Crossdressers-Haven.com

I have begun, as of a couple months ago now taking a medication to help me deal with stuff. It is effexor XR at first I was taking 35.5MG per day but did not feel like I was getting any beifit from the medication so I asked my doctor and she let me go to the next level of 75MG per a day. My problem now is that I keep getting the shakes. My hands keep shaking something I never noticed before or maybe it being caused by the new doseage and I am just having an adjusment period. I some times am finding it hard to write as my hand shakes so much and it takes some reall strong will power to try and over come it. I have a medical appoinment with her in the fist week of may. I am just wondering if I should call and ask about it now.

What do you think?


Jessie

Hi Jessie

I too take Effexor Xr but my dosage is 150 mg a day. It does take a bit to adjust to an increase of the meds but I can't say I have ever experienced the shakes from it.

Have you done a gradual increase with the new dosage? Meaning have you increased gradually? That may help as well. Take your usual dosage one day and then the next day a higher one.

Before I started with the Effexor the doctor tried my on Paxil .YIKES !! that was a nighmare. I felt that I had drank a 100 cups of coffee.I had the shakes, my heart was racing. All the side effects made me that more anxious so they took me off of it.

I know that each medication has it's own effects and side effects. You may want to ask to change to another med , or just stick it out for a week and see how you feel.
Most antidepressants are a trial and error period. What works for some may not work for another. I have tried many antidepressants as I suffer from depression and have since I was young.

One word of caution though.. Don't just stop taking the meds as they have been in your system for a few months and you may just get withdrawal syptoms which don't make you feel the best.

I hope my post helped you a bit.

Hugs

Charlie (SO)

Just a thought, try taking the pills with food. Not just a glass of milk, but a meal. this may help, it has for other anti-depresants people I know have taken in the past. Goood luck and keep us posted

Sinjoy(so)

Thank you all for your advice. First yes I do take it with food. Second I was orginaly at 35 and am now at 75 so I have done an increase. It has only been a week since I took the new dosage so I am figuring that the side effexts are the adjustment. Sharron I will do that as soon as I can find that dang phone number

Thank you all.

I thought I would let those who want to know I contacted my doctor office and talked with the nurse on call and she explained to me that this is not uncomming when you increase the dosage. What I need to watch out for are heart population (sp?) and sudden heart race increases. It is kind of like when you have to much coffee is how she explained it to me.

Thanks again for everyone concern.

Love Jessie

Hi all,

Jessie,

I work with people who take psychotropic meds on a regular basis, including both MAOI and SSRI anti-depressants such as Effexor, Paxil, Celexa, and Prozac. There are a few things you need to keep in mind. First, a particular medication may have different effects and side-effects on different people. Often, individuals "metabolize" the drug in different ways. Doctors will often say that they'll re-examine your condition only once the drug has been coursing through your system for at least three weeks (which is how long it takes for most drugs to achieve their full effect and, yes, side-effects). Another thing: are you taking anything else, concurrently? There are often undesirable interactions between different medications and between different types of medications. Not only that, but "natural" herbal meds (such as St-John's Wort, for example) can increase or decrease the effect of a medication or cause other, unexpected side-effects. Hell! Even grapefruit juice--not orange or other citrus fruits but just grapefruit--can adversely interact with certain medications! Do you still drink coffee, Jessie? (If I'm not mistaken, you're a big coffee drinker.) If so, consider reducing your intake. Drink water instead (but not too much water; you don't want to flush the meds right out of your system!). Do you suffer from any other medical condition that may also be responsible for your trembling? One thing we often see in our clients is that their wildly erratic moods, for example, are often misdiagnosed as a psychiatric problem when, as it turns out, they're really the result of a dysfunctional thyroid gland. Although neither hyper- nor hypo-thyroidism are thought to induce the shakes, it's still well worth having your thyroid gland checked (there's a med called Synthroid that can regulate moods when it turns out the thyroid gland is the cause of mood disturbances). Finally, try to make an inventory of all the side-effects you experience so you can discuss them with your doctor. Often, a group of side-effects, when experienced simultaneously, point to a specific med as the culprit whereas a single side-effect, taken on its own, can be a symptom of many different things that aren't necessarily related to a medication.

Not to make you nervous, but just to let you know, a very common side-effect of many drugs is, indeed, "the shakes" (sleep disturbance, cardiac arrhythmia, digestive troubles, and weight loss or gain being other, common, side-effects). Psychiatrists will sometimes talk about "extra-pyramidal" effects, i.e., unintended effects on areas of the central nervous system not specifically targeted by a given drug. An example of this is Tardive Dyskinesia (or, simply, TD): basically, "the shakes." Tardive Dyskinesia is irreversible. So monitor yourself closely. If your shaking persists, by all means consult your doctor. Here, I should point out that TD is usually associated with neuroleptics (anti-psychotic meds--especially older ones, like Haldol, for example) and not (again, usually) with anti-depressants or mood stabilizers. Still, this bears close watching. Sometimes, doctors will prescribe Kemadrin (an anti-Parkinsonian med) to counter the shakes, but this takes people down the strange road of having to take the blue pill to counter the side-effects of the red pill, which they take to counter the side-effects of the yellow pill, etc., etc. If you can avoid this at all, do so. "Med cocktails" wreak havoc on your central nervous system.

By the way, a disclaimer: I'm not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. Always, always consult your psychiatrist or physician when you're taking prescription drugs. Always respect the dosage and always take the med in the way in which it was prescribed. Never modify any of this without consulting your doctor, first. Always let him know about whatever else you may be taking, however unimportant it may seem to you. Never refrain from telling your doctor about side-effects you may be experiencing or about any unusual changes in your health and well-being since you started taking medication. Last, but certainly not least, be an informed participant in your own well-being; get information about what you're taking and never be afraid of asking your doctor to clarify anything that might be unclear to you. Meds are serious business. Take good care of yourself.

I hope this helps, Jessie.

Love,
CJ

CJ it did help to let you know I do not take any other drugs or suplements though I should problay be taking some vitems. I usually have mabe one or two cups of coffee in a day rarely more. I have cut way down on soda intake so I occasionaly have a large soda. As I said I did talk to the nurse and she did say that nervious nevious or shakes is possable when adjusting to higher dosage which I just did a week ago thursday. She told me the one thing I need to watch more is cardiac arrhythmia which I am not sure how to check for but other the hand shakes I do not seam to have any other problems.

Thanks again CJ for you input also everyone else.

Love Jessie

Hi Jessie,

Cardiac arryhthmia is a fancy term for irregular heart beat. Your heart is your body's blood pump and there are actually four main beats to your heart as four different chambers expand and contract to pump blood up to your lungs and out to your body. If these four beats are in sync, the heart works great, whether it's pumping fast (when you're working hard) or slow (when you're resting). But when these four beats are not in sync, your heart might beat a lot but it's not pumping at all. That's cardiac arrhythmia. You'll notice that you feel more tired than you should. When that happens, lie down and rest. Feel or listen to your heart. If the beats seem fast or irregular, and you're still feeling tired, you could be having arrythmia. If you suspect it, call your doctor asap. You might suggest to him that he put you on a treadmill EKG. That's where they get you moving and measure your heartbeat. That will detect arrhythmia for sure.

it's nothing to fool around with.

Thanks, I just was not aware of the terrm but now that you talk about I beleive my mom had that before her heart surgery of course her had to do with the fact that in simple english she had a sticky heart valve that would build up presure which caused her artic arch to become swolen (ap?) she had that repalced along with the valve and is now doing some much better. It will 2 years tommor (sunday) since she had the surgery and I am so happy to still have my mom around.

Jessie

Thanks again Rikki about the info.