pola_pink

Hey Loz,

How exactly do you feel effexor helps you? With the thoughts? the mood? the
anxiety? or a bit of everything? I am finding it useless for the ocd..great
for the depression and the withdrawal effects are awful..

Thanks for any help you can give!
Am.
***

loz

Am.

Hi, Effexor has mainly helped me with my depression. 3 months ago I felt
terrible and today I feel more like my old self, generally feel fairly happy
) I think it has helped my anxiety a little but I still get quite anxiuos
at times. I dont think that it has helped with the OCD thoughts much.
Thankfully I dont get any effexor side effects now.

I think I will be sticking with this AD for the time being. It would be nice
to be able to take a pill that gets rid of the OCD but in my case, mostly
pure OCD, I dont think this will happen. I have just got to learn to control
my mind through CBT which will be quite an effort but worth it in the end.
Maybe another drug to help with my nerves/anxiety/worry might be useful, I
will be asking my pdoc next week.

Take care

Lawrence

k f

You are not entirely right in what you say. Most of the currently available
antidepressants have been studied for a minimum of 3 months, most for more.
It is true that the FDA applications generally are based entirely on
efficacy over six weeks or so, but generally, post-marketing studies are for
a much greater duration. If you want, I can cite 2 dozen studies for you.
The older antidepressants have most definitely been studied in long term
situations. The problem with the longer term studies is that they tend not
to be adequately placebo controlled, but that is the usual trade off.

It is true, however, that we know nothing about how the may permanently
change the brain. Looking at the relapse rate of chronically depressed
patients who discontinue antidepressant, however, it would appear that they
do not have permanent effects. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever been able
to show that antidepressant use has any detrimental long term effects on
cognition or emotion.