Venlafaxine is an SRNI... meaning that it hits both your serotonin and norepineprhine pathways... before I ever had CFS i had moderate depression... stemming from my religious upbringing and several unrelated traumatic experiences.... i never found an anti depressant i was happy with. I was diagnosed with OCD and none of the medications for OCD ever really worked (most people with OCD find it very difficult to find ANY medications that worked). I took lexapro for a while with seroquel and found a little relief. but the side effects were horrible. i tried an srni once... it made me manic and my doctor told me to never touch any drug or stimulant that messed with my norepinephrine pathways. thats all i can really say about the SRNI's... i felt ok the first two or three days... but by day five i lost the ability to sleep and started spiraling from there. it does have some affect on systems that are in limbo with CFS and you might find that it causes some sort of affect on the amplitude and frequency of your symptoms, i would suspect it could make CFS worse... i only base this on the connection to the recent XMRV viruses (personally i am more and more intrigued by these studies.... a recent one found XMRV in respiratory samples in germany where previous testing found no viruses)... stress is known to cause many retroviruses, and mlv viruses, to replicate... cortisol, several hormones and neurotransmitters, i think even progesterone can cause the viral load to expand in the cell... this is seen some with HIV but there have been previous testings on this effect with MLV viruses and i believe also with XMRV viruses... these would all be in vitro tests though... im not aware of any patient studies to these effects. additionally cortisol, produced when stressis present in the body. Cortisol for instance makes the body more sensitive to norepinephrine. .... so there are some definite links your doctor might be trying to see if she can find some relief with. these chemicals defintely are a part of the "adrenal" axis you hear about... modulating these hormones could have an effect on the CFS so to me, it sounds plausible.
remember these types of retroviruses replicate more quickly when a cell is being stimulated into certain types of activity... it causes activity in genetic regions, and increases in substrates that the viruses need to assemble themselves. many of the smaller retroviruses like mlv and xmrv also replicate more effectively when the cell is touching another cell.... the protein action on the surface has actually been shown to increase virus prliferation... so basically neurotransmitters that increase glucose absorption, and modulate stress hormones are something that should be looked at. i would expect your CFS to be more volatile while coming down off of it. i have tried MANY anti depressants and the come down is always the worst part.

i had to go off an on nine... all before i had cfs... to see if i could get my ocd in balance. they never found a good medicine and i was charted on the YBOCS scale (scale for OCD measures) as a 4.9.... on a scale of 0-5. ... strangely my friend introduced me to an herbal remedy that completely knocked out all my OCD. my psychiatrist charted my ocd extensively and confirmed after a while that it seemed i had found myself a cure. for the rest of college i maintained an incredibly active life without ocd, and only occasional depression. i was pretty happy and healthy ... until i got sick.... and well thats just another story ;p

i dont know if any of this helps, but i do sympathize with the withdrawal from those medications. its a bummer.

oh @nd @$ for r $p3lling , i g^3$$ w3'r3 just l33t that way ;p

In the years that I've known I had CFS meds have come and gone. I've tried every variety of anti-seizure med for widespread body pain. One seemed to have no side effects and really worked. Thanks to (?) I was able to enjoy two weeks in Italy when my daughter was in Bologna for her first year of grad. school.

But it affects your sodium level and it went so low that I had to be rushed to the ER. I didn't realize that low sodium can kill you. I was disoriented and kept falling. It was scary. When I lowered the dose, it wasn't effective.

We played around with different combinations and finally hit on one that worked.

I went to a Neurologist at Harvard and he went over my meds and approved.

We get our meds in the mail from Medco and I ordered some OTC supplements the other day and it did an interaction check. I thought that was good. It made me feel better about the supplements.

Did the doctor say why you should get off Effexor? And why Lexapro was better? What is he trying to treat with Effexor?

There is no one medication for CFS. It has to be treated symptomatically. So a pill to get to sleep, a pill to stay asleep, pills for pain, for headaches, for muscle spasms, plus supplements.

With supplements the rule is to try one at a time and take it for two weeks or maybe six weeks. My brain can't find the info at the moment.

I hope this helped. If you want anything clarified, I'm here. I can only share my own experience. That's one of the difficulties of CFS. Our symptoms vary. Our meds vary. The severity of the illness varies. I can't remember my last "good" spell. It's crash after crash. I'm a 65 car pile-up LOL

Don't be afraid to ask your doctor questions. If it bothers him, you need another doctor. It's your body and your life and your money.

We all have to be our own advocate. Very few doctors are really up to date on CFS. They don't teach it in med school. I've been fortunate to have PCPs who are willing to work with me so we're a team.

God bless.

I was on Lexapro which worked great on the symptoms. The problem I had was with focusing which was minor and harder to have an orgasm, which is why I quit.