I was put on efffexor , at 75mg i felt very tired and numb like a zombie. i didnt like eeling like that but it did keep me from getting depressed and si - ing. i decide to go off it by tappering. i am down to 35mg and was going to go every other day but after a week and a half, i feel like it is still helping. has anyone had any luck with such a small dose?

QUOTE (chel @ Jun 3 2008, 03:01 PM)

I was put on efffexor , at 75mg i felt very tired and numb like a zombie. i didnt like eeling like that but it did keep me from getting depressed and si - ing. i decide to go off it by tappering. i am down to 35mg and was going to go every other day but after a week and a half, i feel like it is still helping. has anyone had any luck with such a small dose?

Hi Chel,

I haven't had any experience with a low dose of Effexor, however I have had that experience with other meds. But first, I hope you are in communication with your prescribing doctor about your changes.

But there are some generalities that I feel might help you. One is that like any other chemical imbalance, it only makes sense that the degrees of imbalance are variable. It is not a matter of having enough or none at all. So it only makes sense that one (as the most important member of your treatment team) should be able to design a plan to use the amount that works for you. With a doctor's knowledge of course. Make sense? And hopefully your doctor understands this.

As to SEs (side effects), in the case of Effexor, you are moderating two brain amines, serotonin and nor-epinepherine. And when one suffers from depression and its cousins of mood disorders, the targeted areas in the brain are those areas that are responsible for our sense of well being. Unfortunately, most SEs are the product of the fact that the brain amines are present through out our bodies. So many different functions are being altered at the same time. Other areas of the brain and also outside the brain. And since it takes some time for our meds to stabilize in the right areas of the brain, but are active immediately in other areas, usually we feel a plethora of other effects at first. Most SEs will disappear after a while, some do not, just the nature of the whole business of medications. One can't get the desired effect without possible undesirable SEs. We can only hope these residual SEs are tolerable, if not, we ask for a change in meds, right?

Now, more specific to you, and this gets tricky. The disappearance of your SEs, may have been due to your lowering the dose, but also could be due the the SEs abating. Doesn't matter though. Talk to your doctor about what you have already done and see if he recommends increasing your dose or staying where you are. IF you continue to feel good, what real reason is there to increase the dose unless it becomes ineffective as time passes. Of course, the fact that you are feeling a bit better suggests that you are in the right ballpark now.

Keep us posted and good luck to you, finding the answers is so important to us and feeling OK is OK! There are many people here, friends you haven't met yet, that are caring and supportive. You will find an understanding here that might not be available to you anyplace else.

BE Peace and BE Love... wayne

wayne
thanks for the reply. I wil take everything you said into consideration! chel

Hi chel
I've had severe recurrent depression, but went into a several-years-long remission on just 75mg of Effexor XR. I had about two weeks of pretty horrible side-effects and then the clouds just parted and the sun came out. I've never had as little as 37.5mg and you may hear doctors say that it's not in the "therapeutic range", but I reckon if it works for you, go for it.

It's a good general policy to try to prescribe as little medicine as is necessary to do the job.

I used to break Ambiens into quarters and my psydoc used to laugh at me, saying at that dose it was only having a placebo effect, but it helped me sleep just fine.

Ah, those were the days...

hello,
the 75mg kept me very stable , had no urges to si and nothing bugged me. only on it for 4 weeks but couldnt handle being so tired. when i tried to wean of it i noticed i was feeling ok yet not tired, however i still have urges and even did a little si iing.. i may try going back up to 75 after i am done teaching summer school . that way i have 2 months before i go back to work to see if i can get rid of the side effect of beeing a zombie, i am a little confused about it all . i will probably go back to my doctor next week,, see if he has any advice, i just wantt\to feel happy. i threw out my back and have been sick so that is not helping anything ! thanks for writing me back !

Sounds like things are looking up. NOT always, but in a lot of cases, the tiredness you speak of eventually goes away, with one proviso. You need to be on an effective dose for a time. And since you have started to SI a bit suggests it isn't an effective dose, especially when you have taken an amount that relieves you from symptoms of your depressed state.

And you might talk to your doc about bupropion (Wellbutrin). Besides helping with depression, it also increases the energy in many. And taking your earlier response to this AD, perhaps an equally small dose of it will do the trick. I take 100 mg in the morning, and occasionally I take another 100 mg some 6-8 hours later. I just avoid taking it after 3-4 pm so that I can go to sleep when I want to. Just a suggestion from personal experience. So talk with your doc, see what they think.

Peace and Love..... wayne

Hi,

I have recently been experiencing major relief of my depression, since the sun came out I have really picked up. The winter was hard for me and everything had hit me in the winter before as I wasn't on anything. So in the winter I went on 75 mg, which wasn't quite enough, but I wanted to try to beat it with other means if possible. Finally only the sun helped.

So now I'm on 37.5, the "starter" dose. I know some would say it's doing nothing for me, but I find I am very sensitive to the stuff, and it may be more powerful for me than others. I could probably go off completely now with summer and all, but I figure I'll probably need it again next winter, so I want to go up and down more gradually with the seasons.

If I forget to take it in the morning, by 3pm or so I'm dizzy and feeling weird. My conclusion is that it definitely does a little something for me at this dose. Even it is a placebo effect, I don't care, as long at it works for me. (Though I don't think it is.)

I think this "therapeutic range" and "placebo effect" of low doses may be somethine that has been found to be applicable to a large percentage of the population (and of course Big Pharma would prefer to sell more), but that doesn't means there aren't a whole lot of people who are more sensitive to meds and have enough therapeutic effect from a small dose.

I have a doctor friend who suffers from epilepsy after having had a brain tumour removed. He's a professor of pharmacology and we were discussing this "therapeutic range" business. He also doesn't believe in it, as he says he gets by with remarkably little carbamazepine and it controls his fits just fine.

I am very sensitive to caffeine but just find my two cups of brewed coffee in the morning a little everyday luxury and comfort. But definitely no caffeine after noon, or I sleep dreadfully.

So to all those doing fine on low doses - more power to you!

well i talked to doc and he said if low dose was helping then he would rather see me on it.i was doing ok but the i si-ed again,,i wasnt feeling real down just real stressed... sooooooooo i decided to go back up to 75mg i was only on that high of a dose for a short time and i thinkn i will give it more time i didnt si at all at that dose just didnt like the side effects, so maybe more time will help..i tend to get confused when i read all the bad post about effexor and freak out about being on it ,, i just get so confused and dont know what to do i really dont want him or my husband to know i si-ed again, plus i dont think my doctor needs me calling him all the time totally confused.. i figure since i dont work for 2 more months its a good time to see if 75 mg works.. you know something like that ....

chel-
75mg worked like a CHARM for me. Best drug of the whole lot. The SEs were awful for me for about 2 weeks (headache, nausea, tiredness, feeling ill and a couple more horrible things), but then they vanished, all except for the constipation, but there are many ways to handle that. I would really advise you to stick out those horrible side-effects for 2 weeks or so, because after that you might just feel that clearing of the dark clouds and it's SOOOOOO worth it. Nausea and headaches go away and I just started to feel calm and balanced AND I would actually wake early and look forward to my days! Imagine actually looking forward to each day... sigh... haven't felt that for a long time.

That was just my experience. Please don't be put off by the bad stuff about Effexor... it was a MIRACLE drug for me and got me into a complete remission from depression for several years. I could just get on with life, enjoy things and it was a great time of my life. (Unfortunately it just pooped out gradually last year.... :( but I am going to ask my doc if it might work if I start again on it, because I just want my Effexor and my life back!)

Dear Moonlightress,

Thank you for writing back, i am giving the 75mg another try.Besides feeling totally stressed out i do feel ok, not reaaly depressed like i was , so hopefully that meansn it is working.. i hope the sunshines through again for you!!!! ***hugs** chel