Hi everyone, I was on venlafaxine previously and managed to come off them at the beginning of last year. I was doing ok and then covid happened. Still I managed to muddle through and deal with the increasing anxiety and then my husband caught covid at work (he’s a paramedic) and ended up in hospital. My daughter tested positive a couple of days after my husband and then I was positive a week later. It was awful. And since then my anxiety has gone through the roof. I literally can hardly get out of the house without feeling panicky, I can’t touch anything without feeling contaminated and am constantly cleaning and washing my hands. I work in the nhs so gave no option but to go to work and every day terrifies me. I have also developed terrible health anxiety (which is new for me). Anyway my gp reluctantly prescribed sertraline about a month ago but I had terrible nausea and abdominal pain which just kept getting worse and really heightened my health worries. So I stopped them and the stomach issues disappeared. But my anxiety is still awful. So my gp agreed (again reluctantly) to prescribe venlafaxine again. 37.5mg for two weeks then 2x 37.5mg daily.I nearly started them tonight but then remembered that before I was on the extended release ones. These aren’t. So now I don’t know whether to take them or not? What will the difference be? Do I take at night or in the morning? If I take two is that together or split into two doses? Is extended release better? I can’t ask my gp as I think they are fed up with me already. I hate the email system and you can’t get a telephone appointment never mind a face to face ( not that I’d want that anyway as it would freak me out). Any advice/wisdom about this would be great. I’m now in bed and haven’t taken any and I’m back at work on Tuesday so don’t want to leave it too close to then to try them in case of side effects. Sorry for the long post.