Re: I have lawyer for effexor class act

Posted by DHenry on 03/04/06 at 11:09 AM

I was prescribed Effexor for 5 years. It was prescribed not for depression, but for pain. I was suffering from a condition known as Guillon-Barre Syndrome, whose symptoms included extreme pain, pain that cannot be easily described, very intense and never ending. My neurologist �experimented� by giving me Effexor to block the pain signals to my brain. They didn�t want to give narcotics, citing withdrawal issues (I didn�t get a vote). I was eventually given narcotics because effexor was ineffective, but never taken off effexor. I experienced most of the withdrawal symptoms most people report if I missed my dose by as little as a half an hour. I reported this to my neurologist, who insisted the medicine was benign and even suggested I was imagining the side effects, as he laughed and patted me on the back. After years of misery, I eventually weaned myself off this terrible drug, against the direction of my physician, by breaking the tablets in half, and then in half again and so on. It took over a year to get completely off the medicine. I continue to suffer to this day (04/2006) from many of the reported problems, problems I didn�t have before I took Effexor!, anxiety, insomnia, depression, etc. This �medicine� has taken a huge chunk out of my life, for nothing. I never benefited from taking it, but probably haven�t seen the end of the damage it will cause.