tavie.com

I'm going to be candid now and document the hell that this week has been for me-- completely aside from the joy and relief of that whole election thing-- in the hopes that I'll remember this in the future, and that it may help someone else.

I finally let my doctor switch me from Effexor XR to Pristiq, the new patent-extender that's supposed to be so like Effexor that you can allegedly switch straight to it without tapering off Effexor. Effexor has been targetted several class action suits because of its widely-known withdrawal severity hell. I've been on the drug for 11 years - pretty much my whole adult life- and every time I have missed or skipped a dose, symptoms have been almost immediately noticeable: dizziness/lightheadedness, nausea, mood swings, confusion, crying jags.

A couple weeks ago I complained here about my doctor pushing this Pristiq stuff on me, trying to get me to coax my health-insurance company to get it covered. I went back for my appointment with her and, tired of fighting, let her give me two months worth of free samples. Hey, the economy is bad, money is tight, if this medical professional was sure I would be fine just switching immediately from the old to the new, who was I to question her?

Dummy, dummy, dummy. Monday, my first day on Pristiq (and, more importantly, sans Effexor) wasn't so bad. A little dizzy, but not as bad as when I'd skipped a dose before. I made it through the day without too much of the wobblies.

Yesterday was worse. I felt pretty sick yesterday, lining up to vote, but I was so caught up in election fever that I chalked my insomnia from the previous night to that, and the nausea wasn't crippling or anything. Dummy, dummy, dummy.

Today I woke up like I was in hell. The room was spinning. I couldn't focus. I could walk straight if I kept my eyes and head down. I felt sick if I looked up or looked around too much. I moved slowly, deliberately, and felt ready to cry most of the day. I should've been happy today, I should've been able to enjoy the collective euphoria in the city, all around me, but instead I felt like throwing up or fainting. Since I'm in negative PTO from going to Japan and Disney World, I went to work.

Bad idea. It got worse and worse. The first thing I did at work was snap off an incredibly "tone-ish" email to my boss. Then I went into the ladies room and dry-sobbed for awhile. Then I went back to my desk and called my doctor's office. The secretary told me she would call me right back, but I had to call back twice. I spent most of the time between in the breakroom with my head in my hands, half-listening to CNN. It took almost three hours to get my doctor on the phone. I got almost no work done, and my mood swings got worse and worse. I think I hid it pretty well, but I felt like crawling under my desk or taking a cab over to St. Vincent's. Really bad.

I finally got the doctor on the phone by calling the secretary and telling her I was on my way to the pharmacy and I needed an emergency prescription or else I'd have to call her back from the emergency room. The quack then proceeded to tell me how surprised she was, how I was the first person to ever experience these symptoms, how she's never heard about this happening to anyone else before and blahblahblahblah, and could I make it over to her office? No, I could not get all the way uptown, I was entering the pharmacy right then and would wait there until the pharmacist put the pills into my hand.

Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs.

Anyway. I got the pills, they kicked in, I made it through the day, my doctor is a quack, I need a new doctor, and most importantly: if you ever take Effexor, do not let anyone try to switch you off it without tapering properly. They say Pristiq will let you do that: this is a lie. (YMMV, but this was definitely untrue for me.)

This thread has it about right, particularly post #9.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:56 PM | shower me with attention