Having sleeping difficultied for one week??

[Alaa1994]

Iam having sleeping changes recently. I noticed that I don't get into sleep as easy as before. Iam also not taking deep and nice sleep as before. I used to sleep deeply and don't get up even if there is some noise around me. Now iam easily aroused and I feel that i didn't sleep when I wake up in the morning and also my sleep is very superficial. Could it be due to the effect of the medications iam taking now? I take 4 tablets of Effexor 75mg in the morning started 5 wks ago, seroxat 2 tabs and dogmatil 1 tab 200 mg at night started 7 wks ago. Is any of these medications is responsible for this problem? What could be the cause?. Iam a known case of MDD, Gad with obsessive thoughts. Plz I need help as this problem is affecting me physically and psychologically.

[specialmom]

Sleep is so important! It "could' be medication related.  Many of these drugs have start up side effects.  I like Effexor for GAD but if it is new to you, I'd give your doctor a call if this night time waking continues past another week or so.

[Alaa1994]

Thanks alot for ur answer. It is my 5th week now on Effexor. Is it good for depression too?. Does it long time to kick in?. Thanks alot

[Paxiled]

Actually, effexor is not recommended for primary anxiety, it's very stimulating intentionally.  So yeah, that often makes it harder for people who are anxious to sleep and often makes anxious people more anxious, but for depression stimulation can be really helpful and quite often, maybe most of the time, anxiety is a byproduct of depression.  When that's the case, decreasing the depression decreases the anxiety too, and in those cases Effexor can be very helpful.  This is a very effective med for depression, it's main problem is it's very hard to stop taking.  But again, it's one of the more stimulating antidepressants, so yeah, it could be causing this problem.  But because you're on 3 meds all started within a short time of one another, it could be any of the meds -- even ssris, usually considered on the sedating side of things, can cause a particular person to become more anxious or cause insomnia -- because brains are ill-understood and work differently in different people and because we have different personalities and histories, drugs affect us differently than they do others and different drugs affect us differently than other drugs.  In essence, you are asking two different questions over and over on here -- the first is if the drugs you're taking are effective, and the answer is, all antidepressants are about equally effective in clinical trials, which is they beat placebo a few percentage points.  In practice, double blind studies show they work about 30% of the time and you can up that to about 50% if you combine drugs, but the test for how well it works is a questionnaire and not a more scientific analysis that would be more objective.  But no question, they definitely work for a lot of people assuming you find a drug your body absorbs well.  But Effexor is better for depression than anxiety, if that's your question, but you do suffer from depression and so again, if that's contributing to your anxiety then yes, it can be very helpful.  But so could any other antidepressant you were given.  None have been shown to work better than other ones, it's just how the individual responds to them.  Side effects do differ in their frequency, but again, a particular individual might have a very different experience than what most people who take a drug might have.  You're not a probability, you're an individual.  Time is the final arbiter of how well this will work for you and whether the effects are so beneficial the side effects stop mattering to you all that much.  Peace.  

[Paxiled]

And let me add, something specialmom says sometimes that's important -- once you decide to try a drug, you have to give it time to work.  You've posted a whole lot about this subject, so it's obvious you're very anxious about it.  That could be affecting your sleep as well as being a side effect of one or the combination of meds you're on.  Be patient, and if they don't work, you'll know it and will taper off of them and try something else.  

[specialmom]

Effexor is indicated for GAD and is often used with success as the first agent.  So, trust your doctor rather than the internet  because there is, as you see, differences in what 'people'  think, believe and know.  Your doctor knows what he is doing over and above . . . us.  And Effexor is a powerful agent for generalized anxiety and used first line with great success.  No reason to believe you will not have this same success yet.  Let us know how it turns out but stick with it.  good luck

[Paxiled]

And exactly where did you get your info, Mom?  The internet, right?  From the manufacturer's website perhaps?  Drugs.com?  All antidepressants are used for all things, but that doesn't mean they are good for those things for a particular individual.  Once a drug gets approved, a doctor is allowed to use it for anything.  If you research how drugs work and if you get a psychiatrist who specializes in how drugs work, you suddenly get an entirely different view of things.  My info doesn't come from the internet, it comes from research and from the psychopharmacologist I had to switch to when my psychiatrist messed up my life.  These are things I never ever had any interest it, I always trusted my doctors and pharmaceutical companies and the FDA until something happened I wasn't prepared for.  I agree, people use Effexor for everything, but if you study how it works and if you talk to experts and read their books about medications, you'll see that this class of med is very stimulating and often produces anxiety as a result.  It also often works very well because, as I mentioned, depression is often the cause of our anxiety.  When that's the case, this drug can be very effective.  It's also the hardest drug along with Paxil statistically to stop taking, so taking it as a first drug isn't done when you stop seeing the lazy docs who take insurance and start seeing the ones who spend more time learning.  That's been my experience.  I appreciate you have your own experiences, so I guess you've taken the drug?  Here's the facts -- the snri class of drugs prevents the breakdown of not just serotonin but also norepinephrine.  Look up what effects norepinephrine have on the body.  It's a fact.  Not something I think or believe.  It's how the drug intentionally works because depressed people respond very often to stimulation.  Now, will everyone get this effect from the drug?  No.  It's an individual thing.  It's just more likely.  My psychiatrist will not use this drug for those who suffer anxiety as their primary problem because her extra study of medications and experience using them suggests too much potential for trouble.  On the other hand, if nothing else works, you try anything.  I'm not putting down Effexor at all, I keep saying it appears to be an effective drug for the same percentage of depressed people as any other antidepressant, which is a few percentage points above placebo in clinical trials and about 30% in NIH studies when used alone.  But it wasn't studied all that much for anxiety -- no antidepressant was developed to treat anxiety.  Many of them got additional approval from the FDA for this because experience taught us that they worked for both anxiety and depression.  But for those of us who experience primary anxiety, we're kind of the stepchildren of mental health research -- depression is what gets most of the attention and the study.  I don't know why this is the case.  My only purpose in saying this is so if someone comes on here and reports they were put on Effexor and are suffering anxiety like they never have before, and this happens constantly on this forum, I just tell them why that might be happening.  It also might not be the reason, but it's such a common side effect that it might be helpful.  No?

[specialmom]

Actually, my educational experience (college) and work experience is in a related field and much of what I know does come from that.  **I** do not claim to be an expert though or that my information is more valuable than anyone and everyone else's.