Venlafaxine, standard to XR.

Treatment and medication
1

Hello,

I've been taking 150mg of Velnafaxine for about six months now and have found it works for me. However, I was experiencing an issue that I put down to being on standard tablets. As these have a short half-life, it occurred to me that I was on a rollercoaster as regards serum level.

The issue was simple. I take my pills at noon and about 2am respectively, 75mg each time. By around 11pm, I tended to fall asleep, sitting up, leaning against my bed's headboard, or even just in a chair. The desire to sleep was undeniable and dropping off would be common.

This begged a question, is narcolepsy a withdrawal effect? This would fit with the drug's half-life expiring.

To counter this, my GP, as asked, has put me on 75mg XR per day. He'd like to see me taking less and I would too. SO far, halving the dose in this way has made no real difference at all.

any thoughts, experiences or suggestions will be welcome. Thanks.

David

2

Hi,

I'm just wondering how you are finding the XL tablets now as I have recently been switched from IR to XL.

Have they balanced out now?

Thanks 

3

Hi James,

Yes thank you, the new regime is stable now. I elected to effectively halve my intake and this has worked well. I took this decision as on the standard pills, I wasn't covered in the evenings within the half life. Now, I take the pill around noon and am still receiving the effect the next morning. Nothing of any significance happened during the changeover. Now, I'm finding myself a lot less sleepy in the evening. I can still experience overwhelming tiredness but it doesn't last as long and can be overcome more easily.

I hope this helps, David