Depression and Weight IssuesHave you been diagnosed with depression, are possibly on depression medication, and find it affects your weight loss efforts? Post here for support!
I had my first appointment with my psychiatrist today. After talking about several medications and the concern about weight gain, she ended up prescribing Effexor. I'm a bit scared because I saw other people posting on this forum about how it caused them to gain weight, but she said it wouldn't. Should I be nervous? She said that if it caused any weight gain she would take me off of it and try something else. Has anyone had a different experience with Effexor where they DIDN'T gain weight?
I didn't gain weight taking it.The first couple weeks I had no appetite at all.The hard part for me was getting off the drug.
There are a lot of forums out there,I researched it beforehand.Just google effexor weight gain.
Sorry for asking so many questions but I just started today and I'm already on Vyvanse for ADHD. I am WIRED. I thought it was supposed to take a few weeks to kick in, but I feel like I'm on crack or something, but not in a bad way. I want to get up and run around and talk to people (which I have always been pretty afraid of before). My concentration seems to have expanded by a lot, even when I was on the Vyvanse before. Is this just what "normal" feels like? The psychiatrist diagnosed me with dysthymia and said I'd probably been depressed for several years. I believe her, so I'm not entirely sure I've ever felt "good" in my adult life. Thoughts? Am I going insane or un-insane?
Lol bama girl, I just started effexor a few days ago too and I've had a really similar experience!! I read that it would take 4-8 weeks to do anything, but I seriously noticed a difference right away. All this productive energy seemed to come out of nowhere. I doubt it's any kind of placebo effect because I was on other stuff/combinations of stuff before this that didn't really do anything but make me feel nauseous. I read about all the withdrawal effects on this board too, so I'm a little worried, but I hope it makes me feel better in the meantime and I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Glad to know I'm not alone!!
I first started taking effexor Xr two years ago and went to being a little overweight, to underweight in a VERY short period of time. The weight fell off so quickly, it cause me to have gallstones. I would have been very happy with the weight loss, but it opened up something inside of me, and I have been having eating issues ever since. BE careful if you are a the type of person who may get affected by loosing too much weight too fast.
My sister took it however, and went from being pretty overweight to loosing about 20 pounds and counting. The appetite just disappears... and I was able to still work out even when I wasn't able to eat as much as before.
I had a very scary experience with effexor, though my experience was very far from typical, I feel I should share it regardless. I was on it for about 3 months, things were going very well for me, not weight gain, no side effects I felt great. My husband was deployed so I spent a lot of time alone. I occasionally noticed that I would doze off, at least that's what I thought was happening. One night I was driving home on a road that I am very familiar with and I had an 'episode' one second I was driving and the next thing I remember I had no idea where I was, I slammed on the brakes and realized I had more or less blacked out, but I managed to not wreck the car, I don't remember about 7 seconds, or about 300 meters of a road I was on, when my mind turned back on I was confused and scared. I didn't know where I was or what had just happened. I made an emergency appt with my regular doctor who consulted my psychiatrist and I was taken off the effexor cold turkey. I had had a petit mal seizure. I had likely had several over the last few months and not known it because I was alone nearly all the time. I have been off the effexor for a year now and not had any lingering issues. Coming off effexor I should warn though, is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It was physically and emotionally painful. I was sick and extremely agitated, and irritable for over a week.
I want to stress though, my experience is very very rare.
Last edited by BananaMarie; 08-17-2010 at 12:12 AM.
I was put on effexor about 2 years ago... and it has been amazing... a life saver! I have tried out many different medications, and have either had really bad reactions from it, or weight gain. But effexor actually made me lose weight, and a lot of it. I went from 135 to 115. I actually got everyone really worried about me, because I was too skinny and looked skeletal because I have a large frame. I was just dropping weight rapidly, and had little appetite and interest in food.
2 years later I gained 10 back, so I look healthy and not anorexic. My sister recently went on effexor, and lost 20 pounds as well. So for me, the side effects were weight loss, and not much else... just some tingly sensations in my legs. Just be careful if you don't have a ton of weight to loose, because no matter what I ate, how many calories, I still lost rapidly. But remember, everyone is different. That was just my personal experience.
Effexor
