore and the loved one feels like a failure. An exhausted failure who became aggressive where he used to adore, who experiences hypomania on top of insomnia, confusion with some thoughts he’s not good enough, a belief that has been buried in the subconscious for years, but this drug highlights. An altered way of thinking, believing anger is the only mode of communication that can be used since the loved one is highly irritated by all things. The loved one pulls back, cuts off people, shrinks while feeling trapped and controlled. Their sense of self is altered.Their sense of safety around them. Their sense of knowing where they belong. Their sense that something isn’t right as they are suffocated by the medication, the drug that alters lives.
