starting effexor xr and feel horrible!

[LadyRae]

Hi everyone.  My doctor just put me on Venlafaxine chl er for depression and pain, I am switching from celexa 40mg and have taken half of each each night for the past three nights.  I feel horrible, I feel like a zombie, barely able to get out of bed, dizzy, blurry vision, spacing out, nausea, and all I want to do is sleep.  Is this normal when switching drugs, I dont even know if I want to continue if im going to feel like this.  I havent been able to go to work and I have two kids to look after.  I called my dr. and he says to stick with it but I dont think I can....any advise would be helpful! thanks!

[LadyRae]

they wanted to switch me to effexor hoping that it might help with some pain iv been having.  But Iv felt so horrible on it that I stopped after three days and am staying of my celexa.  Its hard, I know there is a transition phase but I have two small children I have to take care of and can afford to be in bed all day feeling like I want to die.  I think my body is just really sensitive to this stuff and cant handle it sometimes...

[Paxiled]

This doesn't sound like a proper tapering program.  The recommendations I've seen are to taper off the old drug before starting the new drug.  This is for two reasons:  first, everyone has a different experience stopping these meds -- some suffer a horrible withdrawal, and some have a very easy time.  To ease the withdrawal the taper should be tailored to the person -- as slow as you need, or if it's easy, you can go faster.  Second, stopping the first drug before starting the new one allows you to know what effects are from stopping the first drug and which are from starting the new one -- you can't tell that if you're essentially doing two drugs at once.  This is especially true when the drug is a different class, as in your case, but even true if they were in the same class.  So what you're suffering can be side effects of Effexor, which can be a very difficult med, or from stopping the Celexa too quickly, or from the combination of taking two drugs at the same time, which is what you're essentially doing.  I would question the doctor to see if you believe he or she knows what's up with this.

[remar]

Can you say why you made the change? Was the Celexa not working for you?
It's common to feel awful for awhile when starting a new med. What dose were you started on? Hopefully you'll start feeling better in the next few days. Try to hang in there.