Fibromyalgia Support Group

i take 300mg in the morning for depression prophylaxis - i get night sweats but i have since learned that is a symptom of sleep apnea. another one is NOT dreaming, which is true of me. since treating my apnea with CPAP i am starting to dream again.

a sleep disorder could be to blame for the nightmares, and it may have worsened coincidentally with starting efexor. sleep disorders (like sleeptalking that is significant/major) tend to run in families and be there from childhood. i recommend anyone with fibro have an overnight sleep clinic study to check for apnea... it also picks up most sleep disorders. gold luck

Thanks to everyone for weighing in. I went to a neuro-psychiatrist this morning and she is adding Trazodone for bedtime when I need help sleeping. You don't get tolerant to it and it's not habit forming. That's good.

She also is adding to twice weekly B12 a new form of folic acid called Deplin that is supposed to improve the effectiveness of antidepressants. Check in if you want to see what happens. Deplin is a "medical food" not a drug - but it still requires a prescription. Info below:

Deplin® works through a natural process in the brain to regulate all three monoamine neurotransmitters associated with mood by providing the increased dietary requirements for folate. L-methylfolate is needed by depressed patients with suboptimal folate to regulate the synthesis of monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine) and known as a trimonoamine modulator

hmm... i don't get nightmares from the effexor but as soon as i started taking neurontin with it, i had really gory ones. after talking to several people who told me neurontin does this, i accepted it and said "oh well, better than being in pain...". and then to my amazement they stopped. i don't know if it's because i've adjusted to the stuff or maybe they just stopped on their own. either way, i tend to think happy thoughts before going to bed.

Heya all,I don't take Effexor but I am taking 150mg of Amitriptyline and having some very vivid dreams/nightmares.Is this part of the Fibro or the meds? xx

i'm probably going to stay on efexor and trial neurontin... will watch for bad dreams (and hope they go away).

hey thanks for the info on deplin! what a breakthrough treatment. i am definitely going to hand the info to my dr. and see if i can try it. efexor is my 4th antidepressant - i keep having to switch when they stop working. i saw my pain consultant recently and he said the only other drug similar to efexor and close to it in effectiveness is cymbalta. his view was why switch when i'm likely to get similar or worse side effects.

UPDATE:

I am taking tramazodone at night to help with sleep. I think I was on the wrong track to stop the dreams. The sleep we need is NON-REM and for two nights I've must have gotten good sleep because I've awakened early two mornings in a row - awakened because I wanted to get up. I haven't felt that way in ages. Tramazodone in addition to the effexor seems to be a very good idea. I have two doctors that agree on it and so far it's been good.

I'm staying on the Effexor and my psychiatrist actually convinced me to increase it. She says I can have fewer depressed episodes and sucking it up is not necessary. We shall see.

as well as being not necessary, i also believe that repeated episodes of depression adds to our fibro problems. all significant physical pain or emotional distress does this (dr mark pellegrino has written alot about this). also, its a proven, well accepted fact in psychiatry that the more depression episodes you have, the more you have.

what keeps me trying to make the medical approach work is the knowledge that my next option would be ECT. no thank you!

Thank you for the validation Mystery....somewhere I picked up the "do on your own" disease. I'm over it. I'll take what I have to take. The Trazodone is a miracle - sleep deep and awaken refreshed. I also increased the Effexor to 225 today and I felt great mentally. Too bad I had a migraine. However one thing at a time. And I have imitrex which chops the headache down to a nubbin. So all in all today was a good day. Saw Cadillac Records - great music good movie.