I lost my pills

[nfotxn]

So something happened just over a week ago. I some how managed to lose the entire bottle of the anti-depressant I was using. That does sound like a suspect excuse but it's honestly what happend. Considering I'm an adult now and don't have any sort of drug benefit plan I wasn't about to pony up $110 for a bottle of pills I'd already bought.

And there I was in the bad lands of withdrawal from a mind altering chemical. I'd read every available drop of official research on the Effexor XR website for both patients and medical professions and there was little to no descript of the harsh withdrawal symptoms. Go figure. Luckily the sustained euphoria wasn't too traumatizing and seems to be nearly gone now.

Presently I'm not sure if it's the beautiful weather and fantastic time I had at pride or not but I feel as if I'm... cured? Oh sorry, that's not a word psychologists are allowed to use. But I feel very much back to my old self again only better. As if I'd been in some sort of mental bandage for the last four months and only now had it unraveled.

Also being horny and able to achieve orgasm in significantly less than 90 minutes is a really Good Thing. I also find my behavior becoming very festidious bordering on the obsessive compulsive. I'm not really too concerned about that because all things being relative I was feeling obsessively uncompulsive for the longest time so I think I'm closer to equilibrium now.

As a friend also on the same anti-depressant pointed out in his journal he felt the inability to experience grief or sympathy in any great capacity. Everything seems to roll of your back like a duck in an Exxon oil spill. Now on one hand I feel this helped me to heal and literally be without worries but oppositely I think it aided some unhealthy decisions I'd made by crippling my conscience. I can spend all my money on booze and sex or smoke some cigarettes 'cause, like, who's gonna stop me?! Not me!

In the end although I did feel somafied and stopped my therapy prematurely without the consent of my Doctor an SSRI really did help me to heal. I think if there's any catharsis from this experience is that I feel now to live my life I need to work harder at what I love every day.

Haha, oh man I am so going to eat those words!

Comments

[jprtoronto.livejournal.com]

Ummm...not sure if you are saying you feel better not on the pill or on the pill

At any rate I use the same drug, and just renewed my prescription for a good chunk of them, if you need some just to help you out until you can get more....

[beardoc.livejournal.com]

Much as I'm going to kill myself for picking such a small thing out of th post and running with it, Effexor (venlafaxine) isn't an SSRI. It's a SNRI or SSNRI (selective serotonin/noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor) and it's different to all of the other medications on the market.

Sorry for being picky. Where could the pills have gone?

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I understand it's not just an SSRI, it has a dopamine re-uptake inhibitor in addition to seritonin which is supposedly synergistic in treatment of resistant depression. Why my doctor prescribed me something so harsh is beyond me considering I my depression is situational and I have no history of being drug resistant. Of course it was prescribed at a walk-in clinic, so that explains that :)

I had my pills in my backpack for a while. I suppose there are a multitude of situations in which they could have gone missing. I was kinda negligent keeping them safe as I had a pill planner which I was using for my daily doses.

Anyhow, so far so good.

[beardoc.livejournal.com]

Actually, venlafaxine is only a very weak reuptake inhibitor of dopamine - its effects are far more on noradrenaline and serotonin.

From MIMS (the Australian Clinician Drug Database:
" Venlafaxine is a structurally novel antidepressant for oral administration; it is chemically unrelated to tricyclic, tetracyclic or other available antidepressant agents.

The mechanism of venlafaxine's antidepressant action in humans is believed to be associated with its potentiation of neurotransmitter activity in the central nervous system. Preclinical studies have shown that venlafaxine and its major metabolite, O-desmethylvenlafaxine (ODV), are potent inhibitors of serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake, and also weakly inhibit dopamine reuptake. Venlafaxine is a racemate. The R-enantiomer is relatively more potent than the S-enantiomer with regard to inhibition of noradrenaline reuptake; the S-enantiomer is more potent regarding inhibition of serotonin reuptake. Both enantiomers are more potent on serotonin compared to noradrenaline reuptake. The enantiomers of ODV also inhibit both noradrenaline and serotonin reuptake, with the R-enantiomer being more potent. Venlafaxine and its major metabolite appear to be equipotent with respect to their overall action on neurotransmitter reuptake and receptor binding. Studies in animals show that tricyclic antidepressants may reduce beta-adrenergic receptor responsiveness following chronic administration. In contrast, venlafaxine and ODV reduce beta-adrenergic responsiveness after both acute (single dose) and chronic administration."

If you can understand that, you're doing well. *grin*

But it's not just for resistant depression - it's been shown to be more effective in depression, and under Australian therapeutic guidelines it's listed as the best first-line agent for depression. Don't think that your doctor put you on it because it's the "big guns" - it's not bad.

Anyway, you're off it now.

[zer0ith.livejournal.com]

"Also being horny and able to achieve orgasm in significantly less than 90 minutes is a really Good Thing."

and thats a bad thing???
although still loosing your meds is not that good. I just hope that you are able to get by without them. It sounds like your okay, but then again this is only the short term right? The long term is when problems could arrise.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

and thats a bad thing???

There's a big difference between choosing not to cum for 90 minutes and not being able to even if your life depended on it :)

The long term is when problems could arrise.

Well said and I will be keeping vocal and vigilent about things. But I am taking the approach that I'm better now and working towards sustaining that.

[coltcub.livejournal.com]

there is some side effects if you stop to take it suddenly, that means : bad trip, something like too much euphoria or too much deppression.

after three days those side effects should dissapear.

Anyway, those pills made a lot of "bad trip" if you don't take it with prescription, it creates addiction too. (this addiction is stronger if you takes it without need it)

The best thing that you can do is a blow job to all the suspects, if they can't jerk of in less than 90 minutes are guilty!

;oP

Ah!

[coltcub.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to see you doing better

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that you've settled into a state that you're happy with. Just do yourself a favor over the next few weeks and continue to monitor how you feel. Its possible that the new "equilibrium" state is just a transitory one.

Lets hope not!

[tcbear.livejournal.com]

Well....short term this sounds really good. The effects sound very similar to a much more potent version of the Sam-e that my hubby takes...which often makes him a more bearable person to be with until you start to notice some of the less than admirable edges of his personality, once its been leveled out like that. For me the decision which is better is still up in the air..what helps is that the Sam-e is also very good for his liver..and he has high ALT levels so that's one more thing to recommend it.

In the long term however..I think you'll be wanting to find that bottle of pills in case you step through a hole on your cloud. Probably not taking them gives you a moment of introspection where you can look from outside the box and decide what needs to happen..but for now you will probably want a safety net there in case this is just another strange variation of a swing.

I hope you're right

[sunflower1969.livejournal.com]

I weaned myself off of effexor, and it was living hell. I hope your seemingly smooth transition off the stuff continues apace. If you do feel the need to go back on one, the one I'm in is pretty fab. Serzone rocks - no sexual side effects. Just an ever so slight risk of catastrophic liver failure. Heh, tradeoffs.

[gusmacroy.livejournal.com]

Only users lose drugs, Brodie.

rockin' pills

[(Anonymous)]

Well, life is waaay better without pills. I hate them and just rarely take an aspirin. Brodie baby, just worry about getting laid, listening to good music and have two hands and two feet. The rest comes along ! ;-)

:: n33o ::

[tecknow.livejournal.com]

Drug manufacturers will tell you there are no side effects go going off anti-depressants except the reassertion of the original depression. We both know that's a lie. The makers of Paxil recently lost a suit that requires them to list the possibility of withdrawal in the literature.

Now it seems most of the manufacturers are touting that their drugs don't have withdrawal symptoms and waiting until they get sued.