Anxiety Support Group

Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...

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Meredith282 09/20/2017

Hi everyone. I took Lexapro for 4 years and it really saved my life. I felt less panicked and my anxiety almost completely went away. Then in June, I experienced a horrible Panic attack in the middle of the night and ever since then my anxiety has been horrible. I can barely make it to work and I have an intense fear of coughing uncontrollably or throwing up. (sounds stupid I know, but its terrifying for me) My doc took me off the Lexapro in June and put me on Prozac. I'm at 60 mg now and I'm not feeling any better. He wants to try a different class of drugs now. So he wants to put me on an SNRI. I'm scared because I've only been on the SSRI meds. Does anyone take an SNRI (like effexor or cymbalta and others I think) for anxiety, depression, panic etc? Has it helped you feel better and were the side effects bad?

AnxietyFreak40 09/20/2017

I have been on a combo of effexor and buspar for over ten years...little to no side effects. I still have bad days occasionally but overall it has been very stable combo for me

jenjen1995 09/20/2017

I've been on venlaflaxine hcl 37.5 mg a brand of effexor for 3 months. The side effects were: dry mouth, mood swings, and sweating for a few weeks. It did help me stop having panic attacks but while it helped with the symptoms, it's also important to rely on yourself. Coaching myself with words or self love really helped as well and meditating and exercising to take my mind off of the side effects and overall anxiety.

Diane22 09/20/2017

This recently happened to me. I was on welbutrin xl 300mg for a bunch of years and some major stress happened and BAM my panic started up again. They added prozac to the mix. I used to take it in the past and it worked great but then stopped. Dr is confident being off it for a while means it will work again. But I hear great things about cymbalta. Effexor caused me to have tremors and my Dr took me off. But again alot of people do well on it. I wouldn't be afraid.

...Michelle... 09/20/2017

I take Effexor and I feel it saved my life. However you need to start at the lowest dose increasing every week or so because it can cause you to actually have anxiety/poor appetite etc. I actually wanted to get off of it but my doctor told me to hang in there for one month and all of those side effects went away and it has really helped my depression. I take it once in the morning and once before bed. When you first start taking it take it in the morning incase it wires you. However, I know they say it takes 6 weeks to feel the full effects to be honest I felt them in 2 weeks. I think Effexor works quicker. I also take trazedone at night for sleep. Trazedone used to be used as an antidepressant but it causes such a sleepy feeling that doctors usually only prescribe it for sleep. However I wish I could tolerate it during the day because it relaxes me so much. Within 30 minutes of taking it before bed all my anxiety is gone.

alisonyx 09/20/2017

I've been taking Effexor at 150 mg for about two years now. My doctor switched me from Prozac because I was getting hypomanic symptoms. To be honest, I am now on several different medications because of a lot of things that I'm going through, but I know that switching from Prozac to Effexor didn't feel any different to me -- only thing was I wasn't dealing with the hypomania, which was great. I may be wrong about this, but I sort of think it's like taking naproxen vs. ibuprofen, if that makes sense? Both do really similar things but happen to be different chemical compounds.

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