tablets not work?!?!!

[richo]

hi, is there any1 out there that take venlafaxine?i take quite a high dose and they just dont seem to be working for me.still having regular panic attacks.cheers

[Dahlia]

I had the same problem on venlafaxine, I'm afraid. Although some people say it does wonders for them. Have you given it enough time to start working - 6-8 weeks?

[richo]

been on them for over ayear lol.just seem to have hit a dead end and seem to be getting worse.finding it hard to cope.may ask doctor to change to something else.thanks 4 reply :)

[Bill]

I've copied the following from a thread I wrote in the General Anxiety section titled "Why do meds stop working?". See if you can relate to any of it...

Why do meds stop working?
When I became "ill" with anxiety I was offered a med which for a short while helped ease my symptoms and lifted my mood but then the benefits would wear off which meant I'd go back to my doctor who would up my dose to the limit until that too lost it's effect so I would then try another med and so on. It meant that I tried a variety of meds, both the old such as diazepam and the new such as prozac, sertraline etc. Eventually I decided I'd had enough of them and wanted to try to go without which on the whole I've managed except when I lost my dog around Christmas when I felt I needed something just to help me through the loss as he felt like my best friend who kept me going.

Anyway, picture this...

One day you get up feeling fine and go to open the front door when you are suddenly confronted by a lion staring at you. Immediately you feel terrified because you fear he'll eat you. You start shaking, sweating, you feel you can't breathe and start to panic.

The lion then runs away but you decide to go and see your doctor because you feel so shaken up and afraid that you feel you need something to make the anxious feelings go away. The doctor then prescribes some meds and after you've got used to them you feel much better.

One day the lion returns but you don't feel so frightened by it because you're now taking your meds and you know now that the lion won't harm you anyway, and again he runs away.

After a few weeks, one morning you open the door again only to be confronted by a big spider! Again you feel terrified because unlike the lion, you're not sure what it'll do to you. Maybe he'll spin a web to eat you later so you start worrying and this worry gets so intense that you start feeling really anxious again. However, the spider crawls away and doesn't bother you. You then think to yourself you're now taking meds so you can't understand why you felt so ill with the spider when they worked ok previously with the lion? Maybe the meds have stopped working?

You decide to go back to your doctor who advises increasing the dose to the maximum and you go back feeling relieved that this will now stop the symptoms.

The next morning you open the door and yet again there's the spider waiting for you. However, you're now on your increased dose and you know the spider will crawl away anyway so your anxiety doesn't feel as bad as before.

After a few more weeks, you find yourself confronted by a swarm of bees! You feel terrified they'll sting you and all your anxious feelings return. Again you think to yourself, you're taking these meds but they seem to have lost their effect so you end up back at the doctors who this time advises changing the meds to a new type.

You go home feeling content that you've got things settled and maybe these meds will be more longlasting and suit you better. However, within a few weeks you open the door to find the lion, the spider and the whole swarm of bees there to greet you...and you start to panic!...and thinking will it never end!?!:weep:

Now think of the lion as stress at work, the spider as stress at home and the swarm of bees as all your worries and intrusive thoughts then combine them all together and they create "fear".

We are sensitive people which means we're sensitive to new fears. Anxiety is triggered by fear, worry and too much stress whether emotional or in our daily lives. When pressures build up too much for us to cope with, anxiety results so we see the doctor who prescribes our meds. However, every time we encounter a new fear or fears, we start worrying and this worry then triggers more anxious feelings so in effect, it's not that the meds have stopped working but instead a reaction to new fears that we are still sensitive to because the underlying causes have never been addressed. These underlying causes would be such things as lack of confidence and lack of self-belief in our own abilities which create self-doubt and therefore worry and fear so that every time we encounter new fears or new stresses, we produce new worries which trigger our anxious symptoms. Anxiety though loves to deceive us into thinking it must be the meds that have stopped working so it misleads us into creating a cycle of meds, increasing doses and trying new ones.

Finding a longlasting "cure" isn't straightforward as every individuals anxieties differ with various fears and various causes so it takes a package of methods to learn how to cope and to find ways to ease pressures.

Anyway, I know it's a bit basic and doesn't cover everything but I hope it makes some sense.:shrug::hugs:

[chrissc]

wow...it starts with me! Not only am I the cause but I am the fuel to the fire. Question is how to stop this learned behavior Ive taught myself all these years.

[Bill]

How do you learn to swim? You can either jump in the deep end or you can paddle first to get used to the water.

We're so used to jumping off the deep end and causing ourselves to drown with panic that it often takes a little paddle to gradually get used to thinking in a different way.

Anxiety and panics are very devious because they make us think we're "ill". They make us feel we're drowning and therefore we start looking for a boat to save us in the form of meds. However, in truth the boat is but an illusion because anxiety wants to make us think we need a boat to cure us. In effect, although the boat can make us feel comforted, anxiety really then has us in its whirlpool because as soon as we feel safe with the boat we've found, anxiety sends in another storm in the form of more worries and stress to make our boat capsize so that we then go in search of another boat to save us until another storm arrives...and so on.

If though we adopt a different approach and see through the illusion that anxiety creates so that we can identify the real causes making us feel we're drowning, we can then work out a plan so that we find dry land again without swimming from boat to boat.

However, to find that dry land, it can often feel more dangerous because it feels a long swim without a boat to carry us but it can be done once we realise what we're allowing anxiety do to us.

For instance, along the swim you come across a shark which makes you panic so you then feel you have to turn back to find the boats but if you learn to say to yourself "I don't care" and learn ways to keep relaxed, the shark will turn out to be a dolphin. Completely harmless. We only become "ill" because we treat every worry and every frightening thought as a real life shark but really the shark only exists in our mind. In reality everything around us is just as it was. We just love to fill our minds with sharks to frighten us.

Once you hold the key and learn how not to react to every shark, the fear of them subsides and then you'll have learnt new behaviour.

Remember, when you think of a worry or are faced with a stressful situation, you'll view it as a shark which will make you tense up. You'll then focus on your tension and fear which will then create panic.

I can remember walking in shops and it felt like everyone was an "alien" staring at me. I felt hot, sweating and giddy. Each time I had to run out the shop to feel free despite taking various meds. Later I realised that all the stresses that my mind was trying to deal with were making me feel So stressed that I felt trapped and because I felt trapped by stress, I panicked in every real life situation where I felt trapped which is often why panics occur in shops, on transport etc.

If you target the stresses so that you reduce the stresses and worries you're experiencing, it becomes much easier to learn how to cope with panics because the fire isn't then being constantly fuelled.

Sometimes we can't help ourselves ease those stresses so we need help from someone who can look at our situation from the outside to help us see through the woods. There are always ways to reduce stresses by making changes in our lives, learning how not to stress ourselves by dwelling on worries and keeping in the present etc, and learning ways that work for us to keep relaxed.

I realise it isn't just stress in our daily lives that cause panics but often that's how they start. Once panics start, it's often the fear of them coming back that keeps them alive because we expect them to come back in situations where we experienced them before. Therefore, it's not only dealing with outside stresses but also dealing with the stresses we create ourselves by learning how to go back to situations that frightened us but with the right frame of mind so that we can then prove to ourselves that the situation wasn't in itself frightening, we just connected it with "feeling frightened" and it's that fear of feeling fear which then keeps panics alive in those circumstances.

It's a whole package of things to learn so it takes time but learning just one method at a time and easing each stress at a time, I believe, does work otherwise I feel I would still be as I once was.:hugs: