r/Pristiq

I am on 25mg and have been for 9 months. It's been LIFE CHANGING for my social anxiety and I can go out and make friends and use the public walking trails and not have agoraphobia anymore. I'm having some heat/sweating issues and some weird nervous system glitches that cause weird heart-rate episodes according to my fitness band sometimes, but i intervene those with ice water, cold towels, and elevating my legs. The best part is when I do have to do that in public I don't even care, the anxiety about what people think of me is gone and I just do what i need to do!!

Anyway what I want to ask is how people end up on 100mg? How do I know if I need a higher dose? Is it inevitable that if i keep using this medication for years I'll end up on 100mg like everyone else? The withdrawal from 25mg already scares me, and I was planning to stay on this for life if it helped. And 25 mg does help but some of my old symptoms are coming back (not staying calm when something minor happens, crying at minor things, avoiding people sometimes, and yes i'm already on HRT for perimenopause and it's managed), does this mean i need more

Hello. I’ve been on 25mg for about six weeks. It was rough for two weeks. I noticed some improvements with anxiety and some depression. I’m about six weeks in and I’m bottoming out again. I’m hoping with me feeling better, then bottoming out means it was working and it just means I need to increase my dose. This has been extremely difficult as I’ve been crying constantly feeling like a failure. Plus, I’m in perimenopause so that doesn’t help either.

After taking effexor for over 10 years, I told my psychiatrist I couldn't tolerate the mental and physical side effects anymore. It worked great for my anxiety in the sense that I didn't feel much of anything- good or bad, but the binge eating and weight gain became a serious problem. She suggested a few antidepressants based on the genesight test I took and saw that pristiq was on the list. Since the medications are so close to each other, is it likely I would have the same experience on pristiq?

So I started Tuesday and today is Sunday. I truly felt it immediately, day one. It really is working for my anxiety. I'm so happy about that. I'm taking one Xanax for anxiety and then still having anxiety, but able to fight through it without having to take my usual 3 Xanaxes a day which was my goal to reduce my Xanax and find alternatives for anxiety. The only thing besides some anxiety still which I wish would just 100% go away is I feel empty brained. I can't remember any of my thoughts from day to day. I can lay in bed and not have a thought all day. I'm in college and didn't retain anything this weeks chapter PowerPoint and lectures I just went over. I just tried to go over the study guide. I just can't remember it or not focusing/have no interest. I signed up for tutoring tomorrow to see if helps? I'm top of my class. This is really concerning me. Did anyone else feel empty brained? Does it go away? I'm trying to give it grace since it hasn't even been a full week yet. I'm usually pretty good at pushing through discomfort and side effects. She started me on 50mg. I see a lot of people start at 25. Should I ask for a reduction? It seems most people increase quickly anyway. So will I be able to focus and have thoughts soon? Thoughts without anxiety? I mean is it just anxious thoughts or no thoughts at all? What the heck. I want it to level out soon and be a little more me. I went to a new therapist Friday and spoke about some pretty traumatic and heart breaking stuff. Kept zoning out and didn't cry, at all, not even for a second!

This is unfortunately the 2nd time this has happened.

I have been on the generic for Pristiq for 10 years at 100mg, extended release.

Starting last year, my insurance loves to pretend I dont need it. They said I needed prior authorization for a medication I have been on for 9 years at that point. So while waiting for that to go through, I had to quit cold turkey for 5 days (i didnt know you could ask for a few emergency pills at the time) and it was BRUTAL. Almost went to the ER brutal.​

This week, my insurance decided they needed prior authorization again! 😭 I was able to get a 3 day emergency supply. I ran out of them on friday. I called the pharmacy to ask for a 5 day supply. Yesyerday, I had to go without one. Which was fine, withdrawals didnt hit until late night.

But today I have woken up so sick. Brain zaps, short of breath, chills, tachycardia, etc etc. Guess what's still not ready? The emergency suplly!! I find it hard to speak when this happens so im waiting for my bf to be available to call the pharmacy.

Its just exhausting jumping through hoops because insurance would rather I go without the medication. I cannot pay out of pocket even with goodrx, im in a very tight financial situation. I work later today too at a very small business so I probably cant get a cover and have to go in feeling worse than I do now. ​im just tired of the system we have in the US and I have called my insurance to ask why they need all these approvals, and they keep saying everything is fine on their end (it is not, pharmacies can literally see their reason for denial and its always saying i need authorization from my prescriber).

I also cant switch insurance becayse im on my dad's still and I cannot afford to pay for my own right now.

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Looking for individuals who have tapered off of Pristiq and curious how fast you did it and how it was.
I have been on this medication for 15+ years now and I am ready to stop.
I found a compounding pharmacy in my city who compounds into slow release capsules but they do require a prescription from my doctor to do so. I plan on telling my doctor how fast I want to taper. I was thinking of tapering 5% each week.
I’m currently on 50mg if that makes any difference.

Hi all,

Has anyone found Pristiq helpful for: anxiety - more specifically generalised anxiety, with agoraphobia, OCD, avoidant personality, body dysmorphia and major depressive disorder?

I also have chronic pain - somatic symptom disorder with mild arthritis in one shoulder and mild neuropathy. I know Pristiq isn’t approved for a lot of these things so thus it would be an off label use, but I know Duloxetine and Effexor are approved for some of these things in certain countries and obviously they’re the same drug class, but I also acknowledge they are still different drugs at the end of the day.

I appreciate everyone’s experience is unique to them, but I am just curious to hear people’s experiences and thoughts.

I have actually tried every antidepressant and many other meds out there and have never found them to be helpful for me, but I haven’t tried anything like Pristiq (an snri) since 2020 and my symptoms are a lot worse nowadays and I’m desperate for just any amount of help with any of my symptoms. I do take Lorazepam and Propranolol PRN for my anxiety, and Memantine for my OCD (and weekly Norspan patches + Codeine PRN for pain which mildly helps), so I’m hopeful that supplementing with Pristiq may move the dial a little bit for me.

Any improvement would be so very welcomed right now because my quality of life is just not great, I am basically almost housebound and require a lot of help from my housemate/carer. I do see my GP, psychologist and psychiatrist regularly, but I’m only 32, I haven’t been able to work since 2014 and have been on disability since 2019 and I just hate how my life is, I’d give anything for some improvement.

Please be kind, I’m very wary to even post this, but I am interested in trying pristiq at this stage of my life and would like to hear people’s experiences.

Thank you!

I’ve been seeing a lot of people nervous about taking desvenlafaxine, while I know it’s not a size fits all, I wanted to write about my positive experience with.
I first took it when I was around 17/18 years old, and the improvement was incredible, specifically after trying tons of other medications (sertraline, levomepromazine, ecitalopram, fluexetine, etc) I didn’t take it for long as I developed an allergy to it and was the prescribed quetiapine and mirtazapine.
I’m 22 years old now and was diagnosed with BPD, this year alone I’ve gone through 5 different medications before finding one that actually worked, I was on quetiapine, trazodone, paroxetine and was put again on mirtazapine.
I was in outpatient treatment and talked with my psychiatrist about trying desvenlafaxine again, since the allergy I had before could have been to an ingredient used in the lab and not the medication itself, it worked!
It was rough at first and I didn’t really feel like it was working until I started 100 mg dose, but three months later and I finally feel better than i’ve ever felt in years.
All this to say, don’t be scared to try what’s better for you and advocate for yourself, be honest with your doctors.

I went off Pristiq about two months ago and it was my first time being fully off of an anti depressant for 10 years. I of course had the typical withdrawal from Pristiq such as shakiness nausea, etc.

I’ve had problems with sleep in the past but haven’t had those pop up in years.

Two weeks ago I randomly got bad sleep anxiety and this week I didn’t sleep for three nights. Could this be from stopping Pristiq even though it was two months ago?

Hi all! If you go back in to my post history you will see that I had a little bit of a hard time with the onboarding of this medication. But now more than six months on it I am feeling better than ever!!

A little background: I’ve been on every SSRI possible (not joking) and nothing ever worked. I took a GeneSight test that told me my body does not metabolize SSRIs correctly. And Pristiq was one of two of the drugs in the green. I was skeptical because I’m so tired of being put on something and then going through the withdrawals when it doesn’t work in order to get on something else.

I’m also on a beta blocker called metoprolol. A lot of my anxiety/panic disorder was manifesting in physical symptoms like fast heart rate, sweating, and of course panic. For me personally, both of these together has saved my life. I couldn’t even walk outside to the bus stop for my kid without feeling like I was going to die. Imagine how that was manifesting for more things: I’m a business owner, a professional wedding photographer. I’m booked every weekend and last year I had to take the whole year off (other than editing) and hire other people alongside my husband to shoot every wedding. It was TERRIBLE! But now? I’m killing it!!

I just wanted to post this in case anyone just started out and is experiencing what I did before and after starting early on. If you stick it out it absolutely can get better!

I missed a day of meds and I literally feel like I’m dying lol… my anxiety is awful right now and I can’t stop crying over the littlest things. 0/10 don’t recommend.

Outside of that, when I’m on my meds I feel like a completely different person. A better person even. Thank God for my pristiq.

Ten days ago, I changed my Pristiq dose from 75 mg to 100 mg. I felt fine for the first three days, but now I’m experiencing fatigue, increased anxiety, and apathy. Will this go away, or is the dose too high? I’d appreciate any help.