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The First Few Weeks on Effexor
Progress report on treatment for depression
Okay. I can’t say I wasn’t warned. My family doctor clearly instructed me, “Do not take these at night. If you do, you will not sleep.” I believed him. And since I value my sleep very highly, I took my first dose of Effexor early Monday morning, before I went to work. And I have to say it was a pretty good day. Though all my muscles still ached, and gory images of my son still played in my head, I was more focused and energetic than I’d been in months.
But when I got home, that hyper feeling didn’t wear off like it was supposed to. When it was time for bed I took the hot relaxing bath, read the book, turned on the guided meditation. Then I pulled the covers up to my chin, shut my eyes, and absolutely nothing happened. And I was seriously bummed out. I had followed instructions! Why wasn’t I sleeping?
By Wednesday, my sleep patterns had returned to normal. Hallelujah! It’s no fun running around on your feet all day when you haven’t had a wink of sleep.
But then I started getting jittery, every muscle vibrating like a tuning fork. I wondered if I was coming down with the flu or something. Even my teeth chattered. My therapist just grinned at me. I guess he’s seen this reaction to the medication before and was trying to tell me everything was…
