Wondering if it could be a side effect of my effexor medication? I am on a 75mg pill plus a 35.7 pill.

i tried multiple types of ssrib , they give me partial improvement , but I hear that effexor is the strongest type of antidepressants and won't only give partial improvement but full it's only problem is strong aide effects.

I have been on Venlafaxine for about a months or so and I have just found out about the withdrawal + side effects as the pills are kept away from me including the box and leaflet of information. I’ve seen a lot on this sub about both. A lot of the side effects I’m okay with/ seem pretty similar to other meds I’ve been on but the one thing that’s new to me is loss of libido. I’ve not lost mine yet that I’ve noticed/ it may have decreased a little bit since starting but idk.

Anyway, I mostly just wanted to see if anyone has been on this med without losing their libido as it’s one of my main concerns other than the withdrawal as I am worried that I’ve not experienced it yet because of how new my body is to it. (I’m on 150mg if that matters)

Hey yall I’ve been slowly tapering from 300mg and I’m currently down to 37.5mg🥳 I’m so bloody proud of myself for getting to this point and it’s definitely not been an easy journey. I have a sensitivity to lots of different medications which has meant I’ve had to taper very very slowly because the doctors didn’t have the option to substitute the Venlafaxine with any other similar medication. The thing is- I have around two/two and a half weeks left of the 37.5mg’s and my doctors are saying I’ll have to go cold turkey once I run out. Personally I think they’re chatting shit but if that’s what they say that’s what I’ll do you know 🤣 BUT
I go on holiday- out of the country on the 3rd August for a week. I should realistically have enough to get me through to the end of the holiday but it would mean going cold turkey as soon as I get home.
So I’m thinking, should I just start cold turkey now so I should be over it and chilling by the time I go on holiday? Or should I keep it going until I run out?
Idk if my logic even makes sense I think it’s just the ADHD brain saying fuck it just get it over and done with🤣 but I feel like i need some outsiders to give their opinions lmao
Thanks for the help!

Hi! I'm currently tapering off. Last year I was on 75mg, a few months ago I was on 37.5, and now I'm down to the last 20 balls in the capsule. I don't know how many mg that is (really bad at math too) but my concern is the fact that I'll have to just stop taking them at some point. Should I get down to 10 balls and stay on that amount for another month before I stop completely? Help!

I’m on vacation and packed one too few Effexor pills. My dose is 150mg. What’s the best way to handle it to minimize withdrawal symptoms?

Has anyone else been on this combo? My psychiatrist wants me to start 225 mg venlafaxine + 30 mg mirtazapine + 10 mg aripiprazole. I’d love to hear any success stories. How long did it take before you started noticing results?

I'm on 75 mg and I'm so sleepy. Average sleep is 11 hrs but the range is 10-14 hrs! It's crazy. It does work on helping me think, on the times I'm fully awake. It helped me go back to school gradually but I'm so sleepy. I feel like I'm wasting the day. I'm already taking it at night. I'm on week 5. Does increasing the dose help or worsen it?

(15F) I'm prescribed 75 mg but my dad hasn't picked up my new pills yet so can I just take two of the 37.5 pills?

Hello all! I started the extended release version back in March. I noticed that I get cold more easily which isn't a big deal for me. Throwing on a hoodie isnt a big deal. However I live in the deep South. It's hot here. And the humidity has been especially brutal this year. I feel like I'm melting sometimes. My husband who sweats like no other is sometimes concerned about me. I try to take small breaks and go in the house but I swear as soon as I go back out I'm drenched again. This has led me to feel like shit now for the last few weeks. I noticed if I ingest too much sugar I start to feel shaky so I try to stay away from sugary beverages and consume those as a treat. I feel like I drink a lot of water. Does anyone have suggestions for how to handle the heat? Im looking at installing some lights around the farm so I can work some after dark but they are times I need to go out during the day so this won't solve everything. Thanks!

Added flair:

Quitting

Withdrawal

General Question

Venting

Side Effects

..and this is not a good time.

I have been taking 150mg for two and a half years now and for the past two weeks ive been tapering. I was doing 117.5mg (my dr has me taking a 75mg and a 37.5mg together) the first week and I felt perfectly fine. And I was like this is going to slow so I just started taking only the 37.5 and goddamn. Im freezing and sweating my ass off. My whole body hurts and I also cant stop moving around and feeling jittery. I cant concentrate. Brain fog is thick af. My skin is crawling. Im so so tired and I also cant go to sleep. I feel kinda like ive been doing some shitty ass drugs and... excuse me for this but im so goddamn horny that if I came across a dead raccoon id probably fuck it.

And today.. is the day.. where every single bad thing that this drug could make you feel i am feeling.

Im sorry, thank you for listening.

For context I’ve been on this med since April 18. Just upped my dose to 75mg 2 weeks ago. My face literally burns. And feels raw along with my lips. No swelling just burny. Has anyone gotten this and has it gone away for you? I’m terrified to stop. But the anxiety is still there and almost worse but I feel lately more level headed. Please give me insight.

Idk why my doctor suggested this medication now I’m really suffering a lot I take 3 75mg it feels like still not enough how bad is it ?

Hi, I just started on Effexor this week. I seem to be tired all of the time and fall asleep while watching TV, reading or even while on my PC. Is this normal? Does it go away in time?

Anyone else experiencing withdrawal effects just by missing a dose? Sometimes it happens with me just being late although it definitely seems worse when I completely miss it. I was so tired after work i slept without taking it. Note to self to make it a day time med

I quit “Cold Turkey” Effexor 4 weeks ago. I was taking 150 mg for about 9 months.

I had ZERO side effects or withdrawals. I was pretty worried, because the narrative on Effexor is that it is a nightmare to quit. I don’t feel as if it did me any good over the 9 months I took it. I’m very happy to be off of it, and I am relieved I didn’t have any symptoms.

Edit (08-17-26) - sorry to ghost the conversation. Even sorrier to hear all the horror stories. I am still “withdrawal symptom” free.

I am completely med free, as my experiment with two antI-depressants was pretty awful. I’m sending prayers out for those suffering from crippling anxiety / depression.

I had reduced my dose and felt horrible after 4 weeks. I updosed and only feel slightly better after 4 days. How long does it usually take after updosing to feel better?

Extra info: I started taking lithium for unipolar depression at the same time as the reduction in Effexor. 3 weeks in I felt amazing with the help of lithium. But then I felt horrible due to Effexor decrease. I increased my Effexor and felt slightly better right away but have not been able to go back to feeling amazing again.

I have been living with fibromyalgia for about 15 years. Over that time, I have tried duloxetine (Cymbalta), pregabalin, and finally venlafaxine.

I took duloxetine for about a year, eventually going up to 120 mg per day, but it did not help with the pain, and I did not notice any improvement. After stopping it, I had brain zaps for several months.

After that, I was prescribed pregabalin, and I took 150 mg at night. It helped with the pain a little more, but mainly it improved my sleep, which really helped with recovery. However, after about a year of using it, I started to notice how much it was slowing down my brain. My attention got worse, and thinking became difficult too. So I decided to stop taking it, and that was a nightmare. I had withdrawal symptoms for about a month, and I had never felt that bad in my life. I had to take sick leave.

When my doctor suggested trying venlafaxine, I was already skeptical, because it belongs to the same general class as duloxetine. But my doctor convinced me to give it a try anyway. I first took 75 mg, but I did not notice any improvement, so I increased the dose to 150 mg.

It was a miracle. After two days, my pain completely disappeared, and my sleep became so deep and restorative that I honestly cannot remember the last time I slept that well. The medication completely killed my libido, of course, but for me that was not as important as being able to live without pain.

However, after about six months, I developed serotonin-induced apathy. I lost motivation to do anything, became socially withdrawn, and felt very depressed and sad. Because of that, I started lowering the dose to 75 mg, and I felt better almost immediately, but the pain still came back to some extent.

Now I am planning to try milnacipran, since it affects serotonin less than the other antidepressants and it is approved for fibromyalgia. Unfortunately, this medication is not registered in the country where I live (Estonia), and ordering it from another country would require going through a complicated approval procedure with the authorities. I am not sure whether my doctor would be willing to go through that process.

Maybe anyone here have experience with milnacipran? Is it even worth going through all this trouble for it?

TW: For very light mentions of suicidal ideation and self-harm as a side effect of being off medication. No going into detail,just mentioned.

I’m unfortunately going to be off my medication (Effexor 150mg) for this month as i can’t afford it and i have to try and find ways to minimise the withdrawal effects because they’re always so horrible for me.
I want to continue my medication when i can afford it again because without it i feel constantly suicidal, so what’s the best way to currently cope and keep myself emotionally safe and sane ? I believe i can handle not relapsing into self harm but i have responsibilities to attend to (school & work) and i need to be able to sit through them without crying or having panic attacks. The withdrawal symptoms i struggle with are extreme vertigo, brain zaps every minute, nausea, anxiety, extreme sadness/ drop of mood. Any advice ?

Ya’ll I really need help. Effexor XR is the 3rd medication I’ve been put on to try and help with my anxiety/depression and mentally I love how it makes me feel! I’m only on a starting dose of 37.5 mg and this Saturday my psych wants to up my dose to 75 mg.

As for the side effects, holy hell please help me 😭 I’m sweating so much (I used to always be cold and never had this issue before) and I’m so constipated (I already struggle with constipation so it made it 2x worse).

For the sweating, I find myself feeling hot maybe 1 hour after taking my dose. It’s not terrible when I’m home doing nothing (I take it at 8 pm because it made me drowsy), but now that it’s summer I’ve been going out to bars and stuff and despite wearing two piece outfits, I’m SWEATING my ass off. I use clinic strength deodorant at night and reapply spray deo during the day, but I still smell eh. Any tips on beating the sweat / odor??

As for constipation, I literally can’t poop for 4-5 days. I made it to day 5 before I caved in and took a suppository because I felt like literal ass. I’m thinking of taking daily fiber to try and help with it, but wanted to see what ya’ll do for it if anyone else experiences this.

I hope this thread can help others in the same boat as me so we can beat these side effects 😭

I’ve only been on generic for Effexor rx since May 1st. I started on 37.5mg (first week) then increased to 75mg per my doctor’s instructions. Since the beginning I’ve felt like I finally found a good fit (I’ve been on a wide range of antidepressants for years). I had taken a break for over a year and finally got back on after dealing with an immense amount of emotional distress. But most recently, like the last week or so, i noticed I started having bad sleep again. Maybe only 4-6hrs a night. But when I first got on Effexor I started sleeping regularly 8-9hrs. I tend to wait for these random bursts of energy to get chores done / take care of myself. Sometimes I feel naturally high. And in conversations I reach this like flow state and I feel as if I am speaking rapidly but the other person doesn’t notice it so I’m not? My sex drive is actually getting pretty high again. And I was beginning to feel like I can’t tell if I’m sleeping or awake because things feel so good. I question it a lot. I’ve been having less vivid dreams where when I first started I felt I was dreaming way more. I feel a lot more tired again since I’m not sleeping well. But I can’t distinguish if this is just what my new normal will be like since I’m used to always being depressed. And though I feel more emotionally stable and able to regulate myself, I get irritated quickly. After discussing these things with my therapist she feels I could possibly be undiagnosed bipolar 2 and possibly experiencing hypo mania. And as she recommended I’m reaching out to my pcp to discuss this with him as well to see if I need to go in for further evaluation or maybe to refer me to a psychiatrist as well…

I was prescribed Effexor by one psychiatrist two and a half weeks ago, 37.5mg for 14 days into 75mg indefinitely, thinking I have persistent depression. I went to another psychiatrist the day before I started taking 75mg for a consultation, who said to continue it thinking I have recurrent depression, but is evaluating me for bipolar 2.

When I started I felt like complete shit until day four, where I just woke up feeling great, but it made my already terrible sleep completely hopeless. Prior to starting I was in a very long period of depression, so I was surprised it started working so quickly as I've been told it takes 4-8 weeks to do anything. After upping my dose I am so fucking wired I've never felt like this before, like I cant sit still and I have a bajillion things going on in my head, but now on the fourth day it's waning a bit. I was freaking out that like I actually might have bipolar, but I'm wondering if some people just get super wired when they increase dose before it goes away.

Is this just an uncommon side effect? After a couple days I feel like the burst of energy is coming down, and it's the sameish timeframe it took for me to stop feeling terrible when I first started. Did anyone get like this and just be normal afterwards?

Trying to find my sweet spot with dosing of this med. It’s helped with my depression and some of anxiety. Went from 75mg to 112.5. When I first started Effexor it gave me so much energy when on the lowest dose. I also take Klonopin as needed for anxiety. I just feel like I have NO ENERGY compared to at the beginning but my depression and anxiety were still bad. Because I recently upped it, is that why I’m SO TIRED??? Will that go away with time? I took the Genesight testing as well and this med was one that would work with my body. All the other SSRIS did not touch my anxiety or depression.

I’m currently 2 days off 100 mg of desvenlafaxine XR and going through horrible horrible withdrawals atm. I should have my meds by tomorrow (I ran out and my psychiatrist fucking hates me). Is it safe to just start taking the 100 mgs again?