For those of you who have been on both; how do they compare? Is Effexor stronger than Paxil? Is Effexor also good for anxiety or only for pure depression?
What differences do they have? Side effects?
Is it sedative? activating? does it give you energy to exercise and work/study; or does it make you feel apathetic and unmotivated?
Does it lift your mood? Does it help with anxiety and obsessions or only with pure depression?
Do you sleep a lot on it? Do you eat a lot? What condition do you take it for?
Do you feel much different on 75mg vs 150mg vs 225mg etc...?
As for side effects I've read it causes lots of sweating and hot flashes. What else?
If you are scared of touching a specific thing or doing something; you can try exposure but what can you do when your OCD has to do with your sleep?
Imagine your OCD tells you that you can sleepwalk at night and break things or harm someone, or you can pull your hair out or something like this...then what kind of exposure can you do?
I have lots of themes, some of them I can expose to, but at some point my brain tricked me and said: "Well you can try to control me during the day but when you are asleep you can't control what you do".
I'm very depressed; what would happen if I woke up without hair? what if I poke my eye or something?
To make it worse, my brain knows how much I love my hair and other things and it hangs onto that...My OCD tells me if I don't do X ritual, then I'll pull my hair out or something. It has never happened fortunately, but I also do lots of rituals and I don't have the guts to avoid such rituals because then what if my mind actually does the things I fear while I'm asleep??
This is a nightmare sometimes I have to use Xanax to sleep. No matter how many days I've slept without sleepwalking or without doing anything wrong...because you go to sleep every night, that night can be the bad one and there'll be no way back if something bad happens.
The rituals are VERY stupid like for example I have to cut my nails as soon as I see them growing, or I have to shave stray hairs wherever I see them, or place a chair or similar item against the bedroom door so I won't sleepwalk. I do it so I won't pull my hair out; even if nails length or stray hairs have nothing to do with pulling hair out.
There's a mental condition called Trichotillomania. Well I have the opposite; which is fear of Trichotillomania. I know I'll never harm my hair during the day because I can control that. But I can't control what I do at nights so my brain latches onto that.
Please can someone help me? Should I gather the courage and tell my OCD to f*** off? But what if the nightmares come true?
Thanks.
If we remove the noradrenaline that makes Effexor an SNRI, then we have a medicine that acts as an SSRI. Question is: at 75mg or less, is Effexor similar to...fluoxetine? sertraline? paroxetine? escitalopram? or is it different ?
SSRI's have lots of differences among them. Paxil (paroxetine) is known for being a sedative drug for anxious patients, while others like prozac (fluoxetine) tend to be on the activating side. Lexapro (escitalopram) is supposed to be the most neutral...sertraline (Zoloft), depending on the dose but it can be sedative or activating. Fluvoxamine (dumirox) is prescribed for OCD.
I suffer from OCD, anxiety and depression. My anxiety is more mental as in ruminations rather than pure physical anxiety.
I'm on Paroxetine 20mg and Rexulti 1mg (antipsychotic). Paroxetine is great for anxiety but it makes me feel lethargic with zero motivation.
Lots of sleep.
My psychiatrist wants to put me on Effexor 75mg and see how it goes and raise the dose from there if well tolerated. I'm happy to quit paroxetine but I've read so many horror stories on Venlafaxine that I'm not sure whether to try it or not.
What can I expect from this drug? Is it really potent for depression? Is it also good for anxiety, or can Effexor make the anxiety and OCD worse?
For those who've been on SSRI's and also on Venlafaxine. How do they compare? Is it Venlafaxine really that potent?
Thanks.