Monday, March 30, 2015

I'm not dying, it's just Effexor withdrawal

Every now and then I mess up my meds. I guess my insurance company is right. I guess I do need help taking my meds. This weekend when I did my meds for the week I forgot to put in the Effexor. By this morning I thought I was dying. Or at least I highly suspected it. I thought about leaving work to go to the ER- but that would take too much energy, and I didn't have any.

I felt exhausted, faint, light-headed, and all tingly. All of my muscles ached. My stomach hurt and I had diarrhea. I had horrible mood swings. But no tingling on the top of my head or feeling feverish- so I didn't think of the Effexor. Every time I leaned over I thought I would pass out. I thought for a while it was low blood sugar- I must have gained 10 pounds today eating.

But then, driving home- it hit me. This could be Effexor. And I was praying that it was. And then I checked my med box- and it was. I am so glad. I immediately swallowed 2 pills.

If I ever have to get off of Effexor they will have to send me to rehab. I don't know how I could ever get off of it.

I'm so glad I didn't go to the ER. That would have been really funny.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I am so sorry that happened. I had to go off Effexor cold turkey because it caused HTN that must have been rather dramatic (I had a bad problem with that on Risperdal and then for the next few months we kept finding new meds that sent my BP flying and so I'd have to go off them) and it was not pretty. I still remember walking down a particular hall at the nursing home and having to stop to lean on the wall until it stopped spinning and thinking it was be ok to just lay on the floor, it couldn't be THAT filthy (it was that filthy, not because it was a bad place but because the patient population had poor hygiene skills and it was an area where one woman was constantly stealing others' shirts and flushing them, causing overflowing toilets.) And I wasn't on nearly as much as you are. I think after that I tapered it off, rapidly but not cold turkey because I thought I'd prefer to watch my BP and go to the ER versus even considering laying on that floor again.
JMJ